Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 63 
searching examination. He is put in a middle or neutral 
grade (lower first), instructed in the rules of the institu- 
tion, and assigned to the work and school which seems 
best suited to him. He is carefully graded for his work 
in shop, school, and in moral conduct. If he falls below 
a certain rank, he drops into the lowest grade; if he 
keeps up the required rank for six months, he is pro- 
moted to the first grade, where if he maintains a satis- 
factory rank for six months more he becomes a candidate 
for conditional liberation. But before he can be released 
even conditionally, a place must be found for him where 
he can earn his living. After good behavior for another 
six months, he may be and usually is discharged from all 
control. 
Upwards of 80 per cent. so released are practically 
reformed. This estimate is based upon careful investiga- 
tion. About ten years ago “a special inquiry was made 
by the managers, who employed an intelligent and 
experienced clerk for nearly a year tracing out the facts 
concerning all the Elmira convicts who had been paroled 
up to that time.” The result of this inquiry confirmed 
the reports already obtained by inquiry from year to 
year. “The whole number of men received up to October 
ist, 1899, was 9,865; the whole number paroled 6,190; 
the number in confinement was 1,384. Of the 2,291 re- 
maining to be accounted for, 841 were sent either to the 
State Prison or to the insane asylum, 1,151 were dis- 
charged by expiration of sentence, 27 were released with- 
out parole, 39 were pardoned, 179 died at Elmira, 26 
escaped, and 28 were released for errors of some sort in 
commitments. Less than 9 per cent. therefore seem to 
have been transferred to other prisons or to criminal 
asylums.” Even if we consider the whole number 2,291 
as cases of failure to reform, we shall still have nearly 
77 per cent. reformed. 
October 1, 1896, after the reformatory had been in 
existence for twenty years, “there were in custody 1,373 
convicts, of whom 52, or not quite 4 per cent., were 
paroled men returned from freedom. But these 52 were 
only about 1 per cent. of the whole number who had been 
paroled in twenty years (5,083), of whom nearly 5,000 are 
