Van Waters Protests Limit On Rehabilitation Program

Dr. Miriam Van Waters, superintendent of the Women's Reformatory at Framingham, said last week that rehabilitation work had been "disrupted seriously" by the 70-year-old law governing work of women outside the institution.

Dr. Van Waters told a special legislative commission studying penal laws the present law limits outside jobs to domestic work only.

No New York

She said there have been no new contracts for outside day work since last March when the Attorney General's office ruled illegal any contracts for other than strictly domestic work.

Dr. Van Waters said the ban has interfered with the institution's mother-and-child program and "it is bad for the adolescent girls under 21, of whom there are 80 in the institution."

"There chances for rehabilitation would be better if they were not released so suddenly," she declared. "There is too sudden a break with the discipline of the institution. It would be better if they were out working one day a week."

Girls Not Criminals

The noted penologist told the commission most of the inmates at the reformatory were serving terms for minor offenses. Younger girls, she said, are troublesome and unstable, but not criminals. "They may not be good as prison material, but in school or at home or studying something they do very well," she added.

In urging support of proposed legislation which would set up a releasing beard to allow outside work by inmates. Dr. Van Waters said 218 women saved $18,000 received as wages for indenture employment in 1946 and 1947.