Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1914 — Prison Reform Praised. [ARTICLE]

Prison Reform Praised.

Law Notes makes this comment on the recent prison reform in the state of Washington by which the inmates of the penal Institutions are allowed a small daily wage for their labor, which is paid to their families: “Aside from the humaneness of this practice, it has its value in the administration of the criminal law, for no one will venture to dispute that many criminals who should be 4n prison are at large because juries, out of regard for the suffering of their families, have refused to convict, or judges after conviction have suspended sentence, or imposed a light sentence, out of regard for the same fact. Of course with such a system in force the reason for such unwarranted (from a legal view) leniency is removed, and the criminal receives his just punishment regardless of family connections. And certainly if the state can make money out of the labor of its coqvicts, there is no good reason why it should pocket the gains, leaving the family of the criminal, in no way responsible for his misdeed, to bear the real ’punishment for his crime.”