Evening Star Newspaper, March 6, 1932, Page 74

2 crime fell heavily during the war and Is now below the pre-war level. But juve- nile crime doubled in the war period, and has been rising ever Ssince. The number of under-sixteens found guilty of indictable offenses shows the biggest increase of any of the age groups. It is 46 per cent above the pre-war figure. The 16-to-21 age group comes next, with an 18 per cent increase. The young criminals of 21 to 30 are responsible for the bulk of the crimes of adventurousness and lawlessness (the older crooks don’t like the risks). They were aged, in 1915, from 4 to 13. With- out doubt they are the residuum of the thousands of juvenile offenders who in the war period ran wild and carried Jjuvenile crime to its peak. Police and prison authorities are not worried so much about the mature, brutalized and dangerous criminal, the bulk of whom they have herded in the prisons (the creme de la creme is at Dartmoor) as about this rising tide of crime among the young. Reforming the young criminal is, indeed, the major problem now occupying their energies. A measure backed by seven cabinet ministers is now before Parliament. It will proyably pass into law and exercise a far-reaching effect upon crime in Eng- land in the future. Among other things, it prohibits juvenile courts being held in police courts or stations, provides for a panel of justices especially selected for their qualifications for dealing with juve- nile cases, abolishes the power of courts to punish children by whipping, gives a parent or guardian the right to elect that a child shall get a jury trial, raises the death sentence age from 16 to 18, switches children under 10 from indus- trial schools to foster parents and allows a court to commit to a “fit person” in- stead of to a home a child or young per- son requiring care or protection. THE juvenile prisons are the only ones that are overcrowded. There were three Borstal institutions up to 1930, but the pressure on them caused the authori- ties to acquire an estate of 340 acres in the Midlands and build a new institu- tion there. They put the boys on the job of building their own prison. The boys seemed to like it. The Borstal gov- ernors picked a number from each of the three institutions and marched them under the charge of their officers to the site of the new institution. It was a march of 10 days. There were no hand- cuffs and no locked doors. Discipline was reported good, and the whole ex- periment was pronounced a great success, In the prisons for more hardened crim- inals, statistics and reports indicate that the inmates are better behaved than they were. But a qualification is necessary. Prisoners are no longer herded together, the wolves with the goats and the sane with the mentally defective. Classifica- tion is the order of the day now. It makes a difference. Formerly weak-minded prisoners were treated as ordinary criminals. They col- lected a gratuity when they came out, spent it in a few days of riotous living, and reverted again to crime, and to prison. Modern methods have ended this state of affairs. The medical officers look at every convicted individual with an eye to spotting insanity or mental deficiency, and no subman, in the mental sense, gets through that net. On release, if he has no responsible friends, he is sent to an institution. Various experiments have been tried in recent years with the object of pro- moting a better spirit among convicts, certain prisons being picked out for tests. The system, for instance, of paying pris- oners has always made difficulties. Con- victs used to be paid gratuities for marks earned for industty and good conduct. Then it was thought that the system for earning remission of sentence provided enough inducement for industry and good conduct, and direct pay was abol- ished. The prison officials soon found trouble getting their work parties to do more than enough to avoid being reported to the governor for idleness. Without regu- lar incentive to work, convict parties set- tled down to toil at the pace of the slow- est members. But this did not matter a great deal, either to the governor or the guards. Why, then, the urge by reformers and prison commissioners to find some means of overcoming the go-slow movements in the prisons? They felt that the whole prison system was on a wrong basis if the men left prison with an impaired moral fiber, lazy, hardened, with something gone out of them. The best and simplest 1932, THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 6, An unusual prison picture, taken at Dartmoor. The priso ners are working, under the eye of a guard, in a flower garden. Photograph taken before the recent riot in the prison. method of rescuing them was to stimu- late a healthy pride in energetic work. Two years ago, therefore, the authori- ties started to experiment in a prison where there were a large number of spe- cial class prisoners between 21 and 26 years of age. These convicts were young men who had definitely started on crimi- nal careers, but had not yet become in- ured to prison conditions. The officials found them among the most insubordi- nate class of convicts, only a degree less difficult to handle than brutalized “reg- ulars.” IN this prison they had a mat-making shop. The normal output of this shop had been a little under 500 units a week. The warden, after prolonged investiga- tion, fixed a basic weekly output at 600 units. He announced that work in excess of this basic 600 figure would be paid for at the rate of 2 cents a unit. Within six weeks the output reached 836 units. The normal output now fluctuates between 700 and 800 units. The difficulties inherent in the varying capacity of the convict, occupational, mental or physical, are ironed out by making payment on a party basis, the sum earned by the shop being divided equally among all the workers. The amount divided every week averages 18 cents for each individual. The prisoners can spend this on cigarettes and other small luxuries. Into this mat shop prisoners from the special class—who had been in working parties receiving no payment—were drafted. They knew that if they mis- behaved or did not work satisfactorily they woud go back to unpaid work. Few went back. And there was a remarkable improvement in the behavior of these hitherto refractory young prisoners. Without any tightening of discipline, they were much less inclined to insubor- t:iisnation. Their spirits showed a marked e The prison commissions®s were so struck with the result that 3hey have been trying ever since to apply the sys- tem to other types of prison work—farm- ing, gardening, repairs, maintenance, kitchen work and the rest. But outside of the factory type of work, measurement presents a problem. The old regime of the broad arrow, cropped halr, cannon-ball, stone-break- ing and treadmill has gone—even at Dartmoor. The cells are centrally heated. Convicts sleep on mattresses, with four blankets, two sheets and a rug to keep them warm. Carpenters, quarry workers, stone dressers and blacksmiths, working about as hard as the average husky navvy, get an Al diet, and after work take their supper of tea, bread, jam and cheese (the jam is their extra) into their cells to eat. Ordinary prisoners are locked in their cells at 5 p.m. Privileged convicts amuse themselves for a couple of hours longer. Good-conduct prisoners can smoke for an hour after midday dinner and an hour after work. Young prisoners do not get to Dart- moor. It is the end of the road of crime. A youngster falling into bad ways gets several chances—provided he steers clear of crimes of violence. First he gets the benefit of the first offenders’ act. Under that he often finds a job rustled for him which an honest youngster might not secure. If he falls again he is sent to Borstal institution, where he is trained and disciplined rather on military lines, except that he is made aware of the fact that he is in prison. He is released, trained and fitted for a craft, and welfare agencies and interested individuals oper- ate to help fit him into the economic system and keep him straight. Should he go wrong again, this time he is sent to Wakefield prison, reserved for of- fenders sentenced to not more than 18 months, the aim being to have another try at reformation. Next time he com- mits a crime he probably gets hard labor. He emerges, falls into crime again, and this time qualifies for penal servitude. Usually he joins the ranks of the reci- divists after this and ends up, perhaps, in Dartmoor. NORMALLY there is not much oppor- tunity for ganging together for revolt in a British prison. Prisoners are kept pretty busy. They do not get much time to brood. But at Dartmoor lately there have been special causes for trouble. Dartmoor, with accommodation for 1,000 convicts, has only 400 in residence, all long-term convicts. Two hundred guards look after them by day, but after lights are out at night there are only eight or nine officers left on duty inside the prison. The convicts’ idea originally was to stage a break-out at night. This necessitated a master key to open the cells. One was being surreptitiously made in the carpenter shop, but an alert officer spotted the convict at work, and so the essential part of this plan failed. The shock troops of the revolt were the toughest criminals, known as “break- outs” and kept in special cells in one wing of the prison. They were going to release the other convicts, bear the brunt of the fighting, rush the arsenal where the guards kept their guns, cut the tele- phone wires, grab the governor, raid the officers’ quarters for clothes, open the gates and lead the getaway in cars either provided from outside or grabbed in the prison and the adjoining village of Provincetown. Actually, only two or three convicts were involved in the central scheme to break away with the assistance of a gang of their friends outside. Maybe 50 more were in the secret and figured on being able to grab cars on their own once they had overpowered the guards and were outside the gates. The rest, barring some good-conduct men, were simply dis- gruntled and ripe for any mischief their tougher fellows cared to lead them into. The general behavior in the prison in- dicates this. The police had to charge no more than 100. Where were the rest? One body was chiefly concerned to get out of the melee and lost no time in surrendering. The biggest body crashed the canteen and spent a happy ho with the whisky, beer, cigarettes and cake there. Only about a dozen made deter mined attempts to get away. Three things seemed chiefly to have " contributed to the general spirit of re volt. One was oatmeal. The convicts] had been complaining about it for days, throwing it back at the guards. They said it tasted sour, and they wanted more sugar in it. Then there was the change of the rule that no convict at Dartmoor was kept more than three months at one job. The convicts looked forward to the change of fellowship and occupation. When the rule was changed to one year at one job convicts found life monotonous. The closing of the hospital wards was another cause of complaint. That was an economy measure. Sick convicts were tended in theiw cells, and the men felt they were being deprived of their “rights.” Latterly the toughest criminals from other prisons had been sent to Dartmoor. That provided the revolt with a back- bone. These new men are now being separated from the gangs imto which they had coalesced and sent to other prisons, where they will hereafter be marked men. Of the general crime situation in Eng- land it may now be said that the past was bad, the present is promising, but unless the rush of juveniles into crime can be checked and young criminals re- claimed the outlook for the future is not S0 good. Home Waste Aids Plants WI'I'H Spring at hand, the average home= owner turns his thought toward his flow- ers and the questiom of fertilizers comes to the fore. The use of commercial and animal fer- tilizers is always attended by a fairly heavy expense which may deter many in properly feeding their plants, All the while this problem is before them, they may be throwing away valuable fertilizing materials, unconscious of their worth. Wood ashes, soot, feathers and similar substances usually carried away with trash and ashes are potential sources of supply of nitrogen and potash. In particular, for soils such as those common around Washington with their heavy clay content, carefully sifted coal ashes spaded into the soil will go far toward supplying the lighte ness sought through the use of animal fer- tilizers. The yard itself and the garbage pail are often overlocked, while containing valuable materials. Grass clippings, flower stems, refuse from the preparation of vegetables for the table and similar materials, if piled in a heap, or thrown in a pit in the ground and treated with lime will develop into excellent fertilizers after a time. The mass is kept wet, of course, in order to speed the breaking down of t.hé structure of the materials in order that the fertilizing matter may become more readily available. Coffee grounds and similar things du around the base of bushes and other shrub%ern; help to lighten the soil and at the same time supply food to the plants. These things are at present waste matter in most homes, but can readily be converted into useful food for the plants.