less and hopeless and
rebellious as he. How they will get out, and when, are their chief
concerns. Many of their guards are very humane. Probably no one seeks to
torture him, but the system and the psychology are fatal. He sees almost
no one who approaches him with friendship and trust and a desire to
help, except his family, his closest friends and his companions in
misery. He knows that the length of his term is entirely dependent upon
officials whom he cannot see or make understand his case. He snatches at
the slightest ray of hope. He is in despair from the beginning to the
end. No prison has the trained men who, with intelligence and sympathy,
should know and watch and help him in his plight. No state would spend
the money necessary to employ enough attendants and aids with the
learning and skill necessary to build him up. Money is freely spent on
the prosecution from the beginning to the end, but no effort is made to
help or save. The motto of the state is: "Millions for offense, but not
one cent for reclamation."

As all things end, prison sentences are generally finished. The prisoner
is given a new suit of clothes that betrays its origin and will be
useless after the first rain, ten dollars in cash, and he goes out. His
heredity and his hard environment have put him in. Now the state is done
with him; he is free. But there is only one place to go. Like any other
released animal, he takes the same heredity back to the old environment.
What else can he do? His old companions are the only ones who will give
him social intercourse, which he needs first of all, and the only ones
who understand him. They are the only ones who will be glad to see him
and help him get a job. There is only one profession for which he is
better fitted after he comes out than he was before he went in, and that
is a life of crime. Of course, he is a marked man and a watched man with
the police. When a crime is committed and the offender is not found, the
ex-convict is rounded up with others of his class to see, perchance, if
he is not the offender that is wanted. He is taken to the lock-up and
shown with others to the witnesses for identification. Before this, the
witness may have been shown his photograph in convict clothes. Perhaps
they identify him, perhaps they do not; if identified, he may be the
man or he may not be. Anyhow, he has been in prison and this is against
him. Whenever he comes out and wherever he goes, his record follows h