Τ INTRODUCTION HE laws of Continental United States, that is of the forty-eight states and the District of Columbia but excluding Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines, regulating the treatment of prisoners during confinement, under the caption "The Caged Man", have been gathered together and classified so as to bring vividly to the mind of the student the answer to the question "What means a prison sentence". The collection of this material has been an arduous task because the statutes affecting prisoners are to be found under the most diverse headings and as parts of the law on many subjects. The constitutions, the latest revised statutes and the session laws down to January 1st, 1913, have been carefully read and classified. The segregation of this material taken from its context and the classification of many hundreds of references, under an arbitrary classification, has required a knowledge of the actual administration of the law in the several states, and the ascertaining, as far as possible, the probable meaning of the confused and varied expression of the thought contained in many poorly-drawn and illconceived statutes, hidden away in legislation often foreign to the actual subject under consideration and conflicting in many details with other statutes. The administrative character of this legislation has led to the interpretation of these conflicts by administrative boards and the changing personnel of the Attorney General's office, rather than by adjudication in courts of record. This study therefore must be considered in the light of these limitations and as having been presented more as an exhibit of the vagaries of legislative caprice, than as suggesting either the actual practice existing under the prison administrations in the several states, or as an ideal upon which to model new and better legislation. It suggests the repeal of many worn-out, antiquated and unused statutes; it makes possible the laying down of the principle that legislation should deal with broad principles and leave administrative detail to the duly constituted body which has been created for administration; and it brings to light many isolated provis ions which would be valuable in the working out of a more perfect and better conceived penal statute law than is now found on the statute books of any state. References are given in full in the hope that students of the subject will be able to use the material in their work of drafting legislation, and in the hope that through such working over there may come to light and to our attention those errors which must necessarily have crept in because of the inherent difficulty of compilation and the variation resulting from the use of personal judgment in classification. Such suggestions, which will be gratefully received, should be sent to Miss Julia Jaffray, Secretary, Educational Department, National Committee on Prison Labor, 319 University Hall, Columbia University, New York City. Miss Jaffray has compiled the statutes to which reference is made in this monograph. NEW YORK CITY, APRIL, 1913. E. STAGG WHITIN. (254) H THE CAGED MAN UMANE treatment of prisoners finds expression not alone in the limitations placed upon keepers but in the development of those incentives for a better life which play upon the dormant emotions and depleted energies of prisoners and vitalize them into normal being. Cruelty lies equally in the failure to provide these opportunities for reform as in the over-development of prohibitory measures. The surgical instruments of a century ago seem both cruel and crude to those familiar with modern surgery. Many of the instruments of penal administration herein referred to will seem as archaic to those who view them from the standpoint of modern psychology and ask the pertinent question what a prison sentence means today to society as well as to the "caged man". I. WHAT IS THE STATUS OF A PRISONER? The state has a property right in the labor of the prisoner. The Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States provides that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist, yet by inference allows its continuance as punishment for crime, after due process of law. Similar provisions are found in the constitutions of most states.1 The absolute prohibition of slavery without exception in Maryland, Rhode Island and Vermont abrogates the status of penal servitude but continues, under police power, the penal system for the protection of the community and for the protection of the wayward individual, his status being analogous to that of the insane, defective and otherwise incompetent wards of the state. The Property of the State. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tolerated in this state." California, Const. 1879, Art. I, Sec. 18. 66 The Ward of the State. Slavery shall not be permitted in this state." Rhode Island, Const. 1842, Art. 1, Sec. 4. 1 American and English Encyclopedia of Law, 1898, vol. 22, p. 1302. II. WHY IS HE CONFINED? Three classes of convicts1 are found in our penal institutions: A. Prisoners working off fines and costs. B. Prisoners serving sentences, either fixed or indeterminate. C. Prisoners awaiting capital punishment. A. Prisoners working off fines and costs. Persons convicted of minor offences are often sentenced to pay fines, the cost of conviction being assessed along with the fine. Fines may be paid out of the convicted man's personal possessions or by a "next of friend" to whom he becomes a debtor under agreement to refund in kind or labor. Failure to pay the fine results in committment to penal servitude for such a time as it may take to pay off the full amount due at the rate established by statute. Credits toward the satisfaction or payment of fines and costs are allowed as follows: I. $100.00 per year during confinement. CONNECTICUT (State prison.) Every prisoner held in said prison for non-payment of a fine shall be allowed one hundred dollars a year for his labor, from the time when his imprisonment for non-payment of said fine commenced, if, in the opinion of the warden and directors, he shall have been submissive to the officers of the prison during his confinement and conducted himself as a faithful prisoner. 2. $3.00 for each day's confinement. NEBRASKA Whenever district court or probate judge shall have determined that a person, confined in jail for any criminal offence, has no estate with which to pay fine and costs, it shall be the duty of said judge to discharge such person from further imprisonment for such fine and costs. Discharge to operate as complete release from such fine and R. S. 1902, Sec. 2914. R. S. 1911, C. 49, 1 This study covers only convicted prisoners, hence persons awaiting trial or held as witnesses are not included though frequently found especially in local jails. |