machine gun, or sawed-off shotgun upon which any such mark shall' have been changed, altered, removed, or obliterated shall be prima facie evidence that the possessor has changed, altered, removed, or obliterated the same within the District of Columbia: Provided, however, That nothing contained in this section shall apply to any officer or agent of any of the departments of the United States or the District of Columbia engaged in experimental work.

EXCEPTIONS

SEC. 13. This Act shall not apply to toy or antique pistols unsuitable for use as firearms.

POSSESSION OF CERTAIN DANGEROUS WEAPONS

SEC. 14. No person shall within the District of Columbia possess any machine gun, sawed-off shotgun, or any instrument or weapon of the kind commonly known as a blackjack, slung shot, sand club, sandbag,. or metal knuckles, nor any instrument, attachment, or appliance for causing the firing of any firearm to be silent or intended to lessen or muffle the noise of the firing of any firearms: Provided, however, That machine guns, or sawed-off shotguns, and blackjacks may be possessed by the members of the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps of the United States, the National Guard, or Organized Reserves when on duty, the Post Office Department or its employees when on duty, marshals, sheriffs, prison or jail wardens, or their deputies, policemen, or other duly appointed law-enforcement officers, officers or employees of the United States duly authorized to carry such weapons, banking institutions, public carriers who are engaged in the business of transporting mail, money, securities, or other valuables, wholesale dealers. and retail dealers licensed under section 10 of this Act.

PENALTIES

SEC. 15. Any violation of any provision of this Act for which no penalty is specifically provided shall be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000 or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.

CONSTITUTIONALITY

SEC. 16. If any part of this Act is for any reason declared void, such invalidity shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions.

of this Act.

CERTAIN ACTS REPEALED

SEC. 17. The following sections of the Code of Law for the District of Columbia, 1919, namely, sections 855, 856, and 857, and all other Acts or parts of Acts inconsistent herewith, are hereby repealed.

[8. 1155]

AN ACT

To establish a Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole for the District of Columbia and to determine its functions, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be established in the District of Columbia a Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole for the penal institutions for said District, to consist of three members, residents of said District, to be appointed by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, none of which members shall be officially connected with the prison administration in any other capacity; that of the three members first appointed after the passage of this Act, one shall be appointed for three years, one for five years, and one for seven years; thereafter all appointments, except such as may be made for the remainder of unexpired terms, shall be for the term of seven years. It shall be the duty of the Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole to examine into the physical, mental, and moral records of the prisoners committed to the penal institutions of the District; receive reports of wardens and other officials, including the psychiatrist; recommend the treatment which, in their opinion, is most conducive to the prisoners' reformation; and provide for a system of determining the proper time of release and the rehabilitation of the ex-prisoner in the community. The board shall adopt rules and regulations for its procedure, subject to the approval of the Commissioners of District of Columbia. The members of the board shall serve without compensation: Provided, That actual and necessary traveling expenses of the members of the board, incurred in the performance of duties under this Act, shall be allowed and paid as herein provided.

SEC. 2. The Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole shall, subject to the approval of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, appoint parole officers, in such number as shall be approved by Congress from time to time, for the penal institutions of said District, one of whom shall also act as the clerk of said Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole. It shall be the duty of such officers, subject to the discretion and control of said board, to perform such duties and exercise such authority as the said board may direct. Salaries and the actual and necessary traveling expenses of each such parole officer shall be paid out of the appropriation for the maintenance of the penal institution to which he is assigned and receive compensation in accordance with the rates established by the Personnel Classification Act of 1923. (All other necessary expenses incurred in the administration of this Act shall be paid out of the appropriations for the penal institutions from which prisoners are paroled, and such appropriations are hereby made available therefor.)

SEC. 3. That hereafter, in imposing sentence on a person convicted in the District of Columbia of a felony, the justice or judge of the court imposing such sentence shall sentence the person for a maximum period, not exceeding the maximum fixed by law, and for a minimum period not exceeding one-fifth of the maximum period fixed by law, and any person so convicted and sentenced may be released on parole as herein provided at any time after having served the minimum sentence: Provided, however, That this Act shall not abrogate the power of the justice or judge to sentence a convicted prisoner to the death penalty as now or hereafter may be provided by law: Provided further, That where a justice or a judge of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia has imposed a life sentence on the prisoner convicted in the District of Columbia, said prisoner serving such sentence shall be eligible to parole as herein provided at any time after having served fifteen years of his

life's sentence.

SEC. 4. That whenever, within the limitations of section 3 of this Act, it shall appear to the Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole, from the reports of the prisoner's work and conduct which may be received in accordance with the rules and regulations prescribed, and from the study and examination made by the board itself, that any prisoner serving an indeterminate sentence is fitted by his training for release, that there is a reasonable probability that such a prisoner will live and remain at liberty without violating the law, and in the opinion of the board such release is not incompatible with the welfare of society, said Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole may, in its discretion, authorize the release of such prisoner on parole, and he shall be allowed to go on parole, outside of said prison, and in the discretion of the board to return to his home upon such terms and conditions, including personal reports from said paroled prisoner, as said Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole shall prescribe, and to remain, while on parole, in the legal custody and under the control of the superintendent of the institution from which the prisoner may have been paroled, until the expiration of the maximum of the term or terms specified in his sentence, less such good-time allowance as is, or may hereinafter be, provided by law; and the said board shall in every parole fix the limits of the residence of such person paroled, which limits, however, may be thereafter changed in the discretion of the board.

SEC. 5. If said Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole, or any member thereof, shall have reliable information that a prisoner has violated his parole, said board, or any member thereof, at any time within the term or terms of the prisoner's sentence,' may issue a warrant to any officer hereinafter authorized to execute the same for the retaking of such prisoner. Any officer of the penal institution from which such prisoner shall have been paroled or any Federal officer authorized to serve criminal process within the United States to whom such warrant shall be delivered is authorized and required to execute such warrant by taking such prisoner and returning him to said penal institution.

SEC. 6. At the next meeting of the Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole held after the issuing of a warrant for the retaking of any paroled prisoner, said board shall be notified thereof, and if

such prisoner shall have been returned to the institution, he shall be given an opportunity to appear before said Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole, and the said board may then, or at any time in its discretion, revoke the order and terminate such parole or modify the terms and conditions thereof and if such order of parole be revoked and the parole so terminated the said prisoner shall serve the remainder of the sentence originally imposed, the unexpired term of imprisonment of any such prisoner to begin to run from the date he is returned to the institution, and time the prisoner was out on parole shall not be taken into account to diminish the time for which he was sentenced: Provided, That the parole board, at its discretion, may afterwards grant a new parole to said prisoner, in the event said board should deem it advisable.

SEC. 7. That all Acts or parts of Acts inconsistent with the provisions of the Act are hereby repealed: Provided, however, That for any felony committed before this Act takes effect, the penalty, sentence, or forfeiture provided by law for such felony at the time such felony was committed shall remain in full force and effect and shall be imposed, notwithstanding this Act.

SEC. 8. Any person confined in a penal institution of the District of Columbia who escapes or attempts to escape therefrom, or any person who procures, advises, connives at, aids, or assists in such escape, or conceals any such prisoner after such escape, shall be guilty of an offense and upon conviction thereof in any court of the United States shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than five years, said sentence to begin, if the convicted person be an escaped prisoner, upon the expiration of the original sentence.

SEC. 9. Upon the appointment of the members of said board, the powers of the existing parole board over prisoners confined in the penal institutions of the District of Columbia shall cease and determine and all the powers of said existing parole board under the authority of the Act of Congress approved June 25, 1910, entitled "An Act to parole United States prisoners, and for other purposes," as amended, over said prisoners confined in the penal institutions of the District of Columbia shall be transferred to and vested in said Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole: Provided, however, That in the case of a prisoner convicted of felony committed prior to the effective date of this Act, and in the case of any prisoner convicted of misdemeanor when the aggregate sentence imposed is in excess of one year, said Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole may parole said prisoner, under the provisions of this Act, after said prisoner has served one-fifth of the sentence imposed.

[8. 4095]

AN ACT

To amend an Act entitled "An Act to punish the unlawful breaking of seals of railroad cars containing interstate or foreign shipments, the unlawful entering of such cars, the stealing of freight and express packages or baggage or articles in process of transportation in interstate shipment, and the felonious asportation of such freight or express packages or baggage or articles therefrom into another district of the United States, and the felonious possession or reception of the same," approved February 13, 1913, as amended (U. 8. C., title 18, secs. 409411), by extending its provisions to provide for the punishment of stealing or otherwise unlawful taking of property from passenger cars, sleeping cars, or dining cars, or from passengers on such cars, while such cars are parts of interstate trains, and authorizing prosecution therefor in any district in which the defendant may have taken or been in possession of the property stolen or otherwise unlawfully taken.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Act of February 13, 1913, as amended, entitled "An Act to punish the unlawful breaking of seals of railroad cars containing interstate or foreign shipments, the unlawful entering of such cars, the stealing of freight and express packages or baggage or articles in process of transportation in interstate shipment, and the felonious asportation of such freight or express packages or baggage or articles therefrom into another district of the United States, and the felonious possession or reception of the same " be amended to read as follows:

"Whoever shall unlawfully break the seal of any railroad car containing interstate or foreign shipments of freight or express, or shall enter any such car with intent in either case to commit larceny therein; or whoever shall steal or unlawfully take, carry away, or conceal, or by fraud or deception obtain from any railroad car, station house, platform, depot, wagon, automobile, truck, or other vehicles, or from any steamboat, vessel, or wharf, with intent to convert to his own use any goods or chattels moving as or which are a part of or which constitute an interstate or foreign shipment of freight or express, or shall buy or receive or have in his possession any such goods or chattels, knowing the same to have been stolen; or whoever shall steal or shall unlawfully take, carry away, or by fraud or deception obtain with intent to convert to his own use any baggage which shall have come into the possession of any common carrier for transportation from one State or Territory or the District of Columbia to another State or Territory or the District of Columbia or to a foreign country, or from a foreign country to any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, or shall break into, steal, take, carry away, or conceal any of the contents of such baggage, or shall buy, receive, or have in his possession any such baggage or any article therefrom of whatever nature, knowing the same to have been stolen, or whoever shall steal or shall unlawfully take by any fraudulent device, scheme, or game, from any passenger car,