Painting. 70,000 square yards painting, at 10 cts. per yard.. $7,000 00 Laying railroad track, including grading and making ties.... 8,000 00 Wagon roads. Making wagon roads, 4,380 days, at $1.25 a day.. 328 days for teams, at $3.00 per day.... 5,475 00 984 00 Developing quarry. For stripping and developing quarry, 82,000 days at $1.25 per day.... Electrical work. Setting poles and general labor, 1,100 days, at $2.25 per day..... 102,500 00 2,475 00 106,000 fire-brick, at $20.00 per thousand........ 2,120 00 Freight cars unloaded. 1,824 cars unloaded, at $5.00 per car.. $9,120 00 We have given above only the items in which prison labor was employed in preparing or laying down or erecting material. To these items must be added the cost of a large amount of material that was necessarily bought outside. It is calculated that the government saved fifty cents on a dollar in building the prison by prison labor compared with what it would have cost to give the work out to contract, and the work has been much better done. The results achieved are more remarkable when we remember that the majority of the prison population at Leavenworth is composed of ranchmen, farmers, Negroes and Indians, with very few skilled mechanics among them. The enameled brick walls in the kitchen were laid up on one side by an Indian and on the other side by a Negro, both of whom had learned their trade in prison. The total cost of the prison if made by contract in the open market, would be over two million dollars. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE IN NEW YORK. The New York State Conference of Charities and Correction held its meeting in New York, November 14, 1906. The Committee on the "Treatment of the Criminal" consisted of the following members: S. J. Barrows, (Chairman), New York; Frederic Almy, Buffalo; Mrs. William W. Armstrong, Rochester; Edmond J. Butler, New York; George Deyo, Warden Clinton Prison, Dannemora; Mrs. Henry P. Griffin, White Plains; Samuel B. Hamburger, New York; Hon. Thomas W. Hynes, Brooklyn; Addison Johnson, Warden Sing Sing Prison, Hon. Thomas J. Lantry, New York; Hon. Julius M. Mayer, New York; Hon. Thomas Murphy. Buffalo; Mrs. Marcia Chace Powell, Ghent; and Col. Joseph F. Scott, Superintendent Elmira Reformatory. The following is the report of the committee, which was signed by all but two members: In certain respects the people of New York may look upon their prison system with reasonable satisfaction, for this State has been a progressive and even a pioneer State in the field of prison reform. In some respects, however, our prison system is notably weak. The influence of this Conference may wisely be exerted in perfecting it. In this report, therefore, attention will be called to various directions in which, according to the belief of the committee, the penal system of the State may be further developed and improved. Suggestions from each member of the committee were invited by the chairman. All the suggestions thus received have been embodied in the report, and a large majority of the members of the committee have seen this report and assented to its conclusions. It is gratifying to note that the Legislature at its last session authorized the appointment of two commissions with reference to our penal system. One of these relates to the remodeling of State prisons or the construction of new ones, also the disposition to be made of the Eastern Reformatory at Napanoch. A second commission relates to the subject of probation, its further development and improvement. These commissions, duly appointed by the Governor, are now pursuing their investigations; and this committee does not wish to anticipate their reports. The creation of the first commission would seem to show that the Legislature is aroused to the fact that such prisons as Sing Sing and Auburn do not meet the requirements of a civilized community and that they must either be remodeled or supplanted by new and better structures. As to probation, the experience of the last four years in this State has clearly demonstrated, as it has in other States, that probation is an essential, beneficent and economical feature of 3 judicial system, and the great question before the commission charged with this inquiry is to show how the whole work can be systematized and co-ordinated, and how the law and its administration can be made more efficient. Notwithstanding that the State early began to grapple with the problem of child saving and various salutary laws were passed and societies organized for this purpose, the establishment of the juvenile court filled a veritable gap and introduced a new and beneficent tendency. Beyond question this is the most distinguished achievement in American jurisprudence of recent years and New York was among the first States, under the lead of the city of Buffalo, to adopt it. Its establishment shows that we are gradually coming to the consciousness that children, who may be proper subjects for education and discipline, are not to be treated and branded as criminals. A court established for their treatment should rather be an educational and paternal than a drastic and punitive institution. There is hardly a city in which the juvenile court has been established where a fresh impulse has not been given to the study of preventive measures for juvenile delinquency and a new sense of social responsibility developed. After a recent inspection of the juvenile court of Indianapolis, and a study also of the remarkable work of Judge Lindsey of Denver, the chairman of this committee is deeply impressed with the great opportunity of the judge and of the probation officer in this field, and of the opportunity which is likewise furnished for the co-operation of intelligent and humane persons in this preventive and corrective work. The spectacle at Indianapolis of so large a number of business men, teachers, lawyers and others rallying around the court is certainly inspiring. That city seems to have demonstrated better than any other how far paid workers can be profitably reinforced by intelligent and devoted volunteers. New York was the first State to lead the way in the adoption of the indeterminate sentence. Two members of the committee, one of them a judge of long experience, and the other equally experienced as a prison warden, both urge a general adoption of the indeterminate sentence. In the opinion of one of them, the time has come for the removal of the maximum limit to such sentences. It is not surprising that wise and experienced judges no longer wish to take the responsibility when they send a man to prison, of deciding on just what day he shall come out, nor even of fixing the minimum or maximum time in months or years. The most important thing for a judge to decide is whether a person who has committed an offense is a fit subject for probation; and if not, whether he should be removed from society for discipline and correction. The responsibility of deciding when this discipline has become effective and when the offender may be conditionally released should not be thrown upon the judge alone, but upon authorities constituted especially for this purpose. If in addition to medical and administrative authority, it seems advisable to have judicial authority represented on our boards of parole, such provision can be made. New York has taken the lead in this direction by providing in the law establishing the Hart's Island Reformatory for Misdemeanants, that the courts and judges committing to that institution shall be represented on its board of parole by one member from each court. Judges are also represented on the board of parole of the Bedford Reformatory. But the best constituted parole board will work in the dark in determining the qualifications of a prisoner for parole unless means are provided by which the prisoner may himself demonstrate his fitness for conditional release. It is not extremely difficult for a physician to tell when a patient has reached the stage of physical convalescence, and it is safe for him and for the community to have him leave the hospital; and though the conditions are more difficult, it is not impossible to devise a system |