portions of the statute. The Baumes law increased prison populations as persons who would formerly have been paroled remained incarcerated, placing a strain on infrastructure. In addition to a negative effect on prison conditions, the Baumes law also decreased prisoner morale, since it greatly decreased inmates' ability to achieve parole. Commenting on the Baumes law in his autobiography, Clarence Darrow wrote, The unfortunates in prisons felt that there was no chance for regaining liberty once the prison doors closed upon them. This hopelessness kindled prison revolts, which led to fearful slaughter, to the destruction of all that the years of earnest work had done to modify conditions by building up humane prisons, caring for juvenile offenders, and giving the condemned hope or opportunity once more to be free. The Baumes law led to 1929 riots at Auburn and Dannemora, with nine prisoners and a guard losing their lives during the former. In response to the riots, New York appointed a committee to investigate the state's prison system. Led by Sam Lewisohn, who would ultimately become the president of the American Prison Association, the Lewisohn Commission issued a number of recommended changes, the majority of which became policy. Among these was a shift from the mandatory sentences of the Baumes law to a more open-ended sentencing and parole system, focused on rehabilitation and vocational training. "Bum's rush" Some people mistakenly believe that a corrupted version of "Baumes law" was the origin for the idiom "bum's rush". However, this phrase was in common use before the passage of the Baumes law, and it is derived from the practice of evicting tramps or vagrants from bars and other public places. Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel The Maltese Falcon (novel) has a bit of dialogue referring to "Baumes rush" in reference to a hoodlum who'd left New York for San Francisco, the implication being he had been chased out by the law, so perhaps the "Baumes" variant was back-fit to the existing one given the assonance of the name. See also Three strikes law References 1926 in American law 1926 in New York (state) New York (state) statutes U.S. state criminal legislation Life imprisonment