256 CHARLTON T. LEWIS 



has a direct pecuniary interest in keeping them as long as 

 possible in confinement and in feeding them cheaply. 



These jails are now the chief schools of crime and the great 

 recruiting offices for the army of criminals. There are few 

 habitual criminals but have been educated in them. In some 

 counties there is no proper separation even of the sexes; in 

 very many there is none between the convict and the accused, 

 or even the witnesses under detention; between the profes- 

 sional burglar or thief and the unruly boy. In nearly all, the 

 inmates are chiefly idle. These monstrous conditions are main- 

 tained by the local authorities, mainly on the pretext of econ- 

 omy, in violation of the explicit laws of many states. They 

 are attracting much attention, and in special instances have 

 been mitigated. The fee system in the jails, too, must soon 

 pass away. Reformers generally believe that all jails must be 

 brought under the direct control of the state. Certain it is 

 that the local jails in Great Britain, which were no better than 

 ours before 1878, when they were brought under the cen- 

 tralized administration of the home office, have been nearly 

 freed from these evils. There has since been a large reduction 

 of the number of inmates and even of the number of jails. 

 There is reason to believe that the supply of criminals has been 

 largely checked by the change. A similar centralization of 

 control in our states would doubtless effect excellent results, 

 if exclusion of political influences from the state prison au- 

 thorities were assured. 



But another tendency is at work upon our laws which is 

 at war with all reform. Every student must recognize the 

 pernicious effect of short terms of imprisonment for minor 

 offenses. Apart from the corrupting associations of most 

 local jails, confinement for a few days or weeks is demoralizing 

 and degrading. It brands the prisoner as a jail bird, and em- 

 barrasses his future. He often comes out stripped of self 

 respect, suspected and despised by others, and is driven per- 

 manently into crime. Such sentences have no tendency to 

 reform the erring. They are dictated solely by the absurd 

 notion that they are fit punishment for minor offenses. But 

 the number of such sentences is very great. Our police 

 magistrates and petty tribunals are busy inflicting them. 



