Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 238, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1914 — ANOTHER CHANCE TO MAKE GOOD. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER CHANCE TO MAKE GOOD.

IN the state of New Jersey CoL Edward A. Stevens, commissioner of public works, is trying an experiment a convict camp, which hasn’t even ia fence around it. Thirty prisoners were sent there from the over-crowded Trenton prison, to work cm the highways; and the idea is not only to improve the roads but to improve the prisoners and to help solve the prison problem. - The workers have named it the “Don’t Worry Club,” while it Is known officially as State Camp No. 1. The word "convict” and the idea of prisoners are eliminated everywhere. There are no cells, and although there are several guards, they mingle with the men in friendly intercourse. When their day’s labor is finished they enjoy baseball, music or any other healthful amusement The men are selected on merit from the state prison, and there are hundreds of inmates of Trenton who want ■ -Jh * ■ - .

to be transferred to “Don't Worry Camp.” Opportunity t- go to a reward for good conduct In time, it is believed, the camp wflj not only be self-governed, but also self-supporting, and the men's labor can be paid for without cost to the state. The success of this experiment will not only mean a revolution in penology, but be a cause for rejoicing to the taxpayer. Every human being who goes wrong should have a chance to redeem himself, to try again, and he ought to have an opportunity that Is favorable. He ought not to be put In an environment where everything around him suggests the crooked, the wicked, where everything tends to arouse the brute in him to develop the evil thing in him, the love of revenge, bitterness, hatred and to kill the good. He ought to be in an environment which would help him to forget the bad, which would only suggest the good, the pure, the clean, which would suggest his divinely, not his beastly, propensities, and which would hold out hope of another chance—a chance to make good. The brutal instinct lingering In man has been graphically Illustrated in our cruel, inhuman treatment of prisoners, and In our barbaric slaughter of human beings, upon whom the death penalty has been pronounced. Justice does not demand such an exhibition of horrors. There must be some more human way of treating our erring brothers. How can we expect a criminal to get back the self respect which he has lost, by cruel treatment, by halt starving him, treating him like an animal Instead of like a man, putting him In an iron cage away from God's light and air? There is good material, ability enough, energy, resources enough to these people we thus deprive of liberty and life, to perform great services to humanity as well as to themselves and their families. What right have we to deprive them at least of a chance to make good? How often the crime we commit against our prisoners to far greater than their crime to society! If we wish to reform prisoners wo should try to make them self respecting, healthy beings. Their environment should be as attractive and as normal as possible. Reform means healthful, normal conditions. The mind Is in no state to Improve or reform when suffering from mental depression due to the vicious, criminal suggestive environment, where everything reminds the prisoner of his fall, or his inferiority, and everything about him tends to Impress upon him the fact that he Is not a human being, but an outcast. We have all felt the restful, restoring, renewing power of beautiful scenery, of country life. Why should we deprive a prisoner of these helps to health and normality? Nature to a great restorative, and criminals should be kept where they can get the full benefit of the sunlight, air and country life, in an environment which would suggest only the good and true, filled with possibilities of recovering lost manhood and starting fresh.