I am always glad to be home. It is a particular pleasure when the occasion as tonight, marks the launching of yet another cooperative effort of New Jersey citizens to deal with a problem of major proportions. This State has been fortunate in enlisting citizen aid for worthy projects. I doubt that many other States can boast of more official Boards and Commissions which are served by citizens who, more often than not, get no pay. Without that help the missions of many of our agencies and special services would have hard sledding.
But general citizen interest in the problem of correction has been slow in developing. I surmise that most people have thought that the time they may spare for voluntary aid might better be applied to alleviating the lot of the ill, the poor, the mentally afflicted, unwanted or mistreated children. Harry Elmer Barnes has observed "not one citizen in a thousand ever passes by a state or federal prison in his lifetime, and very few of those who do see an institution in this external and superficial manner have any clear idea of what goes on inside. Not one person in ten thousand ever visits a prison or has any conception of what life in a prison is actually like in its impact of the psyche of the convict." The law breaker has not been an appealing object of sympathy or concern. It was not unnatural to feel that the criminal deserved his punishment and that his care and custody could be left to the professionals who make that task their career. But I think tonight marks a significant break-through for correction.
Whatever qualifications I have for participation in this initial meeting of the Morrow Association on Correction stem. I suppose, from the fact that the petitions, motions and appeals of prisoners constitute a considerable portion of a Judge's responsibilities. They get us away from the Ivory Tower in which we are suppose to live and keep us alert to the hard realities of life. Hundreds of letters and petitions, some almost undecipherable, some excellent legal documents, but many more pathetic and heart-rendering must be considered by each member of our Court. Occasionally we can do something to help or remedy the prisoner's grievance but more often we can only hope that somewhere a thoughtful land humane person or a community agency will come to his aid.
It is, therefore, a source of comfort and encouragement to see so many of you present at this marriage of two groups dedicated to helping the unfortunate and the disadvantaged. It is a union which was virtually dictated by certain correctional realities in the State of New Jersey and was intended to meet a pressing social need. One party to this union, the Citizens Association on Correction, was originally formed to bring about public understanding and support for the needs of the state's correctional service: the institutions and the probation and parole systems. It did so in good measure, under the leadership of Governor-elect Hughes. Archie Alexander, Jane Barus and Eleanor Todd.
The other party of the union the Morrow Association was formed to give direct assistance to discharges prisoners. It too enjoyed a considerable measure of success under the leadership of such dedicated persons as Edmund Georke and Mrs. Geraldine Thompson in Monmouth County, Warren Turner in Morris County, and Judge Fulop and Mrs. Anita Quarles in Union Country.
But both groups, if they were thoroughly and conscientiously to do the tasks they have chosen for themselves could not help but venture into each other's area of interest. The work of one inevitable was influenced by the work of the other. Thus, we are here today to solemnize, so to speak the marriage of these two group was incomplete in itself, but together they form an amalgam whose strength is incomparable grater than that of two separate groups.
I think all of you are to be congratulated on this wedding organizations, minds, and skills. The foresight and intelligence that it took to bring about this union is tangible evidence of the high-minded study and effort that will be brought to bear on the correctional problems of New Jersey. This meeting tonight is the proof that however true in our State, no longer will we be without a state-wide organization of citizens having an enlightened citizen interest in the nature of the problems of correction and aware of the urgent necessity to bring about intelligent and viable solution. If it was true at all before tonight, no longer may it be said of our State that "we dump people whom we have decided to punish into human warehouses and forget about them", mo longer will it be true that "once we segregate them from normal society our interest in them has been more or less exhausted." And certainly New Jersey has its problems in this respect, problems which stimulated the organization of your two groups in the first place and problems which remain to challenge the ingenuity and resourcefulness of your newly-formed Association.
I've said that the law breaker has not had much appeal as a fellow in trouble deserving of help. The average citizen has had reason to be proud of the professionals who staff the Department of Institutions and Agencies and has been quite willing to leave the handling of the problem to them. I am sure, however, I speak for all such officials here tonight in saying, as Mr. Sol Rubin has said, that "those who are responsible for dealing with criminals and delinquent do not hesitate to acknowledge and have not interest in denying the shortcomings of their services."
Why should the average citizen be concerned about the lot of the law breaker? If the offender has been proved guilty of his crime, why not just let him serve out his term and go on his way? There are several answers to toes questions. Foremost is our boast that the supreme value of our American democracy is the value we give the dignity and worth of the individual. We recognize this value when we accuse the offender of the crime before we convict him. We insist that, however guilty, he shall not go to prison except upon indictment and conviction by a jury of his peers, and then only if the State can persuade the jury of his guild beyond a reasonable doubt. We will not allow his guild to be based upon a confession coerced from him, and we give him the shield of the privilege against self-incrimination so that he shall not be convicted out of his own mouth. We insist that his trial shall be fair and the decision be reached by an impartial jury. All of these safeguards stem from the firm conviction of a free society that these safeguards are essential to preserve simple human dignity. Let the Government of the courts deny any of these to even the most seemingly guilty and there is an immediate outraged cry from the public. And yet if, after a fair trial, he is found guild and goes to jail, too many citizens believe their responsibility is at an end.
It takes but a moment's reflection to know how wrong, indeed how cruel, it is not to recognize the trauma suffered by people who must go to prison. Psychologists agree that incarceration for anyone is an ego shattering experience. The stigma of being "jail bird" or "inmate" is extraordinarily damaging to one's sense of self-respect. True, as the Federal Director of Prisons, Mr. Bennett, reminds us: "Some of the men in prison are unquestionably the vicious, unregenerate enemies of society. But a much larger number are the physically and mentally handicapped. Some are social misfits, and there are some who look upon work as the white man's burden. Some are the disadvantaged of our teeming cities and our distress are as of the mountains, blighted railroad or mining towns, or the victims of alcohol, drugs and barbiturates."
The average citizens seem to have the impression that our jails are inhabited chiefly by thieves and our prisons by murderers, rapists, and kidnapers - and therefore they belong where they are. If his impression were correct, there might be some justification for his conclusion. But unfortunately he is wrong to begin with."
More than half the persons committed to our jails are drunks and vagrants. Two-thirds of all offenders who are sent to prison every year are convicted of such non-violent acquisitive crimes as burglary, larceny, forgery, and automobile theft. Less than ten percent have been convicted of homicide, rape or kidnapping. Robberies account for another ten percent and an assortment of miscellaneous crimes for the remainder."
And so, as is said in the 156 Report of the Federal Bureau of Prisons: "The true story of prison…lies in the tragedy and heartbreak they represent to the prisoner, the wasted years that can never be recaptured, and, to society, the loss of precious human resources and talent. Each year, the courts send thousands of people to prison. They come from all walks of life and are of all types. Some are professional, calculating criminals against whom must be marshaled the full force of society's organized authority; many are hostile, impulsive, and psychopathic individuals, who, for the safety of others, must be confined; but mostly, those who enter prison are confused, frustrated, and inadequate people caught in the web of some unfortunate circumstance, or pushed down the blind alley of criminality by some impulsive action. These need redirection, training, understanding, and guidance." Perhaps the point was best made by Sir Alexander Paterson, former British Commissioner of Prisons: "Finally, we will beware of the cynicism that paints every prisoner drab and never things of him in any other capacity. When a man steps into the dock, he is a husband and father, a worker and taxpayer, accustomed to take care of himself and others, not requiring and order at every turn and tow thousand rules to govern his daily conduct. They saying of a few words by a Judge does not transform him into an entirely different creature, who can never be trusted, who has no decent instinct or loyalty. If he is treated as a sensible and self-reliant man, he is likely to play such a part. Even when he has failed once or twice, there may well be some side of his nature to which appeal has not yet been made. The world owes much to those who failed and make a fresh start."
In other words the criminal population by and large does not differ from the rest of us. As one toastmaster who had never met and knew nothing about me, once said, "I've been asked to introduce the speaker of the evening. There are only two things I know about him. Once is that he has never been in the penitentiary, and the other is, I can't imagine why."
Now, of course, magnificent work is being done by the Department of Institutions and Agencies in the State institutions, and in probation and parole. I say magnificent work but, of course, this is within the limitations of the facilities we provide for the doing of the job. Regrettably, our State has not measured up to the devotion and ability of the professionals who shoulder the responsibility for correction. It is no secret that New Jersey has at Trenton one of the oldest and most inadequate state prisons in the nation. It is as old as the penitentiary system itself in this country, dating back to within a half dozen years of the signing of the Constitution of the United States. The very existence of the Trenton prison shows how slowly the total corrections effort of New Jersey has progressed. Some penologists have used strong language about this. In a recent article by the Director of the Bureau of the United States Prisons I saw our Trenton prison referred to as an institution "which has long shamed the consciences of professional penologists" and something which represented "an era of infamy in American penology." I have not idea how much, but I am quite sure the activities of the Citizens Association on Correction contributed measurably to the favorable vote at the last election approving the bond issue to provide the funds to replace the Trenton prison. And at the same time the election brings to the Governor's chair one of the Association's own.
The problem of prison labor in the state institutions is worthy of the Association's study and efforts. The limitation of the net worth of the State Use Industries unnecessarily handicaps the effort of prison administrators to give inmates needed occupational training and experience. Too many inmates are still assigned to "housekeeping" duties for lack of more meaningful work. A citizens' group such as the Morrow Association is ideally fitted to overcome the apprehensions of private industry and labor concerning possible competition from prison factories.
And now I come to a problem which I particularly want to bring to your attention tonight. I refer to our county jails. Each of our State's twenty-one counties has its own county jail and there are in addition six houses of correction or work houses. Each is largely independently administered in its own county and I am told that even statistics concerning the operations of many are difficulty to come by. Yet it is not the State institutions but the county jails which house the largest number of people who experience hail in this State each year. They aggregate population of the county jails in any year is something in the neighborhood of fifteen times the number confined in state adult penal institutions. Last year 39,183 persons passed through the county jails. The average confinement is very short, only a few weeks for those actually serving sentences. About 60% of the total are not people who have been found guilty but people accused of crime awaiting trial and for one reason or another are not able to secure release on bond pending trial. Those serving sentences have usually been convicted of some lesser crime not carrying a penalty beyond one year's imprisonment. The very fact that the average confinement is very short aggravates the problem of the county institution. Effective institutional rehabilitation programs are difficult under the circumstances. And here is why the county prison inmate is especially in need of the help that an organization such as this can provide. For make no mistake about it, any time spent in prison is tough medicine. To help the prisoner believe that he is or can be a socialized human being and is not a pariah, an outcast, is not coddling. It is not a mistake to hate the thing he has done; it is a mistake to hate him for doing it. For as Mr. Bennett has observed, "with the exception of the three or four, out of one hundred, who die in prison, the rest all come out some day. They come right back into the community, and it is to make this day filled with hope, not hate, that prison programs should point." "If they are a threat to the community, that threat is increased as their personal lives become disorganized: it is decreased to the extent that they can be helped to live successful lives as law abiding citizens." And to the extent such programs are non-existent in the county jail there is indeed an area in which this Association can fill a very great need. To the extend that prisoners lack any treatment at all in these institutions there is a repudiation of rehabilitation. "The important thing is that society should seek to aid the offender, not reject him. When we punish children, we tell them, 'I love you, but hate what you did.' Do you think that the society that sends a man to our average prison loves him, but hates what he did? That society says to him 'You're a failure as a human being - we are going to make you feel it.'"
If I may borrow again from Mr. Rubin: "It is also true, however, that some needs of the inmate can be satisfied only by an outside voluntary agency. Many inmates are seldom or never visited by friends or relatives, and therefore have no contact with individuals other than inmates or custodial personnel…Visits of friends or relatives or of the friendly voluntary agency worker, provides a new psychological experience to the inmate, It give him a feeling of dignity and individuality withheld by the institution and its personnel by virtue of the custodial relationship: it gives him contact with a person who can receive his requests without the compromise of a disciplinary responsibility to the institution: it permits him to express a variety of needs, some of which may be too minor to be worthy of attention by institutional staff, and yet for that very reason of special importance to the inmate: it supports him by means of a sympathetic attitude and service by a person or agency with whom the relationship of the prisoner can be more open than it can be with institutional personnel."
And the Association might want to inquire into ways and means of reducing the population of the county jails. To repeat, last year the turnover in our county jails involved nearly 40,000 persons. This is a considerable body of persons, enough to populate a small city, enough to man a major industry. The cost to society in lost productivity, in family assistance, in confinement, and in human misery are incalculable by virtue of their complexity. Both numbers of people involved, and their costs to society and to the State, represent a very formidably challenge to the Morrow Association.
Some way must be found to reduce both. New Jersey's jails, like those of every other state in the nation, are very largely dumping grounds. They hold the alcoholics, the mentally ill, the social misfits who somehow have not yet been introduced to programs designed to deal with their special problems. The jail, if it is intended for anything, is intended only for the detention and treatment of minor offenders. It cannot possibly meet the needs of those offenders who come into conflict with the law largely as a result of mental and physical ills. The Morrow Association must find some way of getting these sick persons out of the jails and into the specialized kinds of programs that are the province of other community and government agencies. The problems of corrections are difficult enough without foisting upon it the products of all our social ills.
There is an urgent need, too, to reduce the number of jail inmates through a more judicious and consistent use of probation. New Jersey was one of the first states to authorize the use of probation, with the enactment of a law in 1900, full 25 years, for example, before probation was authorized in federal courts. But New Jersey has failed since that time to maintain its leadership. The quality of probation varies from one court to another. In some courts, as in Newark, the quality of probation supervision is excellent; in others it amounts to scarcely more than the collection of fines. Some courts are well staffed with officers; some courts have only part-time probation officers. A few officers have caseloads of 50 or less, but more than half the State's probation officers have caseloads of 100, 200 or more.
Many other states have by this time centralized their systems of probation and have made this tool even more useful to their courts. Wisconsin is a notable example. But despite the fact that a recommendation of this kind has been repeatedly advanced in New Jersey Youth Commission, and the Supreme Court Committee on Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts among others - probation remains the neglected child of New Jersey's correctional services.
The Morrow Association would appear to be the ideal organization to press for this centralization, for probation was originally the creation not of lawyers and judges but of humanitarians. They developed the idea, persuaded the courts to use it, and gradually expanded its acceptance throughout the State and Nation. Eventually probation matured to a place of responsibility where its use became predicated on hard-headed considerations of economy, justice, and public protection.Yet, in New Jersey, probation still depends largely on the consciences and inclinations of individuals, to be imposed an carried out in a hit-or-miss fashion. It will remain so until the centralization of this service can invigorate it with standards - standards in the use of pre-sentence reports, standards in caseloads, standards in supervision, standards in imposition by the courts. Only then will it become less an impulsively merciful act and more truly a part of criminal jurisprudence in this State.
With a reduction in jail population through probation and through referrals to more appropriate agencies, the work of the Morrow Association with discharged prisoners can become more socially useful. One of the findings that seems to be emerging from the Ford Foundation study of federal prisoners is that although prison programs may not be what they could be, they have made far more progress than the communities have in developing resources and post-release assistance programs. The data so far shows that many men are released without much, if any, prospect of being accepted by their communities. No matter how badly they may want to become law-abiding citizens when they are released, the plain fact is that they often are given utterly no alternative buy to return to their former criminal subcultures and associations. Too often they can't get a job. Even welfare organizations have been known to turn them away. We have laws which protect people from discrimination in employment or other activities because of race, color or religion. No statue I know of, however, vouches protection against discrimination to persons with criminal records. They are peculiarly in need. For, "as a consequence of their experience of community rejection, former offenders add their own forms of psychological rejection, of themselves and the community. To succeed they need special help rather than special rejection."
"To the offender released or discharged to the community the prisoners' aid agencies offer help of several kinds - assistance in employment, finding or providing a place to live, minor financial assistance, and casework counseling. Parole released plans for federal and some state prisoners require a lay advisor, a volunteer who provides advice and supportive supervision, with varying specific assistance (job, finances, etc.). The prisoners' aid agencies frequently serve as parole advisors."There are myriad opportunities for your Association to ease the lot of the county jail inmate - to restore him to useful citizenship. Certainly you shall fail with some. But each success will pay enormous dividends - not alone in the self-satisfaction of helping restore the dignity of a fellow human being but in improving the quality of the society of which both you and he are an inseparable part.
The problems of New Jersey's correctional services are manifold, and I have touched upon only a few. Many of you in the audience, I am sure, are more fully acquainted with them, and their gravity, than I. Perhaps if the work of the Association can be summed up in a few words, it is that the Association serves as the public relations agent for the correctional services. The problems I have cited cannot be corrected without public support, and the Morrow Association, as an organization of private citizens, can interest the public in the jails and prisons of the State and in the people who are discharged form them daily.
Whatever it does, the Association will truly be laboring in behalf of human dignity. Andin the world in which we live, this effort takes on great significance. The human race itselfe is today threatened virtually with extinction, if by human recklessness the nuclear bomb is unleashed in warfare. Surely there is no greater indignity to be visited upon a creature than the indignity of extinction.
The dignity of man is therefore to be prized more today than every before. If we can elevate respect and regard for all our human fellows, perhaps we can avoid the folly of nuclear warfare. They Morrow Association can build up a sense of dignity in our ex-prisoners by providing them with tangible assurances that they can develop meaningful ties in the free community.
Simply stated, the Morrow Association, as are the New Jersey courts, and as I hope is the Supreme Court of the United States, is engaged in assuring the dignity, the worth and value of the individual. To the extent that we, you, and others similarly engaged succeed, to that extent we succeed in preserving our own dignity, and perhaps our own survival. |
