Page images
PDF
EPUB

were employed on the survey during most of the time that the field work was being done. From the beginning it was realized by the Attorney General and by those in charge of administering the survey that the study could have been much better and more easily done if it had been possible to employ a small staff of well-trained workers. The necessity of relying upon relief workers in many instances seriously impeded obtaining the best results. Nevertheless, it is true that without the money provided by the allotment of funds for relief workers this survey would not have been possible. Consistency tests and other measures of accuracy indicate that this type of study is possible providing that the proper administrative and statistical safeguards are furnished.

Major emphasis in the study as reported in these volumes is not on the statistical phases of the investigations. Briefly, the plan which has been followed is to present in as much detail as possible the actual conditions and circumstances surrounding the administration of probation, parole, pardon, and prison treatment in America. This first volume of the reports contains a digest of the laws governing these procedures. Volume II on probation presents a comprehensive picture of the legal and administrative procedures in use throughout the country. The statistical portions of this volume are based on a study of 20,000 cases in widely scattered jurisdictions. Due to the local character of probation services in all but a few jurisdictions, considerable difficulty was encountered in collecting and presenting detailed information concerning the many existing probation units. Volume III is a study of the law and administration of pardon. The parole report, volume IV, contains statistical information on approximately 125,000 parolees, and it is a study of parole administration in the several States. The last report in the series, volume V on prisons, attempts to give a coordinated picture of the many types of services which go to make up prison treatment today.

During the spring of 1937, it became clear that the survey as originally outlined would require several years for completion. The Works Progress Administration advised

the Department of Justice that it would be unable to appropriate any more funds after July 1, 1937, to be used in completing the field work, and recommended that steps be taken to close all field units as rapidly as possible. This was done with the result that much of the statistical work on the survey was not completed. On July 1, 1937, the Works Progress Administration appropriated $50,000 to be used in salvaging at least part of the statistical data already collected and in writing the reports on the legal and administrative phases of the survey.

The following editors were appointed to help prepare the five reports of the survey: Prof. Henry Weihofen, University of Colorado Law School, was placed in charge of the pardon materials. The parole volume was assigned to Prof. Paul Raymond of the John B. Stetson Law School and the prison volume to Mr. Howard Gill, secretary of the Association of States Signatory to the Interstate Prison Compact. Dr. Barkev S. Sanders was appointed statistical editor for all the reports. Dr. Sanders resigned in September 1937 in order to accept a position in another branch of Government service. Mr. William Hurwitz, a member of the statistical staff of the survey, was then appointed statistical editor. Although he was confronted with many handicaps and limitations inherent in the data, his report on the parole and probation factors selected for study is a very worthwhile contribution to the survey. Limitation of time and money prevented analysis of the data pertaining to a much larger number of factors.

Dean Wayne L. Morse was appointed to serve as editor in chief of the five volumes of the survey. In addition to the four editors, Messrs. Weihofen, Raymond, Gill, and Hurwitz, he was assisted by the following associate editors: Ivar Peterson, Hans von Hentig, John Burroughs, Helen Fuller, Charles Morris, and Elizabeth Peterson. Acknowledgements are also due to Mr. James Tidwell, administrative secretary, Mrs. Margaret McGhee, executive secretary, and to the following editorial assistants: Mr. Henry Colman, Miss Evelyn Gerstenfeld, Mr. Robert Hislop, Mr. Jacob Master, Miss Jeanette Mindel, Mr. Edward Posniak, and

Miss Irene Wright, whose services were invaluable in assembling and preparing the reports.

The editors are greatly indebted to Messrs. William Berg, Bates Booth, Harry Cooper, Chisman Hanes, and Robert Marks for their able assistance in preparing the various State digests of release procedure laws. Also a special word of appreciation is extended to Mr. Ronald Beattie of the Bureau of the Census, and to Mr. Bennet Mead of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, who gave unsparingly of their time in serving as editorial advisers. Acknowledgement is made of the fact that the completion of this survey would have been impossible had it not been for the splendid cooperation extended to the Department of Justice by the officials of the Works Progress Administration. A special word of thanks and appreciation is extended to Dr. Milton C. Forster, coordinator, Statistical Survey and Research Projects, Works Progress Administration, for his counsel and assistance. Acknowledgements are also extended to those many State and Federal officials whose cooperation made possible this survey. Space does not permit the listing of all the persons in all parts of the country who did their part in carrying forward this survey to completion. However a special word of thanks is expressed to those many loyal and conscientious Works Progress Administration workers, supervisors and regional directors who gathered the factual data, upon the basis of which these reports have been written.

At the beginning of this study the Attorney General made this prediction: "It is not unlikely that the survey will reveal the desirability of establishing a permanent research program, perhaps in the Department of Justice, for the purpose of carrying on such studies in order to make available, both to the Federal Government and to the States, valuable information as to procedures now in operation, new experiments undertaken from time to time, and suggestions for continued development and improvement." The need for the type of service which the Attorney General was describing still exists. One thing which the findings of the survey have revealed most clearly is the desirability of establishing

such a permanent research program for continuous fact finding.

The Attorney General did not enter into this survey with any thought that it would produce definitive results. He made this point clear in a statement before the American Bar Association when he said: "I do not for a moment expect that the results of our examination of release procedures will divulge or suggest some pat formula, some neat, precise method, of administering parole and the other techniques related to this problem. The studies now being made are in the nature of an experiment-an experiment, first, to discover whether it is possible to ascertain the facts from the maze of complicated regulations existing in multifarious governmental jurisdictions in this field; and second, to determine, once the facts are made available, whether public opinion will encourage and support those procedures that have proved successful, and enforce drastic reforms in those jurisdictions where parole and other forms of release are shown to have become notorious failures."

The experiment is completed. It is hoped that from a careful reading of these volumes practical administrators of probation, pardon, parole, and prison programs can gain a clear picture of what other jurisdictions are doing and how they are succeeding with the various techniques of crime control now in practice. It is hoped that the publication of these reports will encourage public opinion to insist on necessary reforms in the administration of criminal justice and to support those procedures which experience has proved successful, and it is with these purposes in view that these volumes are submitted.

WAYNE L. MORSE, Editor in Chief.

PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THE DIGEST

It is the purpose of this volume to present a digest of the statutes, court decisions, and administrative rules governing suspension of sentence, probation, parole, executive clemency, good time deductions and release at expiration of sentence in the several States, the District of Columbia, and the Federal system. Although the information contained in this volume is already available in published form it has heretofore remained largely inaccessible due to the labor involved in searching, collating, and analyzing the numerous statutory provisions, cases, and administrative rules. Moreover, although in the past digests have been prepared dealing with one or more of the various release procedures in a particular State or with one type of release for the country as a whole, the present volume represents a first effort to assemble in one place the applicable legal and administrative material on release procedures for the 50 independent jurisdictions in the United States.

The arrangement of the volume proceeds according to States, in alphabetical order. The digests for each jurisdiction are in turn arranged in a chronological order so that, roughly, each release procedure represents a device available at successive stages in the treatment of the offender, from the time of conviction to release after sentence has been served. Thus the digests on suspension of sentence and probation precede those on parole and pardon and release through operation of good time deductions, since the former occur before imprisonment whereas the latter, except in some few instances of pardon granted before incarceration, are operative after a portion or all of the sentence imposed has been served.

The arrangement, it is believed, will facilitate the review and evaluation of the release procedures of each State since each device is, to a large extent, related to the others. Insofar as possible, uniform headings or subdivisions have been employed in treating each release procedure throughout the

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »