In our desire for internal improvements for North Carolina, and especially to try, if possible, to reduce the number of criminals in our State, we, the Officers and members of the Carolina Prisoners Aid Society, earnestly request and pray your consideration of the following appeal:

It is the duty of the State not only to protect the law-abiding citizen by depriving the criminal of his liberty and punishing him for his crime but it is also the sacred duty of the State to protect the criminal and to provide in a proper manner for his welfare and future possibilities.

We do not wish to be mis-understood when we state that the present system for the care and protection of the criminal is in every respect as defective and as full of possibilities for making the average convict serving sentence, a better man when he leaves prison. Experience has taught us that there are three classes of criminals.

First, the habitual, professional criminal, who, with willful and malicious intent, commits crime with a definite criminal intent. Second, the man who is deficient mentally and has been regarded by the best medical authority as irresponsible in many instances. Third, the man who previous to his conviction, was recognized as a good citizen, but through provocation, environment, or temptation committed a crime which caused his arrest and conviction.

We have no desire to criticise the verdict of the jury which passed upon the evidence presented to them in any of these cases which these different types of men were tried and convicted for, but we believe that insufficient consideration is often given when both juries and judges are summing up the evidence in the case.

"We, therefore, request that you will kindly condescend to consider the question of grading prisoners on purpose to separate the habitual, professional criminal from the first offender. We believe that there is every facility in the State of North Carolina for doing this.

We have seven separate State Prison camps, each of these camps could have a different class of men in them. We have two State prison farms, in which prisoners could be graded.

We have no desire whatever to appear in the role of dictators, but are simply interested in our State and wish to do our utmost to try and reduce the number of criminals in our State.

Therefore, we state after due consideration, that simply to take a large number of prisoners and place them together without discrimination is to make the first offender lose every ambition that he may have to reform, and to turn him from the prison gate at the end of his sentence a worse criminal that when he entered.