Parole involves discretion and supervision. It necessitates officers who shall be properly trained and who shall be free from political influences. It necessitates men of judgment and intelligence. It necessitates a force sufficient in number to cover the field. It necessitates time and opportunity for study and investigation. It necessitates the proper administration of our penitentiaries and reformatories. It necessitates the intelligent cooperation of the police after the prisoner has been released. It involves adequate appropriation. It involves honesty.

THE PROBLEM OF PAROLE NOT YET SOLVED IN ILLINOIS

Nowhere in America have we as yet provided all of the requisites and made a really efficient administration possible. "The interested public," says Miss Jane Addams, "has assumed that all is well because a good law has been passed and put into operation and no one pays any further attention to it." In many instances we have had honesty, but in practically none have we had an adequate force, adequate appropriation, and sufficient freedom from political control. Since the last session of the Legislature we have gone farther in Illinois than, perhaps, in any other state. We have, at any rate, made larger appropriations which have made it possible for the employment of a larger and more intelligent force. We have not, however, divorced the system from the influence of politics and the danger of political control. Before us is a magnificent opportunity. We have laid the foundations and we should make them sure.

On being asked what she thought of the experiment of prohibition in America, a distinguished English woman recently answered that she did not know because as far as she had been able to learn, the system had never been satisfactorily administered or tried, and the same thing is true of the parole system in America.

With the one exception of Illinois, the legislative appropriations have been ridiculously small and the number of employes provided for have been entirely inadequate. The last session of the Illinois legislature was generous, but it failed to save the system from the handicap of politics.

CHAPTER XVI

POLITICS AND THE SYSTEM OF PROBATION

AND PAROLES

The Act of July 6, 1927, accompanied as it was by a large ap propriation, was a land mark in American jurisprudence and has given much hope for success in the future. However, it still left the system radically defective. It did not go far enough in providing for the new Board. It did not provide for a rotation in office which could guarantee it against political domination. It imposed limitations on the activities and freedom of the Board which can find no justification in public expediency. It greatly improved the old system by the creation of a new and practically independent Board of Paroles. It was radically wrong, however, in limiting the activities of the Board to the granting and refusing of paroles, and in denying to it as an independent body the supervision of the paroled man after he had been released from the penitentiary and the parole had been granted.

It is true that the Chairman of the Board of Paroles is also the Supervisor of Paroles and as such is entrusted with the supervision of the parole officers and of the parole convicts. He has, however, no power either to appoint or to discharge these officers and employes save, and in so far as, the Governor and the Department of Public Welfare may consent.

It is indeed quite clear that the Board of Paroles should have exclusive charge, not only of the act of paroling, but of the management and training of the parolee. The success of any parole system depends entirely upon the wisdom and justice and intelligence that is shown, not only in the granting or refusing of the parole, but in the care of the convicts after they have been released from the penitentiary. The parole officer is one of the most important units in the system. He should not be the political agent or political appointee of any Governor or of any political board.

The subordinate parole officers, therefore, who are entrusted with the duty of watching and protecting the paroled prisoner, should be responsible to the Parole Board and the Parole Board alone, and the Parole Board itself should as far as possible be nonpolitical.

If these parole officers and investigators are appointed by the Governor or any political organization or department, and if their office is considered a reward for political services, not only will they be half efficient, not only will they at all times be liable to corrup

tion, but three-fourths of their time will be spent in obtaining votes for their chief or for the members of their political organization rather than in watching over and caring for the parolee. Even, as is now perhaps often the case, the parolee himself is led to believe that it is his duty to aid the political fortunes of his custodian and of his benefactor, and to do what he can to obtain votes from his associates, and often in the underworld, for these persons.

We have not, indeed, to go far afield to find illustrations of these influences. It is a matter of common knowledge that the game wardens of many of our states have been merely political agents and have been counted upon to elect governors and even United States senators. These men, however, have been entrusted by the law merely with the protection and care of wild animals, while the parole officers are entrusted with the protection of society and the care and custody of the lives and fortunes of American citizens.

The Board of Paroles, in short, should as far as possible be removed from politics and should be as independent as the faculties of our state universities. It should have entrusted to it, not merely the duty of passing upon and granting or refusing the parole, but of the supervision of the convict while on parole. To it should be entrusted the control and appointment of its own servants and employes. It should have the power of discharging a dishonest or incompetent parole officer without the necessity of asking permission of any other political body or of any other political officer.

POLITICAL OFFICERS GENERALLY

What is true of our subordinate parole officers and agents is true of all others who are connected with the system, and if we are to have a system of probation and parole which shall be effective and properly administered, it is absolutely essential that not only these parole officers, but the wardens and guards of our penitentiaries and prisons, the members of our Pardoning and Parole Board, and even our judges themselves, be, as far as possible, removed from politics.

If, in the past, our probation and parole systems have been wrongfully used by our courts (and although there has been, no doubt, much exaggeration and much unjust criticism in this respect, there can be no doubt that in many instances they have been wrongfully used), the fact is clearly traceable to our political system and to the fact that in the past and especially in our great cities our judges have been but political footballs, and their tenure of office, to a large extent, has been dependent on the vote of the underworld. They may have had a seeming independence; they may not themselves have directly appealed to that underworld for support, but they have only too often been at the mercy of the politicians and ticket makers who in only too many instances are

political factors merely and solely on account of the fact that they can control that vote.

THE DANGER OF POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS

If the members of our Parole Board are appointed for political reasons and personal services, they will be considered merely as cogs in a great political machine, and the temptation to listen to political arguments will always be present. We do not say that in the past these arguments have been generally listened to or that they have been listened to in any particular case. We do know, however, that they have been made. We have even found them

in writing and in at least one parole record a letter to the Board from a member of the Legislature to the effect that he, the writer, was himself a candidate for office; that the primary or other elections were near at hand; that the friends of the prisoner for whom he was interceding were numerous and represented a dominant national group, that they frequently called upon him and had been led to believe that he was their friend and was all powerful; that he had to have the votes of these people on election day; that if the Board would see fit to grant the application, it would not only be an act of mercy, but would materially help the writer in the coming election, and ́in doing so, would further the cause of the dominant political factions.1

If these statements can be found in writing, how much oftener have they been made orally,' and we must remember that not merely does political pressure often tend toward the improper granting of a parole or the improper granting of probation, but toward their improper refusal. Though, for instance, a bankers' association, a surety companies' association, or any other of the organizations which so often protest against the granting of probation and paroles, seldom raise the political question or make political threats, the influence in politics of these organizations is apparent, and no candidate for political office desires to incur their hostility or opposition.

POLITICS AND OUR PENITENTIARIES

We have before referred to the subordinate parole officers, and what we have said concerning them equally applies to the wardens and officers of our penitentiaries and to our prison guards. If a system of paroles is to be effective, every effort should be made to reform the prisoner and he should be treated with the greatest in

1 It is only fair to the Board, however, to state that in this case no leniency was afforded.

2 This constant pressure upon the political candidate to use his influence in obtaining pardons, probation, and paroles is everywhere apparent, especially among the newer immigrants in the City of Chicago where there is a belief that such solicitation is justifiable. Many of them, indeed, have come from sections of the old world where the only means of obtaining justice is an appeal to and often a purchase of official influence,

telligence, although, of course, there is and should be an element of punishment in all prison sentences, with humanity. Prisons, in short, should be looked upon, not merely as places of punishment, but as educational institutions, and as much care should be taken in the selection of a warden and in the selection of the inferior officers and of the prison guards as is shown in the selection of the principals and teachers of our public schools and of the president and faculties of our state universities.

We are dealing with actualities and not with theories for, with rare exceptions and even with the greatest severity of punishment, the term of imprisonment will sooner or later come to an end and the prisoner will be returned to mingle with the common citizenship. This will be the fact even though no parole is granted or applied for, and if an application for parole is made, much must depend upon his behavior in prison and upon the influence which prison discipline has had upon him. The warden and the guards alone can properly administer that discipline and properly report upon that behavior. The warden and the guards alone can influence that behavior. They must not merely be policemen, therefore, but they must be leaders and teachers. Their estimates of the prisoners must be intelligent and fair and they must themselves be sufficiently intelligent to make those estimates.

As Dr. F. H. Wines in his book on Punishment and Reformation has aptly said:

"The work of uplifting the degraded is one which calls for the highest qualities of soul and of brain. It is a work which it would not have shamed Phillips Brooks to have undertaken at Charlestown or Concord; and until we have the best men in this position, we cannot look for the best results. Where the personal fate of a thousand or fifteen hundred men depends upon the application to duty, the insight, the moral honesty, of another man clothed with almost despotic power, it will not answer to give that power into the possession of one who does not understand his responsibilities or who is unequal to them. But, if he possesses the requisite characteristics, no imaginable force will add so much to his power for good as the right to fix the date of graduation of his pupils."

In a report submitted to the National Crime Commission on Pardons, Parole, Probation, Penal Laws, and Institutional Correction (1927) by Louis N. Robinson, we find the following:

"The fact that imprisonment can and should be made a more effective discipline is provoking an unusual and widespread discussion of prison personnel. In England, it has been customary to appoint as wardens, or governors as they are called in that country, army or navy officers who know something of the knack of handling men in groups. Wardens of this type have succeeded in maintaining good discipline and are for the most part successful and honest administrators. It is, however, pretty much agreed now by everybody that the present notion that imprisonment can be used for alteration of character demands wardens of another cast of mind, men not so much interested in maintaining discipline as in developing the best side of each individual prisoner. In Germany, warden after warden has said to me that he could not make the term of imprisonment what the people of the country now wished it to be unless he was given guards and other assistants of greater intellectual capacity who could understand something more than locking and unlocking cell doors. One warden said: 'I provide lectures for the prison staff but most of it, I fear, goes over their heads.'. High officials in the government are perfectly aware of the situation, but insist that higher salaries will have to be paid in order to attract men of more ability and that can not be