Show SOCIETY AND THE CRIMINAL by SANFORD BATES V U S superintendent of irlon rr lon ons HIS country has failed miserably in the handling of prisons thit this THIS failure is not a failure to keep prisoners confined but one of not making inmates into tractable and law abiding citizens we have hate delegated to the poorest equipped agency a task which the combined ingenuity of all the rest of society has yet found impo tible of solution the task of controlling criminal conduct indirect responsibility for the prison riots and the columbus ohio catastrophe may be attributed to the crime commissions who called for or more punishment the legislatures that in increased creased penalties and to the judges and parole boards who lost their sens of proportions in the matter of sentences the fight is now on between society and the criminals the position taken in reference to the treatment of prisoners within the next few years will be of extreme importance to our future welfare prisons of the future should be at once a disciplinary school for those who can be reformed a place of permanent segregation for the incorrigible and a laboratory for the study of the causes of crime prison conditions condition sat at present are infinitely better than those of 50 years ago but it has taken the bloody riots of recent history to bring about a general public movement toward better conditions punishment can be so devised I 1 believe to be at once protective corrective and deterrent |