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What are we going to do with criminals?

We have to punish people who violate the law so that the punishment may serve as a crime deterrent. But what happens to these people after they have been punished?

What are we going to do with our prisons? Are we going to maintain them as crime factories which manufacture criminals, or are we going to develop them in such a manner that we turn law violators into useful citizens?

More depends upon the answers to these questions than we realize.

After a law violator has been confined and released, what he does after his release depends to a large extent on what society has done to him while he has been incarcerated.

If society wants to use punishment as a means of “getting even” with the criminal, the criminal is pretty apt to want to get even with society after he is released.

There aren’t any easy answers, but under the guidance of James V. Bennett, Director of the Bureau of Prisons, the Federal prisons are making enormous strides.

For the past few years I have been in touch with Preston G. Smith, the warden of the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island, San Pedro, California. I have from time to time talked with him about some of the problems of penology and he so aptly expressed his attitude in a recent letter to me that I have asked permission to quote the following paragraphs:

I fully realize that our basic responsibility to the public and to the people committed to our care is to see that they are safely detained for the period of time prescribed by the courts. But a much more serious responsibility, in my opinion, is to help these people do something for themselves during the period of their confinement which will enable them upon release to become law-abiding and respected members of free society.

We do not claim to rehabilitate anyone. The best we can hope to do is to provide the necessary tools, encouragement and guidance to our wards to help themselves. The extent to which they avail themselves of the opportunities offered is strictly a personal matter. Each man, or woman, writes his or her own ticket. We can only cross our fingers and hope for the best.

You are, of course, familiar with what I mean by “necessary tools.” We first try to teach fundamentals — personal grooming, clean speech, the importance of keeping their quarters and work areas clean, the satisfaction to be derived from an honest day’s labor, etc. Then we go on to vocational and academic training, religious instruction, individual and group counseling, special activities such as AA, Dale Carnegie, etc. These are some of the opportunities our “clients” have at their disposal. The extent to which they take advantage of them, as previously mentioned, is a matter for their own decision. Fortunately, an encouraging percentage make their time serve them and do leave the confines of prison much better equipped to assume the roles of respected members of society.

It has been my very good fortune to have been closely associated with Mr. Bennett, your good friend and our able Director, during a good part of my prison service career. Mr. Bennett’s outstanding leadership and dedication to improving the lot of this unfortunate segment of our society have been a source of real inspiration to all of us who have had the opportunity to know him and to function as members of his team. We look forward with considerable apprehension to the day when he will elect to exercise his rights to a well-earned retirement. His departure will create a void which it will be most difficult to fill.

I think the above quotation comes as near to covering the situation as anything I have seen in a long time. Prisoners are human beings. You can’t simply isolate them from society and then expect them to pick up their lives where they left off. A human being can’t be turned on and off like an electric light or a water faucet.

The idea of a vindictive punishment is just about the worst thing that society could dream up. It may give certain individuals a brief period of sadistic satisfaction. It should be remembered, however, that the big bulk of prison inmates really want to go straight on their release. And, strangely enough, very few of them know what actually brought about the mental attitude which caused them to become law violators in the first place.

The average prison inmate didn’t want to become a criminal any more than the drinker wants to become a drunkard.

It is high time society recognizes this fact and does something about it.

Trying to help prison inmates rehabilitate themselves and giving them the tools with which to work isn’t a matter of coddling criminals; it’s protecting society.

And so I dedicate this book to my friend:

Preston G. Smith, Warden at The Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island, California.

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER