of the reformatories, penitentiaries, workhouses, and other correctional institutions of the city.

A number of communities now have Parole Boards which have the power to release conditionally, to discharge, or to retake and imprison again those offenders who have been in correctional institutions. Any judge who sentenced a prisoner can sit and vote at a Board meeting, when the prisoner's case is up for decision. Discharged prisoners are usually paroled under supervision of the Parole Board for a certain period. With the co-operation of private organizations interested in the welfare of discharged prisoners, the Board helps them to find work and to make a new start in life. This method of handling offenders has in the communities where it is employed, reduced the number of prisoners who return for failure to make good in the community.

6. CO-OPERATING AGENCIES

The National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor* is working in co-operation with correctional authorities all over the United States. This organization is studying the problem of labor in prisons and reformatories, and is trying to secure legislation in every state that will result in the employment of all prisoners in institutions, both for their own welfare and to make the prisons self-supporting. It is working also to have all prisoners examined and properly classified as to mental, moral, and physical abilities-upon entrance in an institution. The organization is trying to unify the local and state prison methods all over the United States.

The American Federation of Labor is another of the many private organizations that are striving to better our prison conditions.

Many city departments indirectly aid in correctional work. We have already noted the relation of Board of Health and Recreation officials to the work of correction. The Department of Charities, in segregating and giving especial education

*2 Rector St., New York City.

to feeble-minded children, is taking charge of a great many individuals who if left to shift for themselves, might very easily drift into the ranks of criminals. Many of the city departments take over the products of the prison shops. New Hampton is to be the tree nursery for the New York Park Department, and Great Meadows prison is the tree nursery for the State Conservation Department.

7. HOW THE CITIZEN CAN CO-OPERATE

Every citizen should be familiar with the letter and the spirit of the ordinances of his city. Find out which ordinances are most often violated in your neighborhood, and see if there is not something that you can do to help enforce these laws. Remember that their purpose is merely to make the community a safe and healthful place in which to live. Watch out that a stray snowball does not break somebody's window. See if the ordinances regarding the handling and the accumulation of rubbish are obeyed. If you know what these ordinances are, you will be less likely, yourself, to break them.

A social offender is like a boy in a boat who is pulling against all of the others. They must row all the harder to overcome his resistance. Social offenders are pulling against the community, and are therefore a burden and a hindrance instead of a help. When the number of law-breakers in a community is increasingly large the yearly bill which must be paid for corrections increases, too, and all must help to pay it. All citizens are therefore interested in ways and means of preventing or correcting crime to lessen this financial burden.

TOPICS FOR REPORTS AND DEBATES

1. The Value of Student Government.

2. A Reform-school Graduate that Made Good.

3. Ways of Reducing Crime.

4. The Relation between Congestion and Crime. 5. The Value of Prison Labor.

6. Why School Attendance is Compulsory.

7. How Criminals were Punished in Colonial Times.

8. The Work of Thomas Mott Osborne.

RESOLVED: That penitentiaries can be made into reformatories. RESOLVED: That capital punishment should be abolished in this community.

QUESTIONS

1. What happens to a boy or girl who is bad at home?

2. What is the purpose of this punishment? When is it successful? 3. Are the following social offenders-(1) An automobilist who exceeds the speed limit; (2) a man who smokes a cigarette in a garage; (3) a person who walks in the middle of a roadway; (4) a boy who throws a baseball through a closed window; (5) a hungry and penniless individual who takes a loaf of bread without paying for it; (6) a tenant who puts a chair on the fire escape; (7) a man who picks a lock and enters another person's house; (8) a boy who cuts his initials on a school desk? Why?

4. How are such cases handled in your community?

5. If a youth under twenty is caught and convicted of stealing, his first offense, how does your community deal with him?

6. What chance has such a youth to earn an honest living after his discharge?

7. What city officials are in charge of correction in your community?

8. What institutions are under their control?

9. What state authorities have jurisdiction over correction?

10. Discuss the methods of correction and reform employed at your leading state reformatory.

11. Would you be willing to give an ex-convict a job? Give reasons. 12. How many of the young people released from your reformatory make good in the community?

13. Are your prisons self-supporting? Explain.

14. In what way can your local prisons be improved?

15. Contrast a seventeenth century prison with one of to-day in a progressive community.

16. What were some punishments in colonial days? What was the theory of punishments back of these ways of treating offenders?

17. Is there any relation between education and crime prevention? What? Between congestion of population and crime? Explain. 18. What proportion of criminals are mental defectives? Physical defectives?

19. Discuss capital punishment.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

1. Report of your local Department of Correction. 2. Report of your State Correctional Authorities.

3. Reports of local Prisons or Reformatories.

4. "A Handbook of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira," by F. C. Allen. Published by the Reformatory, Elmira, N. Y.

5. "Criminal Justice in Cleveland." Reports of a Survey, directed and edited by Roscoe Pound and Felix Frankfurter. Published by the Cleveland Foundation, 1922.

6. "The Offender," by Burdette G. Lewis.

7. Crime Prevention," by Arthur Woods.

8. "Penology in the United States," by Louis N. Robinson. Published by the John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia. 1922.

9. "Better Times."

10. "The Junior Republic: Its History and Ideals," by W. R. George.

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11. Curious Punishment of Bygone Days," by Alice M. Earle.

12. "My Life in Prison," by Donald Lowrie.

13. Within Prison Walls," by Thomas M. Osborne.

14. Crime, Its Causes and Remedies," by C. Lombroso. 15. "Punishment and Reformation," by F. H. Wines.

16. "After Prison-What?" by Maud Ballington Booth.

CHAPTER VIII

PUBLIC REGULATION OF BUILDINGS

INTRODUCTORY LESSON PLAN

1. Your schoolhouse is a building in which you spend a large number of hours. Is it a comfortable place in which to live and work?

a. Is the building in a congested part of town?

b. Are there tall adjacent buildings which cut off light and air? c. Does the building contain any "blind

rooms? For what are they used?

or poorly ventilated

d. How is the building safeguarded from the danger of fire?
Do you
know that walls and ceilings are sturdy enough to
bear the weight to which they are subjected?

e.

f. When was the building last inspected by the local building authorities? How often is it inspected?

g. Compare your school building with others in comfort, convenience and sanitation. Suggest ways in which it might be improved at no great expense.

1. MUCH OF YOUR LIFE IS SPENT IN BUILDINGS

Stop just a moment and count up how many hours of the twenty-four you spend in some sort of building. First there are the sleeping hours, let us say nine, for a boy or girl of school age. You rise at seven, dress, and breakfast at eight, all indoors, of course. Then for a brief half or three-quarters of an hour you are on your way to school, which is in another building. After school you go back to the home building again. But if you are sensible you spend at least an hour, preferably longer, in walking out-of-doors, or in playing some open air game. In the evening, if you are not working at home over your studies, you go to a theatre or to a movie, also in a building. So, you see, more than three-quarters of a town-dweller's life is spent in buildings. Your father, whether a business or a professional man, and your mother, the home-maker, spend