About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

23 Prison J. 267 (1943)

handle is hein.journals/prsjrnl23 and id is 1 raw text is: PRESIDENT'S REPORT The outstanding event in parole reform in Pennsylvania dur- ing the past year was the going into effect of the new Parole Law on June 1, 1942. The Governor had already made a fine appointment in the selection of Dr. Louis N. Robinson as Chairman of the Parole Board, and under his leadership the Board went promptly to work and set up the machinery for carrying out the Civil Ser- vice provisions of the act. Examinations were held under the guid- ance of competent experts, and with excellent results. Dr. Giovanni Giardini was chosen as Executive Director, he being among the three persons at the head of the list of those who had passed the special examination for the position. le was in every way familiar with problems of delinquency and had had practical experience in the matter of parole. For years he had served as head of the clinical staff of the Western Penitentiary, and had taught in the Depart- ment of Sociology of the University of Pittsburgh. He was exactly the sort of man to make an efficient Executive Director. G. Richard Bacon was selected as Secretary of the Board, and here again was an excellent appointment. Mr. Bacon graduated at Haverford, and after two years' post graduate work at Harvard decided to make prison work his career. He had served the Pennsylvania Prison Society and more recently had been a social worker on the staffs of the Eastern Penitentiary and Philadelphia County Prison. In his appointment as Secretary of the Parole Board secured in every sense a valuable man. A fine start has thus been made by the Parole Board in carry- ing out the provisions of the law, and if the Legislature supports the work with the necessary appropriations, Pennsylvania will soon have in full operation one of the best parole systems of the country. Everything depends upon there being a sufficient number of parole officers. The work, it must be remembered, is state-wide, and the parole officers must not have case-loads too heavy for them. The ideal number would be not more than 50 parolees for an officer, and the individual case-load should never exceed 75. This is ad- mitted by everyone familiar with the subject, and it is here that parole has often failed of success in the past. We hope that the Legislature will bear the matter in mind. A good parole system costs money, and the Parole Board must be supported with adequate appropriations if the persons who should be paroled are to be paroled, and paroled at the right time, and the public properly protected. The Board of Inspectors of the Philadelphia County Prison has recently published another Annual Report, the third in the series of printed reports started in 1939. It is extremely interesting and contains much valuable information. A number of statistical tables are presented, challenging the attention of the reader, and, as in previous reports, the problems confronting the management 267

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most