to each offender, and each probation officer, unless otherwise instructed by the court, must adopt such methods of administering his probationary duties as seem to him desirable. The natural result of this is that there is the widest possible variety in regard to every feature of the system. The amount of work to be done in the majority of these courts is not sufficient to attract serious attention, nor to result in the development of a plan of organization likely to secure reasonably harmonious and effective work. Nor, in the opinion of this Commission, is it possible for the courts appointing probation officers to exercise a sufficient degree of supervision over the relations of such probation officer: to the probationers under their care. The court must pass on to the trial of new cases. The overcrowding of the court calendars is a matter of common knowledge. If an offender is committed to an institution, the court is not charged with any responsibility for the administration of the institution to which the prisoner is sent. If the prisoner, on the other hand, is released under a suspended sentence, it is not reasonable to expect the court to be able to exercise full continuous responsibility for the supervision and oversight of the probation officers charged with the duty of looking after offenders under this less severe method of discipline. The system of rotation on the part of the magistrates and judges from one court to another, or of rotation in service in the same court, adds greatly to the difficulty of developing a satisfactory supervision of probation work by the courts alone. This Commission has no desire to diminish in any degree the present interest taken by certain of the judges and magistrates in the work of their probation officers. On the contrary, it would be glad to see a more general interest on the part of the courts, but it is fully satisfied that when the courts have

done their full duty and have done all that it is possible for them to do, there still remains a pressing necessity for oversight, supervision, study and development of probation work as a system of oversight of offenders not committed to a penal or reformatory institution, but nevertheless undergoing reformatory discipline.

We believe, therefore, that the number of persons charged with the duty of appointing probation officers should be greatly diminished; that the oversight of probationers should be placed in the hands of those who can give substantially uninterrupted attention to such work, and that there should be built up, in addition to the work of the courts, supplementary thereto and working in close harmony therewith, what may properly be called a probation system, by which the problems of probation may receive the study, supervision and constant revision and improvement that are secured for reformatory institutions by the boards of managers and executive officials thereof. We there fore recommend that in each city of the first and second classes the appointment of probation officers be placed in the hands of an unpaid probation commission and elsewhere in the hands of the county judge. This would reduce the number of authorities authorize to appoint probation officers from some three thousand to about seventy.

The Commission is of the opinion that there is not likely to be an effective probation system in any city unless and until there is a considerable body of public opinion informed as to the meaning and value of probation, and a number of citizens who are willing to become publicly identified with, and responsible for, such work; who in turn will create and extend public opinion in its favor, demand higher and higher standards in its adminis

tration, and protect it from improper influences. It is not a problem which requires primarily administrative capacity, as does the work of most city departments, but is essentially a human problem, involving many delicate and difficult factors and requir ing for its successful development a wide range of knowledge and experience, breadth of view, constant revision of method and intimate relations with other agencies for social improvement in each locality. For these reasons, the Commission regards as its most important recommendation the suggestion that in each city of the first and second classes there shall be appointed an unpaid board of probation commissioners who shall have substantially the powers of a board of directors, in relation to probation officers and probation work. In such a board, we are convinced, there will be found the required combination of organization and flexibility, with opportunity for necessary growth. It will have full authority to retain all the valued features of probation work as thus far developed in particular courts, and gradually to add thereto the features indicated in this report as essential to a well-rounded probation system.

In the opinion of this Commission, it is clearly desirable that probationers should be placed under the supervision of probation officers of their own sex, except that boys under the age of fourteen may often be placed under the care of women probationers with good results.

(h) State oversight needed.

For many years it has been the settled policy of this State to exercise central supervision over all charitable and reformatory agencies having any connection with public authority. By the collection of statistics and other information in regard to the

work of such agencies, by inspection from time to time by accredited representatives of the State, by formal investigation when abuse has been suspected, by formal recommendations, enforced, in some instances, by formal orders, the State has undertaken to bring something like harmony, unity and consistency into its charitable and reformatory work. The results achieved by the State Board of Charities, the State Commission in Lunacy and the State Prison Commission in their respective fields have, in the opinion of this Commission, more than justified this settled policy of the State.

We are, therefore, strongly of the opinion that, while probation work must always be permitted a considerable degree of flexibility to meet local conditions and individual needs, there should be provided, nevertheless, some form of central oversight. This should involve the collection of information in regard to the extent to which probation is utilized in different portions of the State from time to time, the manner in which probation work is carried on, and the value of the results secured. It should include the authority to make formal and detailed investigations of probation work in any given court or locality, when such is deemed advisable; it should provide for the making of suggestions to the Legislature from time to time for the improvement of the probation system, and for recommendations from time to time to public authorities, judicial and executive, concerned in the administration of probation; it should involve the promotion of probation work in those localities in which it is not availed of; in short, it should involve the performance by some central authority, from time to time, of the work which this special Commission has carried on during the past few months.

The question as to the proper constitution of such a State supervisory body has been given careful consideration. The work is in many respects similar to that carried on by the State Board of Charities in its supervision of reformatories for juvenile offenders, and for women. It has some points of contact with the work of the State Prison Commission. The creation of a new body, to be known perhaps as a "State Probation Commission " naturally suggested itself, and some members of the Commission have felt that a body created for this specific purpose would secure more valuable results than any existing agency of the State government.

The Commission is aware, however, of the inadvisability of increasing the number of permanent commissions except when no other course seems to have a possibility of securing the desired results. The State Board of Charities is a constitutional body, representative of all portions of the State, and experienced in dealing with many phases of charitable and reformatory work. The Commission is of the opinion that the general oversight of probation work throughout the State may properly be placed in its hands.

The Commission deems it essential that this work should not be merged with the other varied and extensive duties of the State Board of Charities, but should be organized as a separate bureau or department of that board, under the direction of a special committee thereof, and with its own executive staff under the direction of a competent chief executive officer, to be known as the "Superintendent of Probation."