“ We must not expect ever to be entirely rid of this burden, just as we shall never be rid of the burden of physical and mental disease; but just as science has diminished and is still diminishing these latter, so we have reason to believe that similar scientific methods, properly applied, will diminish the burden of anti-social behavior, and help us to approach the irreducible minimum, a minimum which must probably always exist in a human world like ours, but a minimum from which we are at present still very far. ”

“ Man is a gregarious animal, especially when his waywardness has landed him in prison, and the old systems, which aimed at the solitary confinement of the prisoner and tried to reform him by opposing all the things which were natural to him, were as stupid as they were cruel.
Over the mess hall is the auditorium, large enough for all, with two stairways so that the inmates from cell blocks 3 and 4 may be separated from those in cell blocks 1 and 2, and the connecting corridor has been divided by mesh grilles, so that these two general classifications which are very desirable may be maintained. ”

“ By these few examples taken from the religious and civil architecture of early civilization I have endeavored to show that class distinction tends to express itself through the use of different housing levels, the height of each group being directly proportional to the power of its social division, thus giving a concrete expression to the theoretical grades by which the human mind differentiates the social status of the people who comprise any given group. ”

“ To-day, resignation and patient submission in the presence of disease of the body are no longer virtues. Mental disease has only more recently been looked at from this same viewpoint, and gratifying headway is being made in this direction. The world is just beginning to realize that misbehavior or anti-social behavior presents to society a problem somewhat similar to that of physical and mental disease. ”

“ There are no cat calls through the night, nor is there the intolerable argument and vile language which are continually bandied back and forth in many American prisons, and particularly in our miserable county jails. This one thing, the lack of privacy, if there were no other, should condemn the inside cell system for all time. There is nothing in the suggestion frequently made that the outside cell is another name for solitary confinement, except where such a system is intentionally carried out, as formerly was the practice. ”

“ If we apply this rather pragmatic psychology to the problem of planning a new prison, we find it obvious at the outset that a prison population forms, together with its dependencies, a complete segregated community and therefore presents few phases which have not been successfully solved in the various treatments of community houses in past eras. ”

“ The inside cell of the American prison is a type peculiar to this country, and its design is based on the principle that the prisoner is to be retained above every other consideration. Consequently our jails have been designed with what has come to be known as “interior cells,” that is, the cells are placed not against the outside walls, but in the center of the building, back to back, separated by a passageway from three to four feet in width, referred to as a utility corridor, in which all the plumbing and ventilating pipes are placed. ”

“ The character and kind of prison we have had, in the past, had as its sole aim to achieve mediæval security; a housing condition crude and archaic in conception, which has not helped to relieve and protect society against the spirit of crime, but on the contrary has actually tended to its increase. ”

“ I do not mean that misbehavior is necessarily the result of or associated with disease, either physical or mental, although this is often the case, but that it presents an analogous problem to society, and that it should be attacked in the same manner, that is, through scientific analysis and classification, the discovery of causes, probably very complex, and the application of remedies, probably chiefly preventive, and based upon these causes. ”

“ The space between the outside of the building and the front of the cells is frequently divided by a steel grille forming two long corridors, the outside corridor being called the guards’ corridor, and the inside corridor, next to the cells, the prisoners’ corridor. The object of this division was to protect the guard from the prisoner, for this system is devised on the theory that every jail building must be constructed on the basis of making it safe for the worst possible criminal which might ever get into it. Indeed, every once in a while a guard is killed by a prisoner ”

“ An inmate who is only sentenced for a week or ten days would never leave this cell block, but would serve his sentence and be released from there. Men confined for a longer period, however, would be assigned to whatever classification seemed best after the observation period expires. In the reception building are also included the shower baths, twenty-seven in number, so that all the inmates of each floor may be bathed at one period. Shower baths are frequently put in the basement, about the worst possible place for them at all times, but especially in a prison. ”

“ As our modern prisons are administered, the men are fed in a general mess hall and not in the cell, and [Pg 55] with the work on the farm and in the shops, and in the freedom which is now permitted in the recreation periods, there is not the slightest reason to feel that the inmate has anything to endure in the outside cell at all comparable to solitary confinement. ”

“ Thus religion looked down upon royalty and royalty, in turn, on its walled city with its level streets and multitudinous inhabitants, and thus in this segregated and self-sufficient community a natural and unwitting psychological arrangement of class housing was worked out by these early architects. ”

“ He is entitled to decent living conditions and as little hardship as is consistent with his safe-keeping. The theory of the law is that the prisoner is not to be punished until he is proved to be guilty. It has been the practice in this country to use the county jails as places of confinement for sentenced prisoners convicted of minor offenses, and in most of the county jails these two classes of prisoners mingle freely together. Not only that, but insane prisoners and witnesses, accused of no crime, are often kept in the jails, where they come in contact with other prisoners. ”

“ By the construction of an additional cell house in the space indicated by the dotted lines on the ground plan, and by the construction of an additional kitchen and mess hall between the present mess hall and the power house, the population of the prison may be doubled. The present prison is designed to accommodate 800 prisoners on a basis of five men to the large cells. By putting six men in the cells, however, the present population may be increased to something over 900. By constructing an additional mess hall and kitchen, racial segregation may be more completely effected. ”

“ Most of the men were to be employed on the farm, but in an institution of this size there are always men who will do better in shops so that the two kinds of work ought to be available. The plan was to build the institution by contract and the shops by prison labor.
The general scheme is set forth clearly in the plan, and it may be said that at the very beginning it was determined the men should be housed in smaller units than was usual. There are four cell blocks of three tiers each, all with outside cells, there being 27 men on a floor and 81 to a cell block. ”

“ The matrons in the two-story cottages are tired to death climbing up and down stairs. When they are upstairs, the boys are doing mischief on the first floor, and vice versa. But I can stand in the door of my room and can see the kitchen, the dining-room, the living-room, the porch, the dormitory, and the locker room, and it makes the work very much easier.”
We submit a photograph of the exterior and floor plan of a one-story cottage, which was built without any excavation. Heat was supplied by natural gas, which simplified the problem. ”

“ In an industrial prison a man can do more and better work if he sleeps and rests sufficiently. If the cotton mills are to be operated double shift during summer months with a large portion of the population sleeping during hot summer days, it is doubly important that the prisoners be confined in well-ventilated and sanitary quarters. This fact we have borne in mind in the design of the cell houses at Kilby Prison. ”

“ The cell blocks are not only closed off from the connecting corridor by a glass partition, but at each floor the corridor between the cells is again closed off from the stair hall so as to make the quarters for the men as quiet as possible. The intolerable banging, rattling, and reverberation of the usual steel cell in the huge modern cell block is one of the chief things to be said against it. ”

“ No metropolitan city of the United States has yet succeeded in constructing a satisfactory jail for the detention of prisoners awaiting trial. The New York City “Tombs” is a gloomy pile, properly described by its name. The ancient Charles Street Jail of Boston has recently been reconstructed at a very large expense, but does not meet the needs of the present day.
The county jail ought to be the most reformatory institution in the land. It receives offenders at the beginning of their careers, before they have become hardened and confirmed criminals. ”

“ Except for the high standard of cleanliness of the women’s department, it is difficult to find any good points about the Cook County Jail.... It is recognized as an insanitary, dark, overcrowded institution that is a disgrace to Cook County.... They [the prisoners] are locked in their cells from 11.30 in the morning to 3.30 in the afternoon. There are two or three men in each small cell (six by nine feet and eight feet high) . It is impossible to distribute the men according to their habits of cleanliness or decency. ”

“ If one surveys the history of civilization and investigates the growth and final results of the structural plan of either religious or civil communities, it is at once apparent that the final housing scheme of any given settlement is determined by the topography of the region of its location. ”

“ Twenty hours out of each twenty-four must be spent locked in the insanitary, dirty, crowded cell. All meals are served to the men in their cells. The time for exercise, 9.30-11.30 a. m. and 3.30-5.30 p. m., they stand or walk around or sit down on the floor of the ‘bull pen’ or ‘exercise corridor.’ In the ‘old jail’ this ‘pen’ includes all the floor space of the cell house not occupied by the cell block. It is a big room swarming with men. In the departments of the ‘new’ it is the corridor into which the cells open. The cells are kept locked during the four exercise hours. ”

“ It will also be possible, by proper classification, to segregate convicts of the same social and moral strata into the same multiple man cells.
At the outer end of the detention cell building is the punitive cell building, containing 24 concrete cells supplied with mechanical ventilation. Twelve of these cells will face the windows and will thus be solitary light cells, while the remaining 12 cells will face the dark corridor and will thus be solitary dark cells. In future, confinement and other methods of punishment will supersede corporal punishment in Alabama prisons. ”

“ The rotunda in the central space will give opportunity for invalids to get the benefit of fresh air. The prisoners will be divided into sections for exercise on the roof, coming up in squads of 50 or more. The roof garden will be enclosed in a strong netting, to obviate danger of suicides or attempted escapes.
The separation of each floor will simplify the problem of heating and ventilation, which will be as simple as that of any office building. The division of each floor into four distinct compartments will permit of classification in as many groups of 25 as may be desired. ”

“ If we accept this new theory, and make negligible the assumption that most criminals have inherited a tendency toward wrong-doing, it becomes necessary for us to revise many of our ideas concerning the government, discipline and housing of prisoners, and to acquire an impressionable quality of mind susceptible to new theories and experiments which concern the welfare and advancement of our less fortunate fellow men. ”

“ In the new cell block at the Eastern Penitentiary at Philadelphia the cells have been equipped with two doors—one of solid wood and the other an iron grating. In warm weather the grating only is used, and if a prisoner becomes unruly or noisy, the wooden door is closed. The upper portions of the doors at Westchester are glazed, as they always should be, because it is necessary for the guard at all times to see if the prisoner is in his cell. ”