Fehl v. Martin

Dante placed on the gate to inferno the motto “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Without parole and good conduct statutes, much of the despair of that motto must attend a prisoner upon entering the penitentiary. These statutes, that is, indeterminate sentence, parole and good conduct statutes, substitute for that feeling of hopelessness, on the part of such prisoners, the encouragement reflected in the expression, “Virtue hath its reward, even here.”

The writer sickens at the thought that this hope, this inspiration toward reform and good citizenship, after seventeen years of its…