EX-CONVICT AS SAMARITAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3800, 2 June 1928, Page 1

EX-CONVICT AS SAMARITAN.

Saved from the gallows at the last moment, Joseph Pensendorfer, now 53, has managed not only to rehabilitate himself in the esteem of his fellows, but to help others who, like himself, have served their enforced penance and been released. Usually the ex-convict needs help, and if it is not forthcoming he is likely to find himself in the toils of the law again. More than a-quarter of a century ago we read in the New York Times: Pensendorfer stood in a courtroom in Philadelphia and heard himself sentenced to be hanged for the murder of his father-in-law. Two days before he was to die the sen tence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was sent to .the penetentiary. While in prison, Pensendorfer, who was pardoned nine months ago, became a wood-work-er, mastering the arts of carving and inlay, and patented devices for wood-cutting processes. Wien freed he had 50,000 dollars to his credit in a bank in Philadelphia from royalties on bis inventions and the sale of his work. 'Recently he sat in the office of his busy wood-working factory at West Ecr- | lin, New Jersey, and told of the I realisation of his dream of furnishinjg employment to men who had served prison sentences. “During my time in prison,” he said, as he is quoted in The Times, *1 saw that the released convicts had no chance in the world. I saw them come in, serve their term and go out with the determination to go straight. Then I saw them come back again, licked. They had tried, but their prison records and the cops were too much for them. They would go back to crime again, because there was no other road open to them.” So Pensendorfer dreamed of the

time when lie' might have a business organisation where he could give these unhappy men a chancei The factory lias been in operation more than eight months and he feels that liis dream “is beginning to come I true.” His superintendent, we read, had served ten years for murder and had been pardoned; his chief draftsman had been a bank cashier, and had served a similar term for embezzling. Business, he says, has grown to such a volume that he intends soon to double the capacity of his plant. Fifteen men were at work turning out radio cabinets, ship models, and all manner of wood objects, at

the time of the .interview. Employment is now the principal problem, Pensendorfer said. “I could use 100 piore men to-day, if they were available,” he added. “I know where there are some very skilled woodworkers”—'here he smiled —“but unfortunately the authorities are detaining them.” Any convict will have a chance in his factory. Pensendorfer said, and there are only two rules to obey: “Wlork hard to follow the straight and narrow path, and quit booze entirely.” The lesson the Brooklyn Eagle draws from this novel adventure into social service is that, given the man, prison can prepare him for a life of honest and useful endeavour: “It does not show that every released convict deserves confidence.” For, we read: “Convicts, like other people, are diverse. Some lack the sense of social obligation and the will to go straight; of that type the group of professional criminals is largely composed. Some lack the capacity for useful work. Some chiefly among those who have committed crimes of passion may rank high in ability and in natural sense of duty. “The average citizen, the average employer, and to some degree the penal system, treat all convicts alike. A man who has undergone imprisonment himself knows that convicts are not all alike. He can tell which ones deserve employment and trust. He can, if the Camden case furnishes any evidence, render such men resources of the community, employing them to his own profit and tliers. “It may take a convict to judge a convict, in which case there is room for other former prison inmates to start other businesses and put to work the prison graduates capable of giving good service in other industries. Yet it seems as the social study, which has accomplished so much with othei classes, of the handicapped, might apply ‘itself successfully’ to diagnosing the men who issue from the penitentiaries, and selecting the sound ones for their own employment and for safeguarding society from the enforced criminality of the employment outcast.”