THE MISSOURI PRISONERS--(Continued)
During the years 1887 and 1888, 1,523 prisoners were received into the Missouri penitentiary. Of this number 1,082 were white males, 398 colored males, 17 white females, and 26 colored females. These figures show that the women of Missouri are a great deal better than the men, or they do not get their share of justice.
TABLE SHOWING THE AGES OF CONVICTSRECEIVED DURING THE YEARS 1887 AND 1888.
From 16 to 20.................320"20 to 25 441"25 to 30.................344"30 to 35.................143" 35to 40.................113"40 to 45................. 70"45 to70.................4"70andupward............5----
Total..........1,523
There is nothing that should interest the good people of Missouri more than the foregoing table. These appalling figures I copied from the prison records. Of the 1,523 criminals received during the past two years, more than one-fifth of them were mere children. Would it not be better to give these boys a term in the county jails, or in some reformatory, instead of sending them to a penitentiary? Coming in contact with hardened and vicious criminals, what hope is there for getting these boys into the paths of honesty and uprightness? Then there follows the large number of 441, representing the youthful age from twenty to twenty-five years. These are the years most prolific of criminals. Who can say these boys are vicious and hardened criminals? Then follow the young men of from twenty-five to thirty. Three hundred and fourty-four of this age find a home in felon cells. Are these boys and young men not worth saving? What can be done to snatch them from a career of crime, and to save them from becoming miserable wrecks? Father, if one of these boys was a son of yours, you would think seriously over this important question.
Something should be done to save this large army of youth who are annually finding their way into felon cells.
Is the penitentiary the proper place to send those youthful offenders? If so, then they should not come in contact with the older and hardened criminals. One of the most essential things to be done in a prison is the classification of the inmates. This is not done in the Missouri penitentiary. Here the mere youth often cells with a hardened old criminal of the worst description. I would rather a child of mine would be boxed up with a rattlesnake. In this institution there are nearly 2,000 criminals huddled up together--an indiscriminate mass. The officials are not to blame for this. They realize the terrible condition of things at the prison. They have not sufficient room for the classification and proper arrangement of the inmates. They know, perhaps better than anyone else, that the prison is not what it should be. Warden Marmaduke says, in his last report to the prison directors, "This prison is now too much crowded and it becomes a serious question at once, as to what disposition will be made of them in the future. If this prison is to accommodate them, another cell building should be built at once. If another prison is to be the solution, it should be commenced. If a reconstruction of our criminal laws, looking to the reduction of crime, it should be done now. And in any event, and whatever may be done, certainly our management of prisons should be so modified or changed that the practical, not the sentimental system of reform, should be adopted. I believe that our present system is making criminals instead of reforming them, and I believe that it is practicable to so classify, treat, feed, work and uniform these people, as to make better men instead of worse men out of them. I have profound respect for the good purposes of the benevolently disposed men and women, and they are numerous, who are devoting themselves to the effort of reforming criminals. Yet their efforts must be supplemented by a practical building up and the development of the better instincts of the man, which cannot be done under our present system. The surroundings are against it. We are constantly developing and stimulating the very worst instincts. I believe it practicable to institute methods for this reform, at once creditable to the State." Who can doubt our statements on this subject when we quote suchhigh authority as the above. The last warden of this great institution comes out and officially announces that awful fact that our present system of prison treatment is constantly developing and stimulating the very worst instincts. Constantly making men worse, and when a young man enters the prison he is morally tainted, when he goes out he is completely saturated, with moral pollution. After such statements from so high an authority will the great State of Missouri, so well-known the world over for her numerous acts of benevolence, continue to have an institution within her borders for the complete demoralization and ruin of multitudes of her young men. Should a youth of Missouri, surrounded by influences and temptations which he could not resist, once fall from a position of honor and integrity, although it is his first violation of the law, he will be taken into custody of the State, hurled into a pit, where for a time he will inhale the fetid breath of wickedness, then, later on, to be released and sent out into the free world a moral leper.
