PROTECTIVE SOCIAL MEASURES of laws authorizing the county to commit sex delinquents to institutions for an indeterminate period. 13 The best institution which a state can provide for this purpose is an industrial school-farm. It meets admirably the problem of the`adult offenders as well as that of younger girls.1 Here the inmates under expert supervision can have medical care and can be brought into a healthful outdoor environment. They can have training in a congenial vocation; here they are given a different viewpoint as to the purposes of life and are equipped to go out again as safe citizens of the state. This reconstruction of moral fiber and character is not a theoretical dream. It has succeeded in hundreds of cases. The analogous institution for men is the prison farm. The establishment of such institutions is gaining headway. Mental examinations of arrested prostitutes show that a considerable percentage of them are feeble-minded or of low-grade mentality. Such women must be isolated. They are not only the most careless, habitual, and dangerous carriers of venereal diseases, but they present a serious problem from the point of view of illegitimacy.15 Inasmuch as so many of the girls who become involved in court cases are feeble-minded or psychopathic, it is essential that courts dealing with these cases have the facilities for making thorough mental examinations. An experienced psychiatrist or psychologist should be available. The farm colony is the most successful method for isolating feeble-minded prostitutes. Here they can have medical supervision and can work and contribute to their own support. But whatever institutional care is provided for them, they should be treated as mental defectives and not as criminals.16 13 Only 22 states now have such laws. See folded charts containing Tabular Analysis of Social Hygiene Legislation, facing pp. 40, 42, and 44. 14 States having reformatories for women are Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin. 15 The following states also have laws providing for reformatories for women, but due to lack of appropriations or faults of administration the institutions are not yet in operation: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Carolina. All states, excepting Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming, have reform schools for girls. 16 For information relative to mental hygiene, see p. 73, and apply to the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, 50 Union Square, New York City. PROTECTIVE SOCIAL MEASURES It is also necessary to have detention houses where offenders who are not yet hardened can be held without being branded as “jailbirds.” These should be homelike places and conducted with a view to the moral and mental rehabilitation of those placed there. During the time the offenders are held, medical and mental examinations should be made so that a rational plan for the detained person's future may be recommended to the judge. Placing girls or boys on probation or parole is a duty involving the exercise of judgment and sympathy. It should be done only with the greatest caution and under the supervision of probation officers of the same sex as the offender. Under adequate supervision, however, probation is to be preferred to institutional care for young offenders.17 Women police are most helpful to young and wayward girls in protecting them from criminal influences and in attending and shielding them when in court. When possible it is advisable to have women officials make the medical examination of girls and investigate their home conditions, keeping watch over them while on probation or parole and supervising places of public recreation, particularly dance-halls. All agencies combating prostitution and venereal diseases recognize the unregulated dance-hall as a great source of moral delinquency and venereal-disease infection. Prostitutes and pimps make of such dance-halls easy avenues for solicitations and recruiting. The proper supervision of such places requires expert officials, but the system of licensing and regulating the activities of dance-halls and other public amusement places has proved its value.18 The board of health of one state which is making great headway in its campaign against prostitution made a plea for public support. It asked its citizens the question, "Have you a daughter to spare?" Safeguard your daughters and sons by providing a fortress of preventive, protective measures. At the same time apply the golden rule by making provision for those who have taken the wrong path. 17 See Pub. No. 65, Children's Bureau, United States Department of Labor, "Courts in the United States Hearing Children's Cases." 18 See suggestions for legislation, p. 53; also "Recreation Legislation," published by the Russell Sage Foundation, 130 East 22d Street, New York City. EDUCATION: ITS RELATION TO THE PROGRAM Educational and recreational measures are essentials of the American plan, but lend themselves less readily to legislative action than do its other features. There are two aspects of social-hygiene education: the informational aspect which seeks to acquaint the public with social facts and conditions, and the truly educational aspect which seeks to bring to the aid of the individual at the various stages of his sex development the best knowledge, experience, and incentives to enable him to use his sex nature for his fullest development and the richest, most social life. For making effective the protective and preventive values of wholesome recreation and constructive legislation, the responsibility rests largely upon local community interest and individual effort. Hence these measures, important though they are, are presented here only in brief outline. All states participating in the federal appropriation through the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board have set aside some of their fund for educational work. By lecturers, publicity, motion-picture films, and literature they endeavor to carry social-hygiene truths to the rank and file of their citizenry. It is a recognized fact that sex education of boys and girls should start in the home, but many parents are either too ignorant or diffident regarding the fundamental facts of sex to teach their offspring. These parents, by the thousands, have shown themselves glad to receive pamphlets from their state boards of health designed to inform them and enable them to educate their children. They also welcome the lectures, motion pictures, and other features. Some state boards are featuring the appeal to men and women in industry, and the industrial program has proved successful not only from a health standpoint but from that of dollars and cents saved to both employer and employee. Educational activities must be depended on to a great extent as the real cornerstone of the social-hygiene structure. Education, though its results may not be as immediate or tangible as those brought about through legal and medical measures, is the greatest factor for ultimate victory. The direct financial value of social-hygiene education to a state cannot be accurately estimated at present, but a generous appropriation for the whole social-hygiene program means that provision can and should be made for the efficient utilization of this allpowerful weapon. RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES Clean, wholesome spare-time activities for both young and old are no longer considered luxuries but necessities. Theaters, community houses, libraries, athletics, and other recreational facilities provided during the war by the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., K. of C., J. W. B., Salvation Army, A. L. A., and W. C. C. S., for men in service were of great value in the campaign against such vicious influences as houses of prostitution, unregulated dance-halls, resorts supplying liquor, etc. Many men were kept free from disease and clean, mentally and morally, through the efforts of various agencies to provide, at low cost, places where decent recreation might be had. This recreational feature of the American plan, though having less of a legislative bearing than the other measures, is nevertheless well worthy of consideration. It is less a problem for the state than for the community, and its cost is not the main item. Some of the most effective activities have required little money. They have accomplished fine things through vision, organization, and the stimulation and coördination of existing resources. 19 Schools and other public buildings can be made extremely valuable as community meeting-places where evening lectures, concerts, motion-picture shows, and well-supervised dances may be held. High-school auditoriums and gymnasiums can be made to supplant the lower type of dance-halls and "movies" by providing decent recreation in better and more congenial surroundings, thus compelling a raising of standards in the commercial amusement resorts. 19 Full information on "Recreation Legislation" may be secured from the Russell Sage Foundation, 130 East 22d Street, New York City. |