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Show MAY AID VETERANS IN INSTITUTIONS In Oklahoma there is an organization organiza-tion sponsored by the American Legion, Le-gion, known as the soldiers' relief commission com-mission of Oklahoma, which has recently re-cently done a great service to those veterans of the World war who are confined to Oklahoma penal institutions institu-tions and who, the commission finds, are for the most part either mentally deficient or suffering from physical disability. The Legion wants these facts taken into consideration In the care and treatment of these unfortunate unfortu-nate evidences of a world at war. They base their appeal for reform and a new consideration of the incarcerated incarcera-ted veteran upon the following facts disclosed by their survey of Oklahoma prisons : Of the 35S former service men now confined in Oklahoma institutions, approximately ap-proximately 15 per cent of the whites and 10 per cent of the colored inmates were found to be either mentally deficient defi-cient or otherwise psycopathic. One hundred and fifty inmates, former service serv-ice men, were found to be suffering from physical disabilities. Twenty-one Twenty-one former soldiers in Oklahoma prisons pris-ons are classed as illiterates; 20 have had no schooling whatever, while 72 men can barely read and write. Only nine whites and two colored have completed high schools, a great majority major-ity having less than a common school education. Only 41 of the 358 confined are serving second sentences ; 97 are married and 86 have children. Apparently a large number of ex-service ex-service men were attracted to Oklahoma, Okla-homa, following the war, in search of the liquid gold called oil. And then came the "dry holes'' and the business depression, resulting in many of these men, abnormal in many instances and lacking the restraints of home in other instances, being led Into trouble. In presenting their report the commission com-mission made the following recommendations recommen-dations : "The confinement in a penal institution institu-tion of an honorably discharged soldier, sol-dier, sailor or marine does not forfeit a claim on his part against the federal government, arising from his military service. Such men, however, are usually usu-ally ignorant of their rights and very largely reluctant or helpless to assert them. The work clone in connection with this survey is done with a view towards the establishment of these rights. We further recommend that a full-time neuro-psychiatrist expert be assigned to the prisons, that the prisoners pris-oners may be closely observed and reclassified re-classified where necessary; construction construc-tion of a psychopathic ward inside the prison walls, in which should be confined con-fined the mental defectives; better wards for tuberculars; separation of first offenders from hardened criminals and vocational training classes along lines of preferential selection by the Inmate." |