Dr. Miriam Van Waters, April 10 , 1949
“Women prisioner are usually harder to reform permanently than men because of the different attitudes that society takes toward make and female offenders. The rules laid down for women in our society are much more stringent than for men.
“The man in Presion can be retrained to prepare for a good job when he is released and the chances in such cases are that he won’t go back to prision, but inductrial traning is no guarantee that a woman won’t return. Hardly 3% of the women sent to gail are there for stealing anything. They are there for illicit sex, neglect of children, drinking – and these are the things that bring her back.
“I hope that in the future society will provide institutional shelters, not as we know them today, for misfits, such as confirmed alcoholics and emotional midgets who cannot stand the competition of life.”
