public. The idle prison is sure to become the breeding-place of deepest crimes and the haunted castle of wretchedness to its inmates. No apology can be made for permitting the convicts in the prisons and penitentiaries of New York to remain idle, yet from thirty-five to forty in every hundred convicts in the State prisons are constantly idle, and those who labor are living out their feverish term of incarceration in a moody and spiritless way. These faults of the prison system will not be endured without a rebuke from the civilized world."

AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION AND PRISON LAWS.

The popular vote by which the amendment of the Constitution in respect to the prescribed source of prison government, was confirmed at the last general election, was well adapted to remove all doubts in regard to the strength and manly independence of the popular ballot on great questions when brought out in such manner as to fix the responsibility upon the citizens as voters. The right and all the partisan advantages of electing the triple head of the prison government were relinquished by a majority vote of a half million. The action of the Legislature, since the Governor and Senate confirmed the Superintendent, has in like manner proved that the popular wish for the elevation of penal discipline and prison administration above and beyond partisan interference, has been as conspicuous in the halls of legislation as in the votes of the citizens. An intelligent belief that this result would be witnessed has animated the steadfast efforts of this Association during the ten years in which it has continually toiled for the end now attained in the amendment of the State Constitution.

IMPROVEMENTS OF THE STATUTES RELATING TO CRIME AND PRISONS.

The conclusion reached by the Commissioners for investigating the prisons, that—“Under this new system, laws must be enacted to regulate the prisons, and it is especially recommended that a code, simple and definite in its provisions, easy to be understood, and of practical application, should be passed at an early day; and that all existing laws, now spread over our statute books, as to these prisons, should be repealed," appears to be warranted by several enactments of law now about to be freshly placed upon the statute book. Indeed these recent projects of law are designed to remove obscurity from certain important questions relating to the government of the State prisons. Yet the laws. relating to the prisons and imprisonments generally, and to the Penitentiaries and county prisons especially, are so multifarious and so inconsistent in various particulars that they need to be carefully revised and simplified. This will require time and much careful study, for there are

upwards of twenty statutes relating to the local penitentiaries, and several which seem inconsistent and publicly detrimental relating to county prisons or jails and offenders punishable in them. Besides these statutes and the practices under them, all laws and methods for the official records of crime and criminal proceedings, as mentioned in another part of this report, need to be put upon a sound basis adapted to facilitate the movements of public justice, and also furnish trustworthy records which shall be as exact as possible and comparable, and completely adapted for practicable uses.

There was a revision and consolidation of statutes relating to prisons, jails and criminal statistics by the Legislature in 1847, but the complex laws enacted since that time have rendered a new and complete revision necessary.

The revision of these laws cannot fail to reveal the numerous defects and inconsistencies in methods as well as the statutes relating to some of the primary proceedings against offenders, and it is eminently desirable that those proceedings and all the movements against crime, from its detection and the arrest to the court proceedings and sentence, shall be completely and wisely adapted to repress and prevent crime. The possible reformation of criminals is not the first or chief object of penal laws, the proceedings of courts, and the management of prisons, though it certainly is a vitally important end, never to be overlooked. If the objects of the penal system by which life, property and public peace are protected, provide adequately for the punishment of the guilty, the repression and healing of sources of crime, and the reformation of offenders, there manifestly should be a perfectly co-ordinated treatment of the whole as well as most judicious care in the administration of each of these functions. The plea of any class of citizens for the reformatory discipline of offenders, or for humane and discriminating care for their welfare, must not be interpreted as adverse to the severity of the penalties which just laws should promptly inflict for the arrest and suppression of dangerous crimes. Human justice concerns itself ostensibly to deter and prevent, and not to screen from crime and the inevitable consequences of offending; and whenever the methods of official procedure and of penal treatment, relating to the various classes of offenders, are made in the highest degree consistent with each other as well as just, speedy and certain in their operation, then, but not till then, will the highest degree of correctional and saving influences of penal discipline be realized. General obedience to law cannot be secured in this State, particularly in the great cities, unless crimes and offenders are vigilantly and promptly detected, and punished justly and speedily. Increased respect for, and obedience to, the laws against crime, being necessary for the welfare of society, the question of the

reformation of individual offenders is logically of secondary importance, and, consequently, the punishments that secure the highest degree of obedience to the laws are warranted. Fortunately, the inculcation of respect for the laws in the ranks of society, whence issue the offenses to be repressed and the offenders who fill the prisons, can be rendered certain only by adding to the influence of penal inflictions the still greater and more controlling agencies which enlighten the mind, awaken the conscience, and inspire substantial hopes. Practically, the very abject conditions of the physical and moral nature of the offending and dangerous classes who come under rigorous penal discipline, compel society in self-defense and in the service of humanity to apply reformatory and preventive measures to the sources of crime. In several previous reports, the nature and necessity of this view of the sources of criminal life have been presented. Further evidence on this subject indicating the nature of efforts which, in great cities, are most urgently needed for the prevention of entailed and habitual criminality, will be found appended to the present report. It is a significant feature in the history of improved prison discipline in this State that, while citizens were so awakened to their duty as to demand this improvement, they are steadily increasing the reformatory means by which the ranks of crime shall be diminished.

In concluding this report, the Executive Committee of the Prison Association would place on record this brief statement of the ground on which an improvement in the penal code is desired by the people. The speedy detection and examination of offenders, the prompt, just and conclusive procedures against crimes, and the effectiveness of prison discipline and reformatory measures will be promoted by the desired improvement of the penal laws. The specification of details concerning this subject pertains to the jurists of this State, whose studies and experience the Legislature never invoked in vain. The outlines of a complete system of harmonious laws and methods relating to crimes and the judicial procedures concerning them which the honored Edward Livingston left to his countrymen, are in their hands, and if a revision. and improvement of the penal code were based on the essential doctrines of that system, it would be a reform which citizens would appreciate and cordially support. In that system of law and procedure, the great jurist has so clearly defined the grounds on which a State must proceed in the treatment of offenses and offenders, and of the sources, prevention and reformation of individuals or classes, that New York may reasonably be urged to avail herself of the benefits of that great practical study of one of her most gifted sons, as a basis for a penal system worthy the civilization and morality of the people. In order to arrest criminal careers, to suppress dangerous crimes, to

deter from crime, to reform such offenders as may be reformed, and also to apply adequate preventive agencies, will it not be necessary to follow out the essential parts of the system planned by Livingston's masterly hand for the Criminal Code of a State, namely, the parts concerning Crimes and Punishments, Procedure, Evidence, and Discipline and Reformation?

The complete remodeling of the prison system in New York is already commenced with auspicious promise. The present well-directed efforts for the improvement of the felon prisons should soon extend to county prisons and penitentiaries; and the very spirit and purposes of the State Reformatory for young felons should animate the administration of public justice itself, namely, to check crime through the systematic cultivation and discipline of such as may be reformed, and the remainder to restrain.

The opening of this era of progress and realized hopes in regard to the improvement of the felon prison government is thankfully regarded by the undersigned as amply rewarding all past effort to attain this beginning of a reformed prison system. Enlightened citizens and the Legislature, who not only have confirmed the first legal steps upward to such a system by which crime must be repressed, but who have, in the laws of 1877, provided for the separate and special discipline of dangerously depraved convicts in the State prisons on the one hand, and, on the other hand, have inaugurated at the State Reformatory, and for America, a new prison system, may reasonably hope, in the near future, to deal successfully with evils which prevail in the minor courts, and are still inherent in the laws and methods of procedure against offenders. Citizens who concern themselves for the suppression of crime and the healing of its causes,. will need ever to have in view, says Livingston, the ends to be attained by penal discipline — "punishment and reformation. So much punishment as is necessary to deter others from committing the crime and the offender from repeating it; every alleviation not inconsistent with those objects that will cause the culprit gradually to prefer a life of honest industry, not from the fear of punishment, but from a conviction of its utility. That system of prison discipline will make the nearest approach to perfection that shall best attain these objects." Happily the highest measure of discipline which experience has found to be adapted to deter from crime, and the most effectual training of the young offenders who have begun a criminal career, are proved to be wholly consistent with the measures which human sympathy, sanitary care and religious obligation ever require to be devised for the welfare of friendless, disordered and depraved fellow-beings. There is ample evidence that every improvement in the discipline of

prisoners, jails and reformatories will be attended with a corresponding increase of success in the efforts to repress crime and rescue individuals from the criminal ranks.

THEODORE W. DWIGHT,

President.

SINCLAIR TOUSEY,

Chairman of Executive Committee.

CEPHAS BRAINERD,

Recording Secretary.

ELISHA HARRIS,

Corresponding Secretary.

NEW YORK, May 2, 1877.