Nation's first reformatory
Elmira
When New York's Elmira Reformatory opened in 1876,it
rejected 19th century penology's holy trinity of silence,
obedience and labor. Elmira's goal would be reform of the
convict, and its methods would be psychological rather than
physical. Instead of coercing with the lash, Elmira would
encourage with rewards. Mass regimentation would yield to
classification and individualized treatment. Instead of fixed
sentences to fit the crime, the indeterminate sentence would be
adjustable to fit the criminal. Rather than outright release
after the offender "paid his debt to society," the new parole
procedure would assure he did not begin running up a new tab.
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Elmira quietly redefined the term "reform," until then
understood only in purely religious terms. Teaching rather than
preaching, they downplayed religious conversion in favor of the
more realistic goal of law-abiding behavior.
The new reformatory generated tremendous excitement, and
pushed American corrections into the future. Elmira's premises--
individual treatment, the indeterminate sentence and parole--
were universally embraced and would not be seriously questioned
until the 1970's, when a new concern for individual liberties
and due process would begin to make inroads on the
rehabilitative ideal.
Brockway and the New Penology
Zebulon Reed Brockway, who would open the world's first
adult reformatory at Elmira and serve as its superintendent for
24 years, was born in Connecticut in 1827. He began his career
as a guard in the Connecticut state prison at Wethersheld in
1848. Three years later, he was lured to Albany to serve as
assistant to Amos Pilsbury, warden of the county penitentiary.
Pusbury recommended him as warden for the new municipal alms-
house in Albany, where Brockway served for two years.
In 1854, Brockway went to Rochester as head of the new
Monroe County Penitentiary. Then, in 1861, he went to Detroit to
become superintendent of the city house of correction, where he
built a national reputation as a capable administrator with a
penchant for bold innovation. Brockway experimented with
privileges for good conduct, "half-way" type housing preparatory
to release and educational programs.
By the late 1860's, the Detroit achievement drew energy from
news of similar experiments in Ireland and Australia. The reform-
minded Prison Association of New York helped to promote te new
ideas. The association's secretary, the Reverend Enoch Wines, joined
with Brockway to organize a national prison congress, held in
Cincinnati in 1870. Enthusiastic delegates endorsed a Declaration
of Principles calling for the reformation of criminals through
rewards and appeal to the prisoners' self-interest, a system of
marks to grade prisoners' progress and indeterminate
sentences "limited only by satisfactory proof of reformation."
Those were visionary ideas in search of a governinent willing to
try them.
Anticipating an increase in crime as soldiers returned from
the Civil War, New York had begun making plans for a new prison.
In 1869, the Legislature authorized purchase of a 280-acre site
in Elmira and earmarked the new facility for reformatory purposes,
restricting it to first offenders between the ages of 16 and 30.
The reformatory finally opened on July 24, 1876, with
Brockway as warden, when 30 inmates were transferred from Auburn
Prison. Others followed to finish construction.
These were difficult years. Auburn and Sing Sing, Brockway
suspected, were dumping their disciplinary problems on him, and
they "came with only contempt for that which in their view the term
reformatory signifies--the usual Sunday school notion. Fifty
prisoners in railroad transit from Sing Sing, observing in the
distance the reformatory on the hillside with its wooden stockade
inclosure, shouted in derision both at the frailty of the enclosure
and at the avowed purpose of the place."
The Reformatory Program
By 1879, construction was nearly complete. Set atop a hill,
the institution's Victorian towers and turrets loomed above the
town "like a college or a hospital." With Brockway's input, it had
been designed for reformatory work: its cells were almost twice the
size of Sing Sing's and configured for separation by prisoner
classification. Brockway could now set about the realization of his
life's work and dreams.
He had in the meantime written the 1877 law authorizing a five-
year indeterminate sentence with parole at the discretion of the
board of managers. A three-grade system was instituted. All new
inmates were placed in the middle grade; six months of perfect marks
in school, work and deportment earned promotion to first grade with
extra privileges. Another six months of perfect marks earned
eligibility for parole. Unsatisfactory marks meant demotion to the
next lower grade: demotion to the third grade meant a red suit, the
lockstep and loss of correspondence and visiting.
The next 20 years saw an explosion of ambitious and resourceful
programming activity. Beginning in 1878, several educated inmates
taught elementary classes six nights a week, and a professor from the
Elmira Women's College conducted courses in geography and the natural
sciences for advanced students. The next year, six public school
teachers and three attorneys were engaged to teach elementary classes
and advanced classes were expanded to include geometry, bookkeeping
and physiology. A professor from the Michigan State Normal School was
recruited as "moral director" to begin courses in ethics and
psychology. Lectures in history and literature were added in the
early '80's. In 1882, a summer school was started. Throughout the
period, Elmira attracted prominent visitors as "Sunday lecturers."
In 1888, an entire building was set aside as a trades school
and, by 1894, instruction was provided in 34 trades.
For inmates who did not profit from the regular programs, a
professor from Syracuse University was brought down to open a summer
class in industrial arts for "dullards"; in 1883 the classes were
offered year-round. In 1886, the institution physician started a
special program for "low-grade, intractable' inmates consisting of
regulated diet, steam baths, massages and calisthenics. He also began
systematic studies of prisoners' physical and mental characteristics
that would contribute to the "criminal anthropology" movement and
eventually lead to isolation of "defective delinquents."
With inmates freed from construction work, Brockway began the
industrial program with hollow-ware manufacture, shoemaking, an iron
foundry and brushmaking. The 1880's, however, was probably the worst
possible time in the state's history to introduce industries, as
private sector opposition to competition from inmate labor was
peaking. In 1888, the Yates Law prohibited all productive inmate
industrial work, and Elmira and the prisons faced a crisis.
In retrospect, Brockway would regard the Yates Law a blessing,
because it freed him of the necessity of revenue
generation, "releasing to us the entire time of the prisoners... for
direct reformatory training." Within 48 hours of the law's passage, a
military program was in full stride and the inmates were drilling
five to eight hours a day. Inmates were organized into companies and
regiments, with inmate officers and a brass band. Brockway also took
this opportunity to shift the trades school program from evenings to
days and to adapt the physical education program (originally
for "subnormal" inmates) to the entire population. A gymnasium with
marble floors, a swimming pool and drill hall, completed in 1890,
allowed military and physical training in all weather.
A printing press bought for production of internal forms
became a vocational and then an informational tool. In 1883,
publication of The Summary began, an eight-page weekly digest of
world and local news. The Summary was the world's first prisoner
newspaper. Elmira was also the first correctional institution to use
games baseball, basketball, football and track and field
as "treatment" rather than mere diversion.
Overcrowding, Excesses, and Brockway's Resignation
Brockway adopted a "policy of publicity," and used his new
press to hype the program, routinely printing 3,000 copies of the
annual reports and 1,500 copies of The Summary. Judges--convinced of
Elmira's merits-- sent inmates faster than they could be paroled.
Additions to the original 504 cells were made in 1886 and again in
1892, raising the total to 1,296, but by the late 1890's there were
nearly 1,500 occupants.
At the same time, probation became an increasingly popular
judicial option, with the result that the young first offenders for
whom Brockway's program was designed were diverted beforehand. With
the population growing in number and intractability, the use of
punishments increased. So did a dangerous reliance on
inmate "monitors" to perform staff functions, including grading and
discipline of other inmates.
In 1893, a parolee fought his parole revocation in court,
testifying that he had been brutally beaten by Brockway and was
afraid to return. Newspapers found other ex-imnates to corroborate
the allegations, and pressured Governor Roswell Flower and the State
Board of Charities to investigate. Brockway was formally charged
with "unlawfiil, unjust, cruel, brutal, inhuman, degrading excessive
and unusual punishment of inmates, frequently causing permanent
injuries and disfigurements." The ensuing and well-publicized
investigation took more than five months and uncovered
pervasive "paddling" with a leather strap as well as beatings with
fists and feet. It found evidence of extended stays in
the "dungeon," often shackled to the door or floor, with
insufficient food and lack of medical oversight.
The charities board issued a finding of guilt. Brockway and
his supporters fought back, blaming the press for
misreporting "harmless parental discipline" and calling for a
second, independent investigation. The Governor obliged, glad for a
way out of an embarrassment. Two of the three members of the new
panel found insufficient evidence to support the charges, which were
accordingly dismissed by the Governor.
Thus officially vindicated, Brockway carried on much as
before until 1899, when a new governor, Theodore Roosevelt,
appointed new men to the board of managers. They made an examination
of conditions at Elmira and requested funding to repair the "old and
rotten" physical plant. They also moved to abolish corporal
punishment and--by hiring more guards and civilian teachers--
eliminate the inmate monitors, who for years had abused their
authority to carry out grudges, traffic in contraband and even run
a "sex ring." Worst, from Brockway's perspective, was the new
managers' determination to actually manage, denying him the autonomy
he had enjoyed since 1876.
Brockway retired in 1900 at the age of 73. The "grand old
man" of American wardens lived another 20 years, lecturing and
consulting, writing his autobiography and serving a term as mayor of
Elmira.
After Brockway: Development of Classification
Modern classification began in Brockway's office. The
superintendent interviewed each new arrival, probing into the
offender's social, economic, psychological, biological and moral
make-up, "until the subjective defect is apparently discovered," and
then make a preliminary work and school assignment. He placed the
inmates in grades and reviewed their classification continuously. He
encouraged cranial measurements and researches into criminal types
and developed special programs for defectives.
The next advance was unplanned and serendipitous. To relieve
chronic overcrowding, the Legislature approved a second reformatory.
The Eastern New York Reformatory at Napanoch opened in 1900,
receiving its inmates by transfer from Elmira. Napanoch, still in
the building stage, needed construction workers, so Elmira sent on
its older and stronger inmates. The precedent was established:
Napanoch would provide custody for recidivists, parole violators,
trouble-makers and "incorrigibles," and Elmira would concentrate on
younger, "hopeful" cases.
Meanwhile, Brockway's interest in "defectives" carried over
to his successors. In 1908, Dr. Frank Christian, Elmira's new
physician, studied 8,000 consecutive commitments and concluded that
37 percent were mental defectives. In 1913, he started a "Special
Training Class for Mental Defectives." They were segregated from
the general population and relegated to simpler "useful
institutional work" such as janitorial duties, mending clothes and
shelling peas.
In 1917, Dr. Christian, now superintendent, organized
a "Psychological Laboratory" where each new admission was sent for a
physical examination, social history, an IQ and other psychological
tests. Standardized "letters of inquiry" were sent to parents,
wives, teachers, ministers, physicians, employers, friends, social
service workers and probation or parole officers. The
resulting "psychogram" was used to assess, classify and assign the
inmate to a work and educational program.
In 1939, two prisoners followed Dr. Christian to his car and
demanded he drive them out ofthe prison. Despite a knife held to his
throat, the 63-year-old Dr. Christian fought off his assailants
until help arrived; he received three stab wounds, narrowly escaping
death. He retired three months later after 39 years at Elmira.
In 1945, a reception center--the culmination of the
classification program initiated by Brockway and refined by
Christian--was established on the grounds of the Reformatory.
The End of the Reformatory
In 1970, the reception center was administratively joined to
the main facility and the complex was renamed the Elmira
Correctional and Reception Center. Although no longer a reformatory,
Elmira's concentration on younger offenders continued into the early
1990's, when DOCS established under-21 facilities in the Washington
hub. Elmira's population now averages around 35 years of age.
Elmira, now a general confinement facility for adult males,
operates a modern correctional program along the lines laid down by
Brockway. Military drill is gone at Elmira--it was discontinued in
1969 along with the band that accompanied it--but thrives at the
Department's shock incarceration facilities. The preoccupation with
mental defectives has passed, replaced by extensive treatment for
substance abuse, not recognized as a major problem in Brockway's
day. Today, industrial, vocational, academic and other programming
are vital components at Elmira.
Industries operates a printing plant, as well as a foundry
and paint brush and roller cover shop. Occupational training is
offered in carpentry and building construction, computer
programming, custodial maintenance, electrical trades, painting,
plumbing and heating, printing, small engine repair and welding. A
total of 272 Elmira inmates earned a total of 823 job titles in
1997, a designation which signals entry-level jobs skills in a
trade area.
On the educational side of the ledger, Elmira today offers a
full range of basic academic education classes as well as pre-GED
programs. Programs also exist for Spanish-dominant inmates to
improve their abilities in English.
The indeterminate sentence and parole system has been
attacked, and modified, in New York on the grounds that the
administrative discretion and differential treatment necessary to
administer it are inconsistent with principles of justice (a fact
candidly acknowledged by Brockway).
But the core of his program--classification with gradations
of freedom and privilege, along with an emphasis on development of
the whole person, physical,intellectual and spiritual remains at
the basis of modern corrections.
Article is from DOCS TODAY October 1998
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