to bring the man in. The
officer found him in a saloon and made a complaint charging him with
disorderly conduct. I sent him to the Bridewell to sober up and receive
treatment for alcoholism, and after he had been there four weeks I set
aside the order and put him on parole upon his promise to stop drinking
and go to work. I told him that as soon as he satisfied me that he could
make good, I would ask Judge Tuthill of the Juvenile Court to restore
his children to him; and when I last heard from him he was hard at work,
keeping his promise and fixing up a home for his children.

_The Criminal's "Debt" to Society Overpaid_

That a suspended sentence should be of greater value in bringing about
the reformation of a criminal than a prison term is, I believe,
reasonable and logical. When the criminal has served his sentence, his
supposed debt to society is paid. If he commits another crime, he does
so with the chance, in his favor, of a possible acquittal, a "hung"
jury, a light sentence, or a reversal upon appeal. He is consequently
willing to take risks which he would not take were the consequences sure
and severe. The most important element in the defendant's reformation,
however, is his avoidance of the physical, mental, and moral injury
which he would suffer by serving his prison sentence. In these days,
when practically every applicant for a position must present references
of previous service, a prison term means ruin. If at the end of his term
he is reformed, his reformation is of no value in obtaining employment.
Prison sentences did not have this effect a hundred years ago, but times
have changed. Every released convict is a shrinking coward, fearful that
each person he meets knows his record. The new, plain suit of clothes he
is given upon leaving prison is worn only until he can find a secondhand
clothing store where it may be exchanged for something less good, but
clothed in which he will have a trifle less fear of identification. If
he succeeds in getting employment by changing his name and concealing
his past, he lives in mortal terror lest his deception be discovered.

It is a fundamental principle of the law that no man can be punished
more than once for the same offense. His "debt" to society is presumed
to be conclusively paid when his term of imprisonment expires; and yet
under present conditions his real punishment is then only beginning. I
have just finished reading a twenty-three-page letter from an