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Transcriber’s Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

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VOLUME I, No. 10. OCTOBER, 1911




THE REVIEW


  A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID
  ASSOCIATION AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

  TEN CENTS A COPY. ONE DOLLAR A YEAR

  T. F. Carver, President.
  Wm. F. French, Vice President.
  O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor Review.
  Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee.
  F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee.
  W. G. McClaren, Member Ex. Committee.
  A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee.
  E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee.
  Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee.
  R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee.




SOME PRISON PROBLEMS


[At the recent meeting of the American Prison Association, Frank L.
Randall, Superintendent of the Minnesota State reformatory at St.
Cloud, read as chairman the report of the committee on reformatory work
and parole, from which we print the following extracts.]

To the chief executive officers of penal and correctional institutions
in the United States and Canada was submitted the following question:
“To what extent do you recognize mental inadequacy and constitutional
inferiority among the persons in your charge?”

The estimates are various. Among prisons for adults they range from
3 persons out of 240 in Wyoming, to 10 per cent. in Nebraska and
Philadelphia, 20 per cent. in Rhode Island, 25 per cent. in Vermont, 30
per cent. in Indiana, 30 per cent. to 40 per cent. in Wisconsin, fully
50 per cent. in Kansas, 60 per cent. in West Virginia, 50 per cent. to
75 per cent. in Minnesota, and a still higher percentage of prisoners
lacking in energy, mentally or physically, in one Michigan prison.
Major McClaughry, and Warden Wood of Virginia, wrote that they could
not answer the question.

From state reformatories came estimates covering a range from 25 per
cent. to 40 per cent. only in Iowa, Washington, Kansas, and New York
(Elmira). The writer, regretting his inability to report more exactly,
because the work in his institution has not been completed, feels
safe in concurring in the general approximations cited by reformatory
superintendents.

From the New York reformatory for women at Bedford Hills we have the
following: “Realizing that a large percentage are subnormal, July 1,
1911, we employed a trained psychologist who will make it a year’s
study.” From juvenile institutions the returns are neither more
hopeful, nor more satisfying, and many institutions of that class