SHOULD JUDGES GO TO JAIL?

[The idea is not so revolutionary as it might be. Recently Mr. T. M. Osborne tried a week’s self-incarceration at Auburn Prison, New York. As a result the general public, reading of his experiences, has a knowledge to-day of the more common methods of prison administration than it would have learned, or have been willing to learn in any other way. Now the Boston (Mass.) Globe comes along with a more radical suggestion, which we herewith summarize.]

“One advocate of the practice of making judges investigate the prisons, an ex-magistrate of New York City, made the assertion that ‘every judge ought to be sentenced to 30 days in jail before he is permitted to send a prisoner there.’

“‘What does an ordinary judge know of prison? What method can he have of judging a proper punishment for an offender, if he does not know what the punishment is like?’ asks this authority.

“The policy of imposing upon judges the obligation of a personal acquaintance with the conditions of the institutions to which they sentence defendants is not to be lightly condemned as impractical or inexpedient. Judges to-day depend primarily for such information as they require upon those whose public duty it is to oversee the prisons, and the courts are also governed by the law in committing prisoners.

“It might be expedient to give judges a wider discretion in disposing of persons convicted of crime, and then require them to make sufficient investigation of every public institution to enable them to use their discretion wisely.

“The average judge is a man of keen perception, and if he has been long on the bench, he has acquired in his experience an accurate conception of the criminal mind, and an idea of how it may be most effectively influenced.

“Doubtless if one of the judges of the Superior Court passed a few days at any one of the penal or corrective institutions of the State, he could see things that had escaped the notice of those who have grown familiar with conditions, either by association or by brief visits. Some very valuable suggestions for improvement might result.

“We have many investigators who are concerned with the boy and man in confinement. The Board of Parole, a new commission, was created for the purpose of securing to the deserving a conditional release from prison.

“The Executive Council, when passing on the question of pardon, goes carefully into the prisoner’s past, the circumstances of the crime for which he was sentenced, his conduct in prison, and then weighs the chances of his becoming a law-abiding and industrious member of the community if liberated. Few men so released have again offended.

“It is logical that if the body authorized to grant a pardon is so zealous in the interest of the prisoner and the community alike, the judicial authority who fixes the penalty and indicates the institution of punishment in specific instances should be equally well informed of the possible consequences of the sentence to the prisoner. The administration of strict justice might be aided by a more intimate acquaintance with the character of our jails on the part of the judges.”