Various

“ Once the governor sent half a dozen long-term men to town to see the sights for half a day and report back to the warden by sundown. They had a good time and reported back to the minute, sober and contented.
When the convicts were first sent out to work alone on the roads the farmers protested loudly. But the men soon proved that they were human, were living up to their honor pledge and were making better roads for the farmers than the farmers could make for themselves. The farmers of Marion county, where the prison is, are now the heartiest supporters of the new policy. ”

“ A school has existed in the state prison for many years, but it was Warden Bridges who placed it upon a practical basis, such as has made it a power for good.
In the correspondence school, as in the other, the teachers are all prisoners. As soon as a man is sent to the prison and has become accustomed to his surroundings he is interviewed by one of the teachers to ascertain if he wishes to study and improve his mind while in prison. ”

“ At present the building is used for all the housekeeping departments of the prison, including bathroom, laundry, tailor shop, shoe shop, kitchen, dining room, storeroom, hospital, chapel, library, warden’s office, principal keeper’s office, guards’ quarters and a small dormitory for the kitchen gang. It is a beehive of activity, with its sixty-odd inmate workers, and a poor place for the night guards to do their day-sleeping. The halls and rooms are daily mopped and scrubbed and every nook and corner is kept scrupulously clean by a gang of porters. ”

“ This gives an advantage to the steward of the prison in providing a greater variety of food and a more attractive menu at the same per capita expenditure as the other prisons in the State are allowed which are not favored with a farm. The per capita expenditure in all State prisons is limited by legislative appropriation. The fine air, good water, sound sleep in clean beds and clean rooms, the daily exercise at work on the farm and at such other work as is connected with running the prison—all combine to supply a hearty appetite to the inmates. ”

“ A power plant covering half a city block is about finished. The power plant is connected by tunnel with the main building under process of construction. An examination of the power plant gives every evidence of expert construction. It is built of brick and concrete, with an immense circular brick chimney rising to a height of over 100 feet. When it is in operation it will be in charge of a convict engineer.
The main building of the new prison is being constructed on the radial plan, with the cell, hospital and other wings radiating from a central building or rotunda. ”

“ They are given a chance to fit themselves for useful callings, are assured of parole, with work at good wages, when they deserve it. There have been but three attempts at escape since the system was inaugurated six months ago. The new system is carefully worked out. The state prison aid society works with the state parole board and governor to find remunerative employment for paroled men. Men that have proven reliable and efficient on prison work are recommended for parole; a job is secured them. If they get a better one they can take it. ”

“ The establishment of a system under which no delinquent shall be released, unless in the judgment of the board, after searching inquiry, there is good reason to believe that he can and will maintain himself without relapsing into crime, and will be of some service to society; and under which no delinquent will be further held when such a condition is believed to have been reached.
8. The extension of state agency and other supervisory means for observing and aiding the delinquent on parole, and for selecting suitable location and employment for him, and caring for his surplus earnings. ”

“ It is best for the prisoners themselves to be so employed and until such an amendment to the constitution can be secured, my contention is that they should be employed, whatever they do, at the same [15] wage that is paid the same character of labor outside the prison walls; and that the profit of their labor be applied by the State to the maintenance of the families of the convicts instead of going to and enriching the contractors. ”

“ The Connecticut prison association, in issuing a call, directed attention to the fact that the great need in that state is a change in our treatment of petty offenders. “We made great progress in the treatment of these cases when we established the probation service, [12] which keeps many out of jail. But during 1910 there were 10,468 commitments to our county jails. Six thousand and fifty of these, by their own admission, has been in prison before.”
In New York the prison association sent special letters to about 1,500 pastors, 200 of whom responded favorably. ”

“ Some of the delegates to this Prison Congress may hardly appreciate the fact that there are institutions in some states where neither institution heads nor subordinates attend caucuses, discuss politics, contribute to campaign funds or take any part in election matters, except to vote: and where the political preferences of the members of the staff are unknown to each other, or to their chief. The elections bring to the institutions no unusual excitement or personal anxiety. ”

“ It seems now that, at the present rate of decrease, the population of the prison-farm the second year will be some nineteen hundred less than during the first year.
The superintendent, Mr. Whittaker, endeavors to impress upon the men that it is better in every way to work as free men and earn wages than to be sent to the farm and be compelled to work without wages. Three of the best and most useful employees of the farm are men who were once confined thereon as prisoners.
The products of the work on the farm will not be used in competition with those of the public. ”

“ While the incompetents remain with the normal persons in labor, in school, and in recreation, the progress of the bright is certain to be retarded by the association, while the outlook for the dull is not improved. ”

“ It is not to be wondered at that many of the young people who should follow institution work turn their attention in some more pleasing and promising direction, and that the service generally fails to measure up to its possibilities. ”

“ In an interview in the New York Sun, O. F. Lewis, general secretary of the prison association of New York, said recently:
“The principal prison needs of this State are a separate cell for each prisoner in State prisons, employment for eight hours a day for all able-bodied men in State prisons, the marketing of all prison-made products in this State to the State and its political subdivisions, such as counties and cities; the introduction and development of industries in our county penitentiaries and jails ”

“ From juvenile institutions the returns are neither more hopeful, nor more satisfying, and many institutions of that class seem to have no special facilities for caring for weaklings, and depend upon a relaxation of the discipline in their behalf. A study of 200 in the boys industrial school in Kansas disclosed that 174 were mentally dull, markedly defective, or two or more years behind their proper place in school. In the industrial school of New Hampshire about 75 per cent. are reported to be four to five years below their normal grade in school. ”

“ Governor West solved this problem by doing away with the guards. All there is to the new prison policy of Governor West’s is this: “Give the men a chance. If they don’t take it you have done your part.” But they do take it.
Convicts May Raise Trees.—It is not illegal for convicts to be employed in reforestation as planned by the conservation commission, according to Attorney General Carmody of New York State, nor is it illegal to sell trees raised by convict labor for the reforestation of private lands. ”

“ While the prisoner-teachers rarely, if ever, see their pupils after they have joined the correspondence school, the hold the teachers obtain upon the respect and interest of the solitary students is truly wonderful. ”

“ Then the farm method of handling prisoners is splendid economy. It is estimated that to complete the rock-crushing and brick-manufacturing plant, to finish grading the grounds and building the roads and the erection of additional barns and other outbuildings and to pay the ordinary expenses of the prison for the year the cost will be $120,000, which is thirty thousand dollars less than it cost the District to support the prisoners during the last year under the old jail system. ”

“ Frank Moore, superintendent of the Rahway Reformatory gave an address before the annual convention of the American prison association at Omaha, on “Mending the Immoral Moron.” He said, in part:
“In our New Jersey reformatory we have during the last two years made a careful study of this problem. Each inmate that has been received has been tested concerning his mentality, with the result that 46 per cent. were found to be deficients and to have minds that in knowledge or ability were only equal to the minds of children from 5 to 13 years old. Fully 33 per cent. ”

“ The cell house walls are 75 per cent. windows and each cell is flooded with light. At night in each cell an electric light, with a shade throwing the light downward, provides splendid illumination for reading, writing, drawing, etc. The cell house has a comprehensive ventilating system, with ventilating ducts connecting each cell.
Opposite the cell house stands the administration building. When the whole prison plant is completed—which will take several years yet—this building will be used exclusively for hospital, school and library purposes. ”

“ The government has no intention whatever of going into the open market in competition with outside labor. It will manufacture nothing at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, which is not used in the conduct of the prison itself. In pursuance of this policy in the past, it has built with prison labor six miles of terminal railroad at the fort, and has constructed and is maintaining many miles of rock road. ”

“ The establishment of truant schools in the cities has demonstrated that the best and most capable teachers and managers are necessary to their successful conduct and discipline, and for the same reasons a prison or reformatory should be manned by the best obtainable talent. ”

“ The punishment for the unruly is solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water and this form of discipline has only been found necessary for an average of five cases each month, with an average prison population of 550 men, or less than one per cent. ”

“ If there is doubt as to his ability to enter some classes he has a private examination by the teacher in elementary subjects. If he shows ability to enter the correspondence school he receives material and lesson blanks, and works out his exercises in his own cell in his spare time, sending his answers to the school office. ”

“ The improvement in prison management has kept pace with the change in the criminal code.
Finding children in the jails of Kansas, the society began, in 1903, a campaign for the juvenile court act. The bill to introduce it in the state senate in 1903 was defeated. Then followed the campaign, covering two years, in which there was delivered over two thousand addresses. Over twenty thousand calls were made on individuals in the state during the biennium. Leading philanthropists came to the society’s aid. ”

“ Each convict is allowed to follow his natural bent wherever possible. Electricians, ironworkers, brick masons, tinners, and a score of other trades have been taught the men. Two hundred and seventy-five of the prisoners are being [7] worked on the prison building proper, while an additional 176 are working in the brick plant, lime plant and quarries. A difficulty is encountered in the fact that about the time many of the convicts become first-class workmen their term of service expires. Forty-one per cent. ”

“ Big Brothers in Atlanta and Macon.—Atlanta’s probation system for adults, which embraces drunkards, vagrants, wife beaters, deserters of families and the like, is to be materially enlarged in scope and made more efficient through the development of a volunteer probation force of 100 business and professional men who are willing to give a few hours of their leisure time each week in an effort to save the men and youths who come under the supervision of the probation officer. ”

“ In Macon, Lewis J. Bernhardt, agent of the Georgia prison association, has secured 100 names of Macon people who [14] will aid in the perfection of an organization in that city to cope with conditions in the city and county prisons and convict camps and to aid in securing a better penal system for Georgia.
Radical Experiments in Oregon.—According to the Newark Evening News, Governor West of Oregon has inaugurated an “honor system” with astonishing results. Chains and stripes have been abolished. ”

“ Subordinates are found, to be sure, who fill every requirement, and who could not be improved upon on any basis of wages, but that merely indicates what might be done, if the appointing power might only offer inducements for likely young people to come to the institution, and make them glad to remain. ”

“ With many of them are common drunks, others are of a more reputable class and should not be locked up in crowded unsanitary quarters with tramps and hoboes of the worst kind. The commission has been insisting that these evils be minimized, and that if localities desire to have a lodging place for tramps it should be entirely separate from the quarters where prisoners are confined who are charged with offenses but who will be later allowed opportunity for defense before a court. ”

“ Judge C. A. De Courcy of Lawrence, Mass., justice of the supreme court of Massachusetts, pointed out in a paper read at Omaha in his absence that the United States is conspicuous for the great number of unpunished murderers. The defence of insanity, the limitation of the power of judges and the character of testimony allowed to be introduced in behalf of the defendant were some of the evils which, he said, ought to be rectified. “The number of homicides in this country for 1910 were 8975—an increase of nearly 900 over the number in 1909 ”

“ Wood for burning the brick and lime was found in the forest on the reservation, as well as for scaffolding, and much of the lumber that is being used in construction. All of these are being operated by prison labor on various parts of the reservation, while the armed guards look on. Within the old prison walls iron and wood working machinery has been put in, as well as tin and electrical working machinery. All of the iron and steel is being brought to the prison in practically a raw condition, and the prisoners are working it up into finished product. ”