A YEAR OR SO after we became a charter member of The Pathfinders Club of America, we decided if we were to be of greater service to parolees it would be better if we knew them better.  To this end, we asked the Governor of a certain state to be sent to a state penitentiary, to be a convict to all purposes and intents, that we might mingle with and study their processes of thinking and acting.  We lived the life of the prison with the exception that we had the run of the place, going and coming as we pleased, talking to whom we liked.  With the knowledge of the Governor and consent of the warden, we were “sentenced” for a period of six weeks.  We took our summer vacation that way.
    The name we were registered under, and the number given, were and are fictitious.  This is done to prevent amateur and professional sleuths from detecting the truth of this story, and to prevent checking back and thus embarrassing the institution for giving us this opportunity to study the penal minds and methods.
    So far as any inmate knew, we were a convict, convicted of a crime and sentenced for an indeterminate time.  We went through the routines, everything, with the exception of having our hair cut.  We wore the uniform, lived the life, ate with them, commingled with and knew many, more particularly the Younger Brothers who were there and who were known as the most infamous bank robbers next to the Jessie James gang.  They considered us a privileged convict because of our having more liberties than they.
    In here, we met hardened criminals who will never be anything but that.  The minds of these people were so badly warped that we doubt if they will ever be straightened out.  We found others who, in a moment of passion and anger, committed crimes which they regretted every year, month, and day.  But for the grace of God, we might have done the same yesterday, or may do the same tomorrow, for all of us have submerged tempers that could fly into a rage upon certain provocations.  We found others who were convicted on circumstantial evidence, whom we believed innocent, but which they could not prove to the satisfaction of a jury “of his peers,” who wouldn’t want to be in his position if conditions were reversed, and who would want to be set free if they were.  We met young boys who should not have been sent here to live with tough characters who taught them to be worse rather than better.
    Every one longed and hoped for the day he would gain his freedom.  We are convinced they had plenty of time to think that “crime does not pay,” and they had every determination to go straight, once they got out.  Being proud, many of them bragged, on the surface; but down deep inside they knew what they wanted to do if society would let them.  Society, however, is a jealous and zealous harbinger of what is good or bad, therefore lets few of them do so; therefore, The Pathfinders Club.
    In prison was found every avocation: preachers and preachers’ sons; bankers, writers, painters, artists of all kinds.  All the mechanical trades were represented.  Many of the prisoners were very talented.  Although they worked in the prison factories, many had hobbies on the side which brought extra smoking money.
    In some penitentiaries, where we have since lectured at the lunch hour, we found wardens who permitted men to raise canaries, flowers, pet mice, in their cells.  They permitted baseball on Sunday afternoons between picked teams inside, or even bringing in an outside opposition team.  They believed in “humanizing” men.  More of this should be done.
    The warden was tough on those who demanded toughness.  He was human to those who would let him be so.  He was kind to those who tried to be good and live up to the rules laid down.
    Everywhere there were underground currents of communication.  None took us into their confidence because they did not know us long enough to trust us; nor did we try to worm into their confidence; neither did we have the appearance of being tough enough to take it.  It takes years for these men to give confidences even to their cell-mates.  We were no exception.
    We became convinced that many men were worth while and would make good if given half a chance.  Because we became so convinced was the reason we have taken such an interest in them in later years.
    Men and women called criminals have committed “a crime” against society.  For this “sin” against the common good, they forfeit their right to a certain period of physical liberty.  Society, in turn, makes it possible to commit a crime against the criminal.  What is a “crime” or “sin”?  It is a debatable question of your doing something injurious to another person which we would not do under the same circumstances.  If we would, then to us that isn’t a crime.  If you would and we wouldn’t, then to us what you do is a crime.  And who are you to judge us, or we to judge you?
    As we have said in The Story of Slipping and Checking, the crime isn’t physical, nor is it in the act of what the material body does, even though evidence used for conviction is based on physical acts.  The crime was in thinking the act which precedes action.  If thinking normally and naturally is controlled, physical action must be normal.
    Next to hunger, sex is the dominant passion to mental stability and physical health.  Hunger is natural, so is sex.  Hunger is necessary, so is sex.  People will kill people for food to live.  More crimes are committed with sex as a root than hunger.  Society at large looks upon sex as an abhorrent subject, to be studied and practiced secretly; many regarding it as a vice.  Sex should be known about as freely as food is talked about.  Many a young woman goes to her marriage bed shocked with what she experiences.
    When men and women are imprisoned, each to associate from then on with his or her own sex, and each is deprived of natural and normal expression of sex, he or she resorts to perversions which break down normal and natural mental stability and physical health — in itself a “crime” against natural and normal relationship intended between man and woman.  It is inevitable.  This is the secret evil in prison life which cannot be controlled or avoided.
    If men and women who go in are not homos, they soon become such with “wives” or “husbands” in the lower bunk.  When they are paroled or have served their time and are turned back into the channels of society, they are chronic homosexual perverts, a criminal in the eyes of statutes made and provided to protect society, to spread their “crime” amongst others.  Being a secret vice, who knows what untold damage is done by thousands creating untold hundreds of thousands of these unnatural practices?
    Realizing the necessity of sex, some modern penitentiaries, facing this problem, especially in some foreign civilized countries, permit men to see their wives, and wives to see their husbands, every so often, providing special rooms for that purpose.  If men have no wives, then women are procured; and men are procured for women.  Even this, without the formality of marriage, is better than homosexuality in prison and on society when they are released.  The worst that can be said against such a method of correction is that in one instance they are not married in the eyes of man-made rules and regulations.  The best that can be said for such a method of correction is that it permits a natural and normal use of sex.  So take your choice as to which is the greater “crime” — the natural law of expression or the artificial statute of human relationships.  The one does more to stabilize peace and good behavior with prisoners than any other one thing.  Where this has been tried, there is far less rebellion amongst prisoners.  Sex-hunger and food-hunger drive men and women mad.  To provide companionship with the opposite sex does more to ra1tionalize life behind prison bars than can be imagined by people outside.
    If one person on the outside takes the life of another person on the outside that’s murder and is a crime often punishable by the state taking his life.  It is premeditated murder regardless of whether a free individual does it or a state does it upon a prisoner who cannot escape.  It is murder whether done by the gas chamber, hanging, or the hot seat.  We have seen a state-authorized “neck-tie party.”  We have seen a boy have his head chopped off for stealing a loaf of bread.  Murder is murder, no matter who does it.  We are opposed to capital punishment regardless of how done or for what reason done, for there is always the possibility of a mistaken conviction which cannot later be corrected.
    We became convinced many of these men were worthwhile and would make good and respectable citizens if given half a chance.  Because we became so convinced, we have taken an interest in them in later years.
    Yes, Convict No. 9366 “went straight” when he got out.  He has helped many others do the same.  The experience so gained has given us a greater insight into the hearts of men and women, right or wrong, good or bad.  In so helping others, we feel we are carrying on the practical application of the principles of The Master of old.

Bigness - "The Pathfinder"          CHIROPRACTIC LIBRARY          Bigness - "Crime Detection"