642 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
legislation for their removal or continuance. The most prominent existing regulations noted as retrogressive are :
1. Legislation restricting or prohibiting labor. This limits the opportunity for becoming proficient in trades, tends to decrease the adaptability of the prisoner to society, and prevents his procuring an honest livelihood upon his release. The prison containing an excellent labor and self-disciplining system is primarily of assistance in decreas- ing crime. In the United States, in the majority of institutions, labor and the learning of a trade is compulsory, and provision is made for it. In some states, as New York, for political and economic reasons the legislatures have prescribed the variety and amount of labor which shall be done by convicts. This may reduce the competition with outside establishments and manufactories, but the ultimate gain to the state or society is not quite so clear.
2. The indiscriminate incarceration in prisons and jails of youth- ful and old offenders. This is a well-recognized source of criminal contagion, and is a reform advocated early in the beginning of the present century. This indiscriminate association of criminals has laid the foundation for the assertion that these institutions are "schools of crime" and are the "most potent agents in producing experienced and educated criminals." In the United States a division of sexes is made, but beyond this little thought has been given to the subject by legis- lators. France has the most complete system in this respect, although many faults remain. It includes five classes of prisons — those for criminals with long sentences, those for criminals having short sentences, correctional establishments, lockups, and depots for convicts sentenced to relegation and hard labor. There are committees which classify the criminals and determine the destination of everyone arrested and convicted. The rule is rigid that first offenders shall be kept separate. Although but limited conversations are permitted in most institutions, many ingenious methods of conversing exist, and many future crimes are planned, or ideas imbibed which will develop into crimes.
3. The cellular system of imprisonment. This is illustrated by the Eastern Penitentiary at Philadelphia, and is much more common in Europe than in the United States. It is condemned upon the ground of being detrimental to reformation. Instead of fitting a convict to reenter society, it makes him less independent and develops only a small degree of self-control, an attribute in which he is already defi- cient. The absence of association during incarceration is not the
