Indeterminate Control of Offenders: Realistic and Protective

Abstract

The keystone of the Youth Correction Authority Act is the principle that the length of the period of treatment must be completely within the control of the Authority. Since the Act completely abandons the notion that punishment alone is the panacea for crime, it follows logically that the time required to redirect the offender must be gauged by the necessities of each individual case. This idea is neither radical nor untried. Rather it is a realistic facing up to the hard facts learned from a long fruitless effort to curb crime through fear, retributive punishment, and uncoordinated action. It stems also from the conviction that the failure to check crime is because our criminal laws are not broadly enough framed adequately to protect society as a whole. The Model Act provides that the Authority may keep under continued study a person in its control and retain him under supervision so long as this is necessary to the protection of the public. The Act also provides that the offender be given full liberty as soon as there is reasonable probability that he will not be a menace to the public. The Act, however, does not give carte blanche to the Authority to determine how long an offender may be held since one of its sections provides that court approval must be obtained, if he is held beyond his twenty-first birthday if he was originally committed before he was i8, or beyond the age of 25 if he was committed subsequent to his eighteenth birthday. The Act also establishes machinery whereby the Authority may apply at specified intervals to the appropriate court for an order authorizing continued control over any offender whom it believes to be dangerous because of his mental or physical condition, disorder, abnormality, or because of his lack of improvement under corrective training or treatment. The request for continued control must be in writing and fully supported by a statement of facts and reasons. The offender is, of course, free to appear by counsel or in his own right to rebut such statements. Thus, it is theoretically possible for the Authority to release completely an offender the next day after he is placed in its control, or it may hold him for life. Admittedly the Act places broad discretion in the Authority and frankly places dependence upon the judgment, integrity, and ability of its members. But, even so, * A.B., I9I8, Brown University; LL.B., I926, George Washington University. Director of the Bureau of Prisons, United States Department of Justice, since I937. Formerly Commissioner, Federal Prison Industries, Incorporated; Assistant Director, Bureau of Prisons. President, American Prison Association, 1939. Contributor to periodicals.