USA > Ohio > Ross County > Chillicothe > Ohio centennial anniversary celebration at Chillicothe, May 20-21, 1903 : under the auspices of the Ohio State Archaelogical and Historical Society : complete proceedings > Part 45
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Manslaughter was punishable in accordance with the require- ments of the common law of England; arson, by whipping not exceeding 39 stripes, the pillory not exceeding two hours, im- prisonment in jail not exceeding three years, and full damages in money if the offender's estate would suffice; burglary and robbery, similar to arson; riots, fine not exceeding $16 and surety for good behavior; for obstructing authority, whipping not exceeding 39 stripes and security for good behavior ; per- jury, fine, whipping, or pillory, and disfranchisement ; larceny, restitution, whipping, or imprisonment not exceeding seven years; forgery, fine and pillory ; usurpation, assault and bat- tery, or fraudulent deeds, fines ; disobedience of children and ser- vants, jail and house of correction until subdued ; drunkenness, fine 5 dimes for first offense, and $1 for any succeeding offense.
The code closed with the following sections :
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SECTION 21. Whereas idle, vain, and obscene conversation, profane cursing and swearing, and more especially the irreverently mentioning, calling upon, or invoking the sacred and Supreme Being, by any of the Divine characters in which He hath graciously condescended to reveal His infinitely beneficent purposes to mankind, are repugnant to every moral sentiment, subversive of every civil obligation, inconsistent with the -ornaments of polished life and abhorrent to the principles of the most benevolent religion, it is expected, therefore, if crimes of this kind should exist, they will not find encouragement, countenance, or appro- bation in this Territory. It is strictly enjoined upon all officers and ministers of justice, upon parents and others, heads of families, and upon others of every description, that they abstain from practices so vile and irrational; and that by example and precept, to the utmost of their power, they prevent the necessity of adopting and publishing laws,. with penalties, upon this head. And it is hereby declared that govern- ment will consider as unworthy its confidence all those who may ob- stinately violate these injunctions.
SECTION 22. Whereas mankind in every stage of informed society have consecrated certain portions of time to the particular cultivation of the social virtues and the public adoration and worship of the com- mon parent of the universe, and whereas a practice so rational in itself, and comformable to the divine precepts, is greatly conducive to civiliza- tion as well as morality and piety; and whereas for the advancement of such important and interesting purposes most of the Christian world have set apart the first day of the week as a day of rest from common labors and pursuits, it is therefore enjoined that all servile labor, works of necessity and charity only excepted, be wholly abstained from on said day.
Of course, this code was mainly prospective, for as yet there were no jails or pillories in the Territory, and it was not until August 1, 1792, that a law was enacted requiring each county to erect jails and "also a pillory, whipping post, and as many stocks as may be convenient for the punishment of offenders," and each jail was to have two apartments - one for debtors and one for criminals.
This criminal code remained in force without any material changes or additions until after the admission of Ohio as a state in 1802, and the organization of its first General Assem- bly in 1803.
REFORMATION TO THE FRONT.
The first constitution of Ohio, adopted in 1802, is a monu- mental document in many ways, but especially in its attitude
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toward crime and criminals, for it anticipated by many years the central idea of modern penology that reformation rather than punishment should be the objective point in dealing with criminals, and that indiscriminate severity, instead of preventing, created crime. These declarations are contained in Article VIII, Section XIV, of this remarkable document, as follows :
All penalties shall be proportioned to the nature of the offence. No wise legislation will affix the same punishment to the crime of theft, forgery, and the like, which they do to those of murder and treason. When the same undistinguished severity is exerted against all offenses, the people are led to forget the real distinction in crimes themselves, and to commit the most flagrant with as little compunction as they do the slightest offenses. For the same reasons a multitude of sanguinary laws are both impolitic, and unjust, the true design of all punishments being to reform, not to exterminate, mankind.
OHIO PENITENTIARY.
The first penitentiary in Ohio was built in 1813, in the city of Columbus. It was a brick building 60x30 feet in size and three stories high, which included the basement, partly below ground. The basement contained the living rooms of the pris- oners, and could only be entered from the prison yard. The second story was the keeper's residence. The third, or upper story contained the prisoners' cells, thirteen in number, nine of which were light and four dark cells. The prison yard, about 100 feet square, was enclosed by a stone wall from fifteen to eighteen feet high.
In 1818 a new brick building was erected and the prison yard enlarged to about 400x160 feet, enclosed by stone walls twenty feet high.
In 1832 a new penitentiary was authorized and the present location on the banks of the Scioto was secured, and in 1834 the new building was occupied, and there it has since remained. From time to time it has been enlarged, until at present it has a prison population of over 2,000.
It has always been operated upon the Auburn system, with associated labor by day and cellular separation at night.
32 o. c.
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Prior to 1834 the labor of the prisoners was employed upon state account in blacksmithing, cabinetmaking, coopering, weav- ing and tailoring, the manufactured articles being sold or ex- changed for provisions or raw material. Prison labor was also largely employed in erecting the state house and new peniten- tiary. After 1834 and until 1885 the labor of prisoners in the main was employed under the contract system, and the Ohio Penitentiary in its discipline and industries did not differ ma- terially from other prisons in other states, and on the average compared fairly well with such prisons.
REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS.
The first long step forward in dealing with the delinquent classes was in 1857, under the administration of Governor Sal- man P. Chase, and largely owing to his initiation.
By act of the General Assembly, passed April 16, 1857 (O. L., vol. 54, p. 175), section 7 provides :
There shall be established a reform school, to be called the Ohio State Reform Farm, for the reception of such youth therein as may be sent thither under section 9 of this act and as may be provided by law.
Section 2 of the act provided for a board of commissioners of three members, to be appointed by the governor, to carry out the provisions of the law.
Section 8 provided :
That said State Reform Farm shall be established by the board of commissioners, and under their control and supervision, upon a body of land containing, as near as may be, 1,000 acres of land.
Section 9 provided, that upon obtaining possession of such farm, accommodations for forty male youths should be provided, and that the commissioners should select from the House of Refuge at Cincinnati, the Ohio State Penitentiary, and the county jails of the state such boys as they should deem suitable for being received upon said State Reform Farm, "and said forty boys shall constitute the first family of said reform farm."
After that, in section 10, the law provided that -
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Whenever any minor male under the age of 18 shall be found guilty of an offense or crime against the laws of the state, the court shall have power to sentence the defendant to be committed to the reform school.
Section II provided that -
In all cases when received, said minors shall be under the con- trol of the authorities of the reform school until legal age, and said authorities shall at all times have power to apprentice them and said minors shall be discharged from any reform school only upon order of the authorities aforesaid or in due process of law.
This law was introduced and championed in the house by Hon. James Monroe, afterwards a member of Congress for three terms, and for many years a professor in Oberlin College.
THE AMERICAN METTRAY.
The first three commissioners of this institution, and its famous superintendent, Mr. George E. Howe, who for twenty years shaped its destinies, were remarkable men and are worthy of a memorial volume, but suffice it to say here that the special form impressed upon this institution, which has since been known as "the family system," was due largely to Commissioner Reeme- lin of Cincinnati. His associate commissioners were John A. Foote, of Cleveland, and James D. Ladd, of Jefferson County, both able and eminent citizens and admirably qualified for their work.
Mr. Reemelin was a German by birth and of high culture in German universities, who had come to America early in his career and obtained fame and fortune in the land of his adoption. He proposed to his associate commissioners, after they had visited various reformatories in America, that he should go to Europe at his own expense and see what he could find there. This was assented to, and after months of travel and observation in foreign lands he returned and reported a plan for the Ohio State Farm, based upon the methods of the juvenile reformatory at Mettray, France. His report was adopted in the main by his associates, and our American Mettray was established on a farm of 1,210
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acres in Fairfield County, six miles south of the city of Lan- caster, and the original cottage for "40 male youths" has since been transformed into a village now numbering a population of about 800.
The first family buildings were four in number and built of hewn logs two stories high, and the old farmhouse was used as an administration building.
From the beginning prison walls and grated doors were abolished, and each cottage under the charge of an "elder brother" and his wife was a family by itself, and now, as then, in every cottage its members attend school, work in shops or upon the farm, go to church, and play upon the open grounds the same as the boys of any other well-regulated village.
This institution became a model for juvenile reformatories all over the United States, and is now known as the Boys' Industrial School, and a large majority of its graduates have become hon- orable and self-supporting citizens.
Since the opening of this institution there have been various minor changes of legislation in regard to it, and for many years it has had a board of managers of five members instead of three, but in the main it has been conducted upon the lines laid down by its founders and its accommodations have kept pace with the increasing population of the state.
REFORM SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.
A reform and industrial school for girls, now known as the Girls' Industrial Home, was authorized by the act of the General Assembly passed May 5, 1869 (O. L. Vol. 66, p. 110) and was es- tablished in Delaware County, and is similar in character and administration to the Boys' Industrial School, and has an average population of over 400.
NEW ERA IN PENITENTIARY LEGISLATION.
The legislation of the General Assembly of 1884-85 marks a new era in Ohio methods in dealing with high-grade criminals, or felons, as they are known to the law, and was due, largely, to the initiation of the State Board of Charities and Corrections,
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and the hearty co-operation of Governor George Hoadly, and Hon. Allen O. Myers, chairman of Committee on Prisons and Prison Reforms in the house.
As early as 1868, in its first annual report, the Board of State Charities had earnestly advocated the establishment of one new prison to be known as the intermediate penitentiary, exclu- sively for young men, and argued that "such a system would give us the foundation of a grand system of graded prisons ; with the reform farm on one side of the new prison, for juvenile of- fenders, and the penitentiary on the other, for all the more hardened and incorrigible class; the discipline of each to be so adjusted as best to secure the results aimed at in each, and so connected and related that transfers could be made from one to the other, upon certain conditions, based upon the criminal's general character and conduct, to be determined by a careful system of marks, to be fully treated of hereafter."
These recommendations with various others in regard to prison administration were fully amplified, and from year to year were repeated, and pressed upon the attention of the Leg- islature, and the general public, until at last the seeds thus sown culminated into law in a series of legislative acts by the Sixty- sixth General Assembly of 1884 and 1885, in which all the lead- ing ideas of the Elmira Reformatory system were embodied, to- gether with some additions and improvements.
By these acts the contract system of employing convicts was abolished, the indeterminate sentence was authorized, the classi- fication of prisoners provided for, the parole system established, and cumulative sentences for habitual criminals required. (O. L., vol. 82, pp. 60 and 236.)
In addition to these requirements, which only applied to the existing Ohio State Penitentiary, an act was passed "to establish an intermediate penitentiary and to provide for the appointment of a board of managers" to locate, construct, and to manage the same.
PRISON LABOR.
In abolishing contract labor in the penitentiary, it was evidently the intention of the General Assembly to employ the
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prisoners upon state account (O. L., vol. 81, p. 74, sec. 4), but in the absence of an appropriation for machinery and capital, it was provided in a separate act (O. L., vol. 82, p. 60) that it should be competent for the managers to employ prisoners upon what is known as "the piece-price plan." By this plan, which still continues, with a majority of prisoners, employers furnish machinery and materials, and the state furnishes and supervises the men, and secures pay by the piece for the product. The advantage of this system over the contract system is that the prisoner is not the slave of the contractor, but the employee of the state, and the state can lighten his labor,, change his oc- cupation, or shorten his hours, as his capacity or improvement may require.
Intelligently administered, this system is a vast improve- ment upon the contract system for its opportunities for educa- tion and reformation are far superior, and these ought to be the main purpose in any well-regulated prison, whatever may be the immediate return in dollars and cents.
THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE.
By section 5 of the act above named (O. L., pages 74 and 168) it was declared that "every sentence to the penitentiary of a person hereafter committed for felony, except for murder in the second degree, who has not previously been convicted of a felony and served a term in a penal institution, may be, if the court having said case thinks it right and proper, a gen- eral sentence in the penitentiary. The term of such imprison- ment of any person so convicted and sentenced may be ter- minated by the board of managers, as authorizel by this act, but such imprisonment shall not exceed the maximum term provided by law for the crime for which the prisoner was convicted and sentenced; and no such prisoner shall be released until he shall have served at least the minimum term provided by law for the crime for which he was convicted."
CLASSIFICATION AND PAROLE.
By sections 6, 7 and 8 of this act, detailed requirements were made for the commitment, classification and parole of prisoners
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under the indeterminate sentence, similar to those in force, then and now, at the Elmira State Reformatory in New York.
At the next session of the General Assembly, May 4, 1885, these provisions were so amended as to apply to all prisoners, whether committed under the indeterminate sentence or other- wise, except those "sentenced to murder in the first or second degree." (O. L., Vol. 82, page 236.)
So far as ascertained this was the first application of the indeterminate sentence, or parole system, in any penitentiary, or state prison in America.
Since their adoption there has been no material change in these laws. The indeterminate sentence has not been utilized by the courts as largely as it should, but under the rules of pro- gressive classification over twelve hundred prisoners have been paroled, and less than 10 per cent. have been returned, and it is known that a large majority thus paroled have been restored to honest and self-supporting citizenship.
The system has not always been administered as wisely as it should have been, but with all shortcomings it has been a vast improvement in our prison management, and has steadily gained in favor with the public.
CUMULATIVE SENTENCES.
Still another notable enactment of the Sixty-sixth General Assembly was the second section of the act passed May 4, 1885, since known as the habitual-criminal act (O. L., Vol. 82, p. 237), by which it was decreed that "every person who, after having been twice convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned in some penal institution for felony, whether committed heretofore or here- after, and whether committed in this state or elsewhere within the limits of the United States of America, shall be convicted, sentenced and imprisoned in the Ohio Penitentiary for felony hereafter committed shall be taken to be an habitual criminal, and on expiration of the term for which he shall be sentenced, he shall not be discharged from imprisonment in the peniten- tiary, but shall be detained therein for and during his natural life, unless pardoned by the governor, and the liability to be so detained shall be and constitute a part of every sentence to im-
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prisonment in the penitentiary; provided, however, that after the expiration of the term for which he was so sentenced he may, in the discretion of the board of managers, be allowed to go upon parole outside of the buildings and enclosures, but to be while on parole in the legal custody and under the control of said board, and subject at any time to be taken back within the enclosure of said institution."
There was some question as to the constitutionality of an enactment of this kind and therefore it was very carefully drawn by Governor Hoadly himself, than whom there was no better lawyer in the state, and it has since been passed upon and ap- proved by the Supreme Court of the state, with the single re- quirement that the fact of a second conviction for felony should be stated in the indictment and proven upon the trial.
The wisdom of this act has been fully established, but its enforcement has not been as frequent as it should have been, on account of the failure of prosecuting attorneys to conform their indictments to the requirements of the Supreme Court.
PRISONERS' EARNINGS.
In the series of enactments now under consideration there is still another provision worthy of consideration, viz., that con- tained in section 9 of the act passed March 24, 1884 (O. L., Vol. 3I, p. 75) as follows :
The warden is hereby authorized to have placed to the credit of each prisoner (except those serving a life sentence) such amount of their earnings as the managers may deem equitable and just, taking into account the character of the prisoner, the nature of the crime for which he is imprisoned, and his general deportment; provided, that such credit in no case exceeds 20 per cent of his earnings, and the funds thus accruing to the credit of any prisoner shall be paid to him or his family at such time and in such manner as the board of managers may deem best; pro- vided, that at least 25 per cent. of such earnings shall be kept for and paid to such prisoner at the time of his restoration to citizenship.
GOOD-TIME LAW.
As a part of the legislation under consideration, another important enactment was what is known as the good-time law
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(Vol. 81, p. 187, sec. 7) by which prisoners by good conduct could reduce their term of imprisonment for the first year five days; for the second year, seven days for each month; for the third year, nine days each month, and for succeeding years, ten days each month.
This law has since been modified (May 4, 1891) so as to allow a prisoner sentenced for one year five days each month; for two years six days each month for the entire two years; for three years, eight days for each month; for four years, nine days for each month; for five years, ten days for each of the six months of his sentence; for six years or more, eleven days for each month of good conduct.
The principle of the original act, however, had not been changed, and has fully demonstrated its usefulness in maintain- ing better prison discipline.
INTERMEDIATE PENITENTIARY.
One of the most important of the series of acts now under consideration was that entitled "an act to establish an inter- mediate penitentiary," passed April 14, 1884 (O. L., Vol. 81, p. 206).
Section I provides :
That there be established an intermediate penitentiary for the incarceration of such persons convicted and sentenced under the laws of Ohio as have not previously been sentenced to a state penitentiary in this or any other state or country.
SEC. 2. That for the purpose of carrying into effect the provi- sions of this act, there shall be, and is hereby, appropriated for the year 1884 and 1885 ten per centum of all the moneys received under an act passed April 17, 1883, entitled "An act further providing against the evils resulting from the traffic in intoxicating liquors."
The act of 1883, known as the Scott law, produced a large revenue and 10 per centum of it would have been ample to com- plete promptly and carry on this institution, but unfortunately within a year it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and the result was that the revenue of the state fell off to such an extent that the appropriations available from other sources were so limited that the completion of the institution
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has lingered until the present time. However, a location was- secured at Mansfield, Ohio, comprising 182 acres of land, and in November, 1886, the corner-stone of the new structure was laid, and the work went on from year to year until in September, 1896, it was sufficiently advanced to receive prisoners, and 150 short term men were selected from the Ohio State Penitentiary for a beginning, and since then these have been added to by sentences from the courts, so that the institution now accommo- dates about 400 men.
In the meantime the name of the institution was changed to that of "The Ohio State Reformatory," and the laws govern- ing it have been made to conform to those governing the New York State Reformatory, at Elmira, N. Y., the main features of which are the intermediate sentence, progressive classification, and. parole. (O. L., Vol. 88, p. 382.)
With the appropriations already made it is expected that the institution will be completed within a year or two with a capacity for 800 prisoners, when all modern reformatory methods. can be fully inaugurated; certainly its equipment will not be- inferior to any other reformatory of its kind in America.
MISDEMEANORS.
In Ohio all criminal offenses punishable by imprisonment for less than one year, are known as misdemeanors, and are pun- ishable by confinement in a county jail or city workhouse.
WORKHOUSES.
In Ohio there are now eight city workhouses, viz., at Can- ton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, Xenia, and Zanesville. These receive prisoners, not only from their own locality, but from any other city or county with which satisfactory contracts for support have been made. The average term of sentence to these workhouses is about thirty days.
These workhouses in their character and conduct are similar to those in other states, and are as equally well administered, but in reformatory results they have never been satisfactory. A large majority of workhouse prisoners are chronic drunkards,
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for whom a commitment of ten, to twenty, or thirty days has no terrors, but rather the reverse, for every commitment for another debauch is an opportunity for restoration to natural con- ditions, by medical care and hygienic treatment at public ex- pense, and this accomplished he goes out to repeat his previous offense.
To reform prisoners of this kind time is an essential element, and hence in Ohio, by recent legislation, a new feature in work- house sentences has been authorized, which is unknown elsewhere. and which promises to be of special value. This act, passed April 27, 1896 (O. L., Vol. 92, p. 359) provides :
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