Evening Star Newspaper, March 9, 1930, Page 99

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 9, 1930.« 15 FORECASTING the Crook’s Future BY ELEANOR EARLY. ROOK'S Futures Forecast! Tou,m&mdfinvmmduh‘ Parole Board for release. And the board | “Prognostic Table” is a device for foreshowing the future, and it may revolutionize our crime penological system. UNDIR existing conditions, we have an arbi- money must be imprisoned for a specified length of time. No consideration is given to the fact that+he may either continue in criminality upon his release, or be reformed. He steals $101, and he goes to State prison for five years. His crime is neither greater nor smaller than if he had stolen $100, or less—for which he need not have served more than one year. Prescribed sentences are obviously un- scientific. “Science,” declare the Gluecks, “has about reached the point where it can predict human conduct. If applied to the problem of pardon and parole, science can almost unfailingly de- termine whether it is safe to release a convicted man. It is time to do away with guesswork on the part of judges and parole boards. And to ignore irrelevant argument of counsel paid to ‘get my client off.’” Judges today are compelled to follow blindly the dictates of a Legislature which has set down in advance the precise punishments to be im- posed for each offense. “For instance,” cite the Gluecks, “if a crimi- nal should hold up a man and rob him, and that man happened to have $100 on his person, the precise punishment is not more than one year in jail, or a fine not exceeding $300. But if the man should happen to have more than $100 on his person, then the criminal may go to prison for five years or pay a fine of $600, and g0 to jail, besides, for two years. That is an evident absurdity, since the erime is the same, whether the man has 50 cents, or $500, in his pocket. “To make the thing more absurd, the Legisla- ture says that if the man who is.robbed hap- pens to be in the express business, the criminal shall be punished, for the first offense, by im- After Three Years® Study of Five Hundred Criminal Careers a Harvard Scientist and His W ife Have Prepared a § tatistical Table Which Helps Analyze a Man With a Record and Can Estimate His Chance of Reforming. Dan was loquacious, admitted he would go back to crime as soon as released, told of a life spent in prisons all over the country. “If I had a son,” he said, “I'd wring his neck.” Table, the Gluecks spent three years ac- cumulating every possible fact in the life his- tories of 500 criminals. This study took every moment of their joint time, and cost $11,000. Dr Richard Cabot, intensely interested in their study, supplied the money through the Milton Fund of Harvard University. Having compiled innumerable statistics, the Gluecks proceeded to seek the whys and where- fores. They remembered what the immortal Thomas Paine said more than 100 years ago . . * . “When in countries that are called civilized, we see youth going to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of gov- ernment. - There lies hidden from the eye of common observation a mass of wretchedness that has scarcely any other chance than to expire in poverty and infamy. Until this is remedied, it is vain to punish. . . .” The Gluecks looked into the childhood history of the 500 criminals. They even examined the domestic affairs of their parents. They studied the conditions of environment. They applied all their knowledge of psychology and sociology. They investigated the economic responsibility of the criminals, their family relationships, in- dustrial habits and manner in which they spent their leisure. They investigated conduct from school days through the period in the reforma- - tory, and during parole. And, when they had accumulated their data, they evolved their prognostic table. “We worked it out,” they explained, “along the lines of the insurance company forecasts. If a middle-aged man, with a bad heart; goes to an, insurance company, and asks for a policy, their tors carr tell—on the basis of reference with hundreds of similar cases—that that man is not a good risk, apt to die within a com- paratively short time. Then the insurance company adjusts its business to his scale of probability. “If such a scheme had ever before been evolved, to determine the probable future of delinquents, there would not be all the horrible crime there is in America today. Such charts o« bhave prepared a series of prognostic - . tables and illustrative cases, indicating that it is possible to foretell pretty accurately how certain types of offenders will react to cer- tain forms of punishment. Judges have almost no knowledge now of the factors which may determine the future conduct of prisoners. It is not enough for judges to be versed in law alone.” criminologists are usually middle-aged. But the Gluecks, whose work has attracted national interest, are an extraordinary couple—young and charming. Dr. Glueck is a professor at Harvard Law School, and in charge of an im- portant section of Harvard’s Crime Survey. His first book, “Mental Disorder and Criminal Law,” is the standard treatise om the subject. Mrs. Glueck is a research worker with the sur- vey, author of “The Community Use- of Schools.” They are both so learned that it seems .as though Dr. Glueck should have a white beard and walk with an aged stoop. Mrs. Glueck should wear glasses, and seem forbidding. But the eminent doctor looks rather like an under- graduate, and his wife is beguilingly girlish. These deceptive appearances have not prevented their doing most useful work. Before compiling their interesting prognostic table, the Gluecks made the astounding discov- ery that &C per cent of the men who are sent to reformatories are not reformed, but go on committing crimes after their discharge. EVEBY year penal officials, publishing their annual reports, announce, erroneously, that four-fifths of reformatory inmates are reformed. And the public, according to the Gluecks, is lulled into a comfortable conviction that re- formatories are beneficent institutions, and change delinquents into good citizens. As a matter of fact, almost 2,000 officially known crimes were committed in five years by the supposedly “reformed” ex-inmates, whose lives, on post-parole, were investigated by the professor and his wife. The Gluecks worked day and night to locate their men. They wrote 5,000 letters and visited hundreds of families. They even sent finger prints abroad, and received information from as far as Greece and Italy. They combed the Army and the Navy and prisons everywifere. For five years the men had drifted about, with- out supervision, moving from small towns to cities,’ riding the rails from: coast to coast. Many of them had changed sheir names. ' But, after three years ‘of exhaustive nearch, more than 90 per cent were located.’ The Gluecks had Dr. Eleanor Glueck . .. “If such a scheme had ever before been evolved there would not be all the horrible crime there is in America today.” filled gaps in criminal histories left incomplete by the best ploice departments in the world. Then, from the lips of its own alumni, they learned the true story of the reformatory. “500 Criminal Careers” (Alfred A. Knopf, pub- lisher,) contains the record of their work. FOB example, first, there was “Hard-bofled Dan.” Dan is just naturally a menace to society. He is in a reformatory now, but will unburdened himself thus: “Up to 15 or 16,” he said, “I was about like other kids. T liked athletics, I read books fromi™ the library, kept good hours, and all that. My parents took me out of school and put me to - work, and took all of my wages excepts 50 cen! a week. I worked for about a year. Then began going with a girl, and she liked a You can't give a girl a good time these 50 cents a week. The old man wouldn't me any more. I was sore, and had it on mind: How could I make more money? day along came a fellow I got acquainted He was a ‘right guy.’ We put through of jobs and got away with it, and I have it ever since.” Dan was first arrested, the judge sent industrial school. Follo i385 8 e ;5: £ F P g% £ : g i ; i ) i £ 4 TF T 4 g% ? i i j 5 : : 4 ! g £ H b 1 L I T ihigd Ty d g& é i 5 i i ;! 1 4 ! » 1 f1z s;s g <Fia] EEE 4 him— nor a single institution to have improved his ° condition.” (Copyright, 1990.) e Fine Calico Printing. 'ALICO was first produced in Calicut, India, . from which it derives its name. Since its - origin it has grown to cover a great variety of cloth made from cotton, but mot sufficiently ° fine to be called muslin. Calico printing, how- ever, is not limited to cotton cloth, but .has come to include the colored printing of wool, - silk, worsted and linen. The printing of cloth was known in Egypt in the first century, and pmmodamlnl:‘ ustry has made great strides, substituting copper rollers, from which several colors may be printed - simultaneously, for the old-fashioned, laborious primting by hand with wooden-block designs. In the United - States more than 1,000,000 bales of eotton are used amnually in producimg :