The common conception of crime & punishment is that three out of four convicts reform after a term in a reformatory or after a period under probation. Precisely the reverse is true, according to a thorough study of Massachusetts ex-convicts.* Three out of four men who once were in jail return there. The causes of original imprisonment were in most cases petty. The prisoners were unlearned in crime. But in reform schools and jails they found good teachers. The urban gangster is usually a reform school graduate, a county jail postgraduate.
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