Russell Sage Foundation Author:Charles Richmond Henderson General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1910 Original Publisher: Charities Publication Committee Subjects: Justice, Administration of Prisons Reformatories Criminal law Law / General Law / Criminal Law / General Social Science / Criminology Social Science / Penology Notes: This is a black and whit... more »e OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Ill THE AMERICAN R E FORM ATOR Y PR I SON SYSTEM By Z. R. BROCKWAY THE American reformatory prison system is based on the principle of protection in place of punishment; on the principle of the indeterminate sentence instead of the usual time sentence; and on the purpose of rehabilitation of offenders rather than their restraint by intimidation. This theory works a change of attitude on the part of the state, a change of the relation of the offenders, and involves a different prison procedure. Together with punishments by imprisonment, every other form of punishment for crimes has, doubtless, to some extent, if vaguely, contained a purpose of protection, yet other aims subversive of protection have unduly influenced criminal legislation and the prison practice: a hateful temper bred of gross superstition attached to the punishments in defense of the gods and to gain their favor; punishment inflicted, assumptively, to equalize the world-balance of diffused morality; to the measuring out of pains in order to meet some notion of impossible justice; punishments to mend the fractured laws and vindicate the state; to intimidate offenders and the tempted and thus deter from crimes; and, by the sufferings of punishments, to induce a salutary reforming penitence. This hateful spirit, under the name retribution, but with somewhat softened severity, characterized the penitentiary syst...« less