THE AMERICAN REFORMATORY PRISON SYSTEM
Z. R. BROCKWAY*
The American reformatory prison system is based on the principle of protection in place of punishment; on the principle of the indeterminate sentence instead of the usual time sentence; and on the purpose of rehabilitation of offenders rather than their restraint by intimidation. This theory works a change of attitude on the part of the state, a change of the relation of the offenders, and involves a different prison procedure. Together with punishments by imprisonment every other form of punish- ment for crimes has, doubtless, to some extent, if vaguely, con- tained a purpose of protection, yet other aims subversive of pro- tection have unduly influenced criminal legislation and the prison practice: a hateful temper bred of gross superstition attached to the punishments in defense of the gods and to gain their favor; punishment inflicted, assumptively, to equalize the world-balance of diffused morality; to the measuring-out of pains in order to meet some notion of impossible justice; punishments to mend the fractured laws and vindicate the state ; to intimidate offenders and the tempted and thus deter from crimes ; and, by the suffer- ings of punishments, to induce a salutary reforming penitence. This hateful spirit, under the name retribution, but with some- what softened severity, characterized the penitentiary system of the last century. But during the latter half of that century better biological and moral conceptions, largely due to the investiga- tions and publications of Charles Darwin, enabled the enactment of more rational criminal laws. The New York law (1877) eliminates the punishment theory and laws, patterned after it, since enacted in other states, also exclude the punitive principle.
- Mr. Brockway's article forms part of a series of volumes on criminology
to be published by the Russell Sage Foundation for the Eighth International Prison Congress which will meet in Washington, D. C, October 2-8, 1910. — Editor.
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