CHINTZ CURTAINS

Governor Ely's investigation of Massachusetts' penal institutions brings again to public view the problem of what is to be done with those who break laws. It is interesting to note that the investigation is warranted in large part by two allegations diametrically opposed in spirit. One charge is that women in Sherborn are made to shovel coal, the other, that men married during their terms are allowed honeymoons from the prison. That is to say, objections are made on the one hand that the system is too cruel, on the other, too kind. It would seem from other reports that neither of the allegations is true, but the problem still remains.

Of late years, a considerable body of opinion has maintained that the prisoner ought to be cared for as a person merely maladjusted. And ideally that may be so, especially in the case of the petty criminal and the extremely youthful one. But a reasonable man is often led to wonder why a man who has made himself repeatedly dangerous to society should be treated with such consideration. Does painless penalism pay as large returns as the idealists would like us to believe? Anyone reading in the newspapers of football games in which notorious gangsters and murderers play of sunny autumn afternoons, may well be led to wonder. Of course, if there is a chance that the law-breaker will reform, once shown the error of his ways, the state ought spare nothing to show them to him. But in a country where a large portion of crime is committed by mental defectives, repeaters, and good business men like the famous Al Capone, there seems to be much unwarranted popular sentimentalism over the man who deserves another chance. Certainly not all of our prison inmates ought to be so treated. American penalism knows the extremes of the Florida sweat-box and the steam-heated cosy little chintz-curtained cells of our more modern institutions. The ideal probably is somewhere in between, with more consideration given to the casual, petty, or youthful wrongdoer, and much less to the case-hardened tough-and-proud-of-it thug and gunman.