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VOLUME I, No. 11.
NOVEMBER, 1911
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. | F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee. | E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee. |
Wm. F. French, Vice President. | W. G. McClaren, Member Ex. Committee. | Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee. |
O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor Review. | A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee. | R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee. |
Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee. |
By Eugene Smith
President Prison Association of New York
[Mr. Smith read a very carefully prepared paper on the above subject at the Omaha meeting of the AmericanPrison Association. The Review would gladly print the address in full but space admits only of certain abstracts,which follow.—Editor]
In the deplorable and chaotic conditionof the very sources from which all statisticalmatter must be drawn, it is hopelessto look for any improvement in ourcensus statistics, unless a radical changecan be effected in state administration.The records of the police, the courts, theprisons, can be made of statistical valueonly by the action of the state itself;and there is apparent but one method bywhich the state can act to this end.
There should be established in eachstate a permanent board or bureau ofcriminal statistics, whether as an independentbody or as a department of theoffice of the attorney general or of thesecretary of state. This bureau shouldbe charged with the duty of prescribingthe forms in which the records of allcriminal courts, police boards and prisonsshall be kept and specifying the itemsregarding which entries shall be made.The law creating the bureau should directthat the forms prescribed by itshould be uniform as to all institutionsof the same class to which they respectivelyapply and be binding upon all institutionswithin the state.
The bureau should issue general instructionsgoverning the collection andverification of the facts to be stated inthe record; it should also be its duty,and it should be vested with power, toinspect and supervise the records and toenforce compliance with its requirements.Such a bureau might secure a collectionof reliable statistical matter, uniform inquality throughout the state. Indiana isnow, it is believed, the only state in theUnion where such a bureau exists.
But even this result is not enough.Supposing all the criminal records withineach separate state to be made uniformwithout the stat