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45 Prison J. 5 (1965)

handle is hein.journals/prsjrnl45 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITORIAL The current upward surge of concern for the poor in the United States is reflected in far-reaching decisions by all branches of govern- Inent. Recent wide-spread publicizing of the fact that a large portion of our population, in this land of plenty, are poverty stricken, has been Met by some new constructive action on the one hand, and by dis- belief and cynicism on the other. However, to the practitioner in cor- rections and to his counterpart, the theoretician, the prevalence of Poverty among those charged with crime and particularly those serving sentences is well known. The Pennsylvania Prison Society's social casework service provides first-hand knowledge of the dominance of poverty in the lives of former Prisoners. A random sample of the Society's clients, covering the past decade, confirms the postulate that these released offenders were pov- erty-stricken in a broad sense. Not only were they economically desti- tute, but they had come from homes where 54 per cent of the fathers did not have a consistent history of employment and, thus, there was an attendant dependence upon social agencies. Fully 62 per cent of the fathers were represented as being inadequate or bad providers. Only 2 per cent of the clients themselves were skilled workmen, 60 per cent were unskilled, 20 per cent were capable of only manual labor, and 18 per cent to odd jobs. Intelligence quotient ratings indicate the aver- age intelligence as normal, yet the number of years of school averaged only 8.4. The disrupted and isolated family situation of most of the clients is indicated by the fact that 80 per cent represented themselves as separated, 6 per cent single, and only 14 per cent married and living together. What has not been generally evident, however, is the quality of the relationship between poverty and the processes whereby the person charged with crime, and the convicted offender, are dealt with. This issue Of The Prison Journal was designed to provide in certain areas some lusight into this relationship. It should be evident that most significant changes are taking place 4n the clarification and expansion of the principle of equal justice under laW. The Supreme Court and the Poor, by Robert Hadi, and The 11digent Defendant and Defense Counsel, by Bernard Segal make this naflistakable. However, as Mr. Segal points out, the admirable growth 4 the rules of law is all too frequently being met by haphazard or mere token implementation. In view of this, one may well question why at the National Conference on Law and Poverty, held in June, only a very Sflall proportion of the program was devoted to criminal procedure. W Hadl, after tracing the momentous decisions of the United States Supreme Court during the past eight years, concludes by suggesting Several areas subject to future challenge under the Equal Protection Clause, notably monetary bail and procedure of alternative sentencing. 5

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