[Inmates work a quarry: Making little ones out of big ones.]

While the Association's efforts were imbued with an optimism that reformation was possible, it also recognized that "it is quite possible, and indeed every way probable, that, while the great mass of prisoners would ... be reformed, there would be a residuum who would prove irreclaimable. Should this be the case, it would involve the necessity of a separate prison for incorrigibles, where they could be confined for life." . . . .

Equally pernicious as the contract labor system was the influence of party politics on prison discipline. State law provided that the prison system be administered by a three-person Board of Inspectors, which in turn appointed the wardens and other prison officials throughout the state. The inspectors were elected by popular vote for staggered three-year terms. "Whenever the majority of the Board is changed from one political party to another, it is the practice to remove nearly all the officers and to fill the vacancies with others who, in most cases, have no experience in prison management." . . .

In order to accomplish this [constitutional] reform the Association proposed that the administration of the various state prisons be centralized under the control of a board of prisons; that removal of wardens, keepers and other prison officials be only for reasons of cause; and that the members of the board of governors serve for ten-year terms and be appointees of the governor. To be enacted these reforms first required an amendment to the state constitution. . . . Unfortunately, the new constitution incorporating these changes was rejected by voters in its entirety, although "no opposition to the prison article [has] developed in any quarter." Twenty-fifth Annual Report -- 1869, pp. 48-50. An amendment was finally approved in 1876, providing for a single superintendent of state prisons appointed by the governor. New York State Constitution, Article V, Section 4 (1876). The legislation promulgated thereunder provides that "no appointment shall be made in any of the State prisons ... on the grounds of political partisanship; but honesty, capacity and adaptation shall constitute the rule for appointments." Prison Laws, p. 271.

The long-term effect of the influence of party politics on the prison system was the absence of any competent, professional management. The Association observed how, over a twenty-five year period, political maneuverings had caused the administration of Sing Sing Prison to "oscillate between barbarity and humanity," as six different wardens held office and "the wise and foolish governors" alternated in power.

Three were "humane, forbearing, and just," with a personal interest in communicating with prisoners and thereby learning about planned escapes and riots by prisoners as well as overreaching and fraud by the contractors. The other three were advocates of inflicting "cruel and unusual punishments," and under their administrations "force and fear" were the rule of the day.

Inmates resented the "frequent and arbitrary" changes in rules and disciplinary enforcement brought about each time the keepers or warden were replaced. . . .

The Association fought to abolish the contract labor system and to remove the appointment of prison officers from the purview of politics. It urged an amendment to the state constitution to professionalize prison management and set forth a comprehensive plan of reformation to deal with the abuses of contract labor. The components included

• the establishment of different prisons for different classes of offenders;
• selection of competent prison officers; direct employment by the prison, not by outside contractors;
• a system of marks for good and bad behavior, under which inmates would earn commutation or increases in their sentences;
• educational and moral instruction;
• simple rules and the abolition of all cruel punishments and petty regulations;
• conditional pardons (probation, in today's parlance) to ensure continued good behavior until the expiration of the original sentence; and
• a system of supervision and aid for discharged prisoners.

The Sing Sing Riot of 1869 and
the Establishment of the Elmira Reformatory

Inmates on a work farm.

The years 1869 through 1877 were a watershed period for the Association. After twenty-five years of visiting prisons, organizing conferences on prison reform, issuing voluminous reports, ministering to discharged convicts by the thousands, and lobbying the New York State Legislature, the Association's calls for reform finally drew serious attention and tangible reforms.

If one key event triggered the implementation of the reformation movement's agenda, it was the riot at Sing Sing Prison in late March 1869. The revolt, involving several hundred prisoners, arose in reaction to the death of a convict from the severe administration of a cold-water shower bath. Several convicts and one prison officer were killed in the insurrection, and the Legislature immediately began an investigation.

One consequence was "the enactment of a law prohibiting the further use of the shower-bath, buck and crucifix (sometimes called the yoke), as instruments or disciplinary punishment." The Association had urged the abolition of these punishments for years, and no doubt was instrumental in guiding the Legislature to finally take that initiative.

In its haste to act, however, the Legislature blundered and made the prohibition of those punishments effective immediately, with "no time ... allowed for the officers of the prisons to prepare for the change."

The result was further bedlam. Inmates in the state prisons became "turbulent and ungovernable, not infrequently assaulting officers with deadly weapons." The keepers felt that "some quick and sharp punishment was needed." To quell further disturbances, "a new mode of torture, called the hooks, was devised. . ." This torture involved locking an inmate's wrists in irons behind his back, raising his arms up and attaching them to hooks so that "the toes just touch the floor. . . ."

Shower bath at Sing Sing, circa. 1869.

The Association's relationship with state prison officials sharply deteriorated as a result of the Sing Sing riot. . . . A conference was held between the state prison officials and the Association to discuss prison discipline, especially at Sing Sing Prison, but the distance between them was too great to bridge. The prison officials sought to obtain the Association's endorsement for the retention of harsh punishments in order to enforce discipline and deter escapes, while the Association members wanted to discuss fundamental reforms to the system. The Association declared: "Away with the ... lash, shower-bath, yoke, buck, hooks, and the whole array of degrading and torturing devices, in which the perverse ingenuity of man has been so fertile. Let them go to swell the rubbish of buried barbarisms."

. . . After the Sing Sing Prison riot a county judge in Westchester appointed a grand jury to conduct an inquiry into the causes. Its report presented three "propositions" for the riot:

• first, "the sweeping changes of officers with every change of political power";
• second, the abolition of certain punishments by the Legislature; and
• third, "the influence of the Prison Association [which] contributes to a false sympathy on the part of the community, which eventually results in the convicts being regarded as objects of sympathy and pity, rather than offenders against the peace and welfare of the community; and this, on coming to the knowledge of the prisoners ... causes a general discontent."

The accusation against the Association apparently backfired. "The press, with great unanimity, took up the defense of the Association and its labors, pouring its criticisms, at the same time, with merciless severity, upon the heads of the jurors. " [Twenty-second Annual Report -- 1866, pp. 344 - 345.]

Prisoner wearing a "Bishops Mitre," circa. 1874.

Riding the crest of public support, in 1869 the Association received an appropriation of $4,000 from the Legislature to help defray its costs. . . . in 1873 the Association became the beneficiary of one-half of the fines collected in New York County from violators of the state's anti-obscenity statute." The other half of those fines was originally designated for the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice . . . and later the Female Guardian Society.

Beginning in 1870, the New York State Legislature started to enact a series of laws aimed at creating a new model prison -- the State Reformatory at Elmira. Those laws provided for the construction of a new facility, to be populated by "male criminals, between the ages of sixteen and thirty, and not known to have previously sentence[d]" to prison. "The discipline to be observed in said prison shall be reformatory~ ... The contract system of labor shall not exist, in any form whatever, in said reformatory, but the prisoners shall be employed by the State."

The key elements of reform codified in the Elmira statutes closely mirror the reforms advocated by the Association for years:

• Judges would not fix the outer limit of the prison term of inmates sent to Elmira, although the total sentence served could not exceed the statutory maximum for the crime committed. This practice, known as indeterminate sentencing, was later codified in the criminal codes throughout the United States.
• The managers of the Elmira Reformatory were given the power to terminate an inmate's sentence, based on their assessment of his improvement. Toward this end, a system of marks or credits was established to reward or punish inmates, based on their behavior and progress toward reform. In effect, those managers became the nation's first extrajudicial authority with power to grant probation or parole.
• The managers were also given the power to parole inmates, subject to the power of revocation if an inmate violated the terms of his parole. The managers were empowered to release prisoners unconditionally "when it appears . . . that there is a strong or reasonable probability that [the] prisoner will live and remain at liberty without violating the law, and that his release is not incompatible with the welfare of society."

While a great era of prison reform was now dawning, the Association continued to lament that "the condition of the jails and penitentiaries is, with a very few exceptions, deplorably bad" and getting worse." Nowhere was this more evident than at the infamous Tombs, on Centre Street in Manhattan, which epitomized the terrible conditions of overcrowding and corruption pervading the entire prison system.

Fifty Years of Progress

Prison Laws, Section 145-146, p. 229 (derived from Laws of 1869, Chapter 869, Section 1) states: "The punishments commonly known as the shower-bath, crucifix, or yoke and buck, are hereby abolished in all the State prisons and penitentiaries of this State." The same also states [P. 230] that any prison official who violated this law would be guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $100 to $250, or by imprisonment of three months to one year, or both.

On the Association's fiftieth anniversary in 1894 it would reflect with satisfaction on the results of the Elmira Reformatory laws.

More than 4,700 prisoners had been released by that time on parole from Elmira, of whom 2130 were paroled to the care of the Association.

Emphasizing "reform and education of young offenders; and ... individual treatment of the prisoners, with release on parole as a reward of fitness and a test of character," the successes and failures of the Elmira reforms were the "objects of closest scrutiny" by the Association.

The Association concluded that "hundreds of men, once guilty of crime and imprisoned in the reformatory ... have come forth to occupy positions of honor and profit.