Community Civics and Rural Life Part 51

ADMINISTRATION OF STATE PRISONS

Great changes have occurred in recent years in the methods of administering state penitentiaries, especially in some states.

Under old conditions convicts were either confined in isolation and idleness or condemned to hard labor, punishment being the sole idea in both cases. The most rigid and arbitrary discipline was enforced. Modern penitentiaries keep prisoners employed in occupations that are of use to the state, that are designed to train the prisoner for useful service, and that yield him some compensation that will help to make him self-supporting when he leaves. They also maintain schools for the instruction of prisoners in at least the common branches of knowledge and in vocational subjects. Great care is taken of the health. In some cases the prisoners are graded according to their conduct and their ability to a.s.sume responsibility, certain privileges and freedom and partic.i.p.ation in the administration of the prison being bestowed upon them so long as they show a sense of their responsibility. The period of imprisonment may be shortened as a reward for good conduct.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS

One of the most important reforms that have been made is that in the treatment of juvenile offenders. The main feature of this is the establishment of a JUVENILE COURT, where the usual procedure and publicity of a criminal court are avoided, and where the judge takes a fatherly att.i.tude toward the accused. Each case is carefully investigated to discover the cause of trouble and to arrive at a wise conclusion as to the treatment to be given. In the case of first offenders, or where other conditions justify it, the prisoner is released ON PROBATION. That is, he is given his freedom on his honor, but under the supervision of a PROBATION OFFICER to whom he must report at regular intervals. In the case of more serious offenses, or of repeated wrong-doing, or of violation of parole, offenders are sent to reform schools or industrial schools. The entire effort is to set the young offender on the right road to honest self-support and good citizens.h.i.+p.

Unfortunately, however, this machinery for the treatment of juvenile delinquency is so far found almost exclusively in cities.

The problem of juvenile delinquency in rural communities is one that requires more attention than has been given to it. It is a problem that the young citizen himself can greatly help to solve by the cultivation, in himself and in his friends, of right conceptions of citizens.h.i.+p.

Investigate and report on the following:

The organization of your county and town governments to protect persons and property against criminals, to apprehend law violators, and to bring them to justice.

The cost to your county or town of this organization.

The desirability or undesirability of differing definitions of crime in different states, and of different punishments for the same crime.

The efficacy of severe punishments in preventing crime.

Should capital punishment be abolished?

The meaning of "bail," and why it is provided for.

The effect of prohibition upon the amount of crime in your community.

The number of prisoners confined in your county jail during the past year, why they were there, and what it cost to keep them.

The meaning of "fitting punishment to the criminal rather than to the crime."

The treatment of prisoners in your state penitentiary.

The method of dealing with juvenile offenders in your community.

The meaning of "probation"; of "parole"; of an "indeterminate sentence."

The extent of juvenile delinquency in your community; its causes.

The use of convict labor outside of prisons.

READINGS

Reports of county and town authorities.

Reports of state board of charities and of administrative boards of state inst.i.tutions.

Publications of the Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor.

Send for list from which to select. Two valuable publications of this Bureau are:

Bureau Publication No. 32, "Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York."

Bureau Publication. No. 60, "Standards of Child Welfare." This contains among other valuable material, discussions of child labor and legislation relating to it, of the care of dependent and defective children, and of juvenile delinquency.

In Lessons in Community and National Life:

Series A: Lesson 5, The human resources of a community.

Lesson 28, The worker in our society.

Series C: Lesson 8, Preventing waste of human beings.

Lesson 20, The family and social control.

Lesson 30, Social insurance.

The following are a few good books relating to the topics of this chapter:

Burch, H. R, and Patterson, S. H., American Social Problems, chaps, xvi-xx (Macmillan).

Henderson, C. R., Dependents, Defectives, and Delinquents.

Warner, A. G., American Charities.

Devine, E. T., Principles of Relief.

Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House, and The House on Henry Street.

Ellwood, C. A., Sociology and Modern Social Problems.

CHAPTER XXIII

TEAM WORK IN TAXATION

THE DISLIKE OF THE PEOPLE FOR TAXATION

People have never liked to pay taxes. Their repugnance to it is largely a survival of the times when an autocratic ruling cla.s.s imposed taxes upon the people for its own selfish purposes.

Struggling for the bare necessities of life, the people had to pay the bills of the ruling cla.s.s who lived in luxury. The long struggle for liberty in England and in the English colonies was a struggle against the power of rulers to impose taxes without the consent of the people. The habit of mind with respect to taxation formed under such conditions has to a considerable extent persisted into the present, when conditions are very different.

WHAT TAXATION MEANS IN A DEMOCRACY

The change to government "of the people, by the people, for the people" should put the paying of taxes in a very different light.

We decide upon a service we want performed for us, we provide the governing machinery to perform the service, and the service must be paid for. We do not object to paying for having our house built, our food provided, our clothes made, and our goods hauled.

Why should we object to paying for the service of schools, roads, protection of health and property, the defense of our liberties?

THE RETURNS FROM TAXATION

Such objection seems especially unreasonable when we consider that the value of the service rendered by government is, as a rule, far in excess of what it costs the individual citizen. In Chapter XVII we saw that a Virginia farmer, the value of whose farm was a.s.sessed at $3000, was taxed $19.48 for road improvements. In return for this he acquired the use of a system of roads throughout the county that cost at least $173,000. This local system connected him with the transportation system of the entire country, gave him a market for his produce, greatly increased the value of his land, brought better school facilities, and enriched his life in many ways.