Prison yard

“ But, looking back, you see the great high wall of the prison, and remember that the little spot in the prison yard and the sky overhead is all the glimpse of the world that these poor men get, and, no doubt, is all that some of them ever will get, for some of them are shut in there for life. ”

“ Through the thick drizzle of the early morning the convicts were marched in gangs to their daily tasks, some to build new walls within the prison precincts, some to break stone in the round yard, encircled by enormous iron railings fifteen feet high, some to the great kitchen of the prison and to the different workshops. ”

“ The reader may now understand what the prison-yard is to the two hundred prisoners in the Conciergerie: their garden—a garden without trees, beds, or flowers—in short, a prison-yard. The parlor, and the stone of Saint-Louis, where such food and liquor as are allowed are dispensed, are the only possible means of communication with the outer world.
The hour spent in the yard is the only time when the prisoner is in the open air or the society of his kind; in other prisons those who are sentenced for a term are brought together in workshops ”

“ One day while he was walking in the prison-yard, pacing backwards and forwards, up and down the narrow space which was allowed him, he noticed something green at his feet, and stooping down to see what it could be, found that a busy little plant was bravely pushing its way up between the crevices of the paving stones, to reach such light and air as could be found in a prison-yard. ”

“ Our room is small, close and ill-ventilated, and here we are kept penned up, with the exception of the time we are allowed out at meal times. Then we are out in a damp yard, which is so crowded when there is a large number of prisoners here (as at the present time,) that there is little room for comfortable exercise. In this yard we stand for about a half-hour, consequently nearly all of us are troubled with colds.
The prisoners booked for exchange are here yet, and it is hard to say when they will leave. ”

“ The house of the keeper of the prison, in which I was confined, adjoins the wall, at the foot of which is a spacious yard, where a great number of people, mostly women and children, are kept as pledges, to prevent their husbands, parents, and relations from rebelling. The boys while young run about loose in the yard, but when they come to any size, they are put in irons, and confined in a strong tower. The women and children dwell in little huts in the yard built on purpose, the children going mostly naked, unless when the weather is very cold, and then they have sheep-skin coats. ”

“ The prison is hard by, in an adjacent court-yard—of the buildings foul and dismal place, where some men are shut up close, in small cells like ovens; and where others look through bars and beg; where some are playing draughts, and some are talking to their friends, who smoke, the while, to purify the air; and some are buying wine and fruit of women-vendors; and all are squalid, dirty, and vile to look at. ”

“ Solitary confinement, during the night, would be an effectual bar, and have a great tendency to suppress many evils, which do exist, and ever will exist, so long as prisoners are allowed to associate together in their lodging rooms.
The Directors of the Massachusetts Penitentiary, in their last Report, say, that the erection of an additional building, within the Prison yard, where each convict may be provided with a separate apartment for lodging, has long been a favorite object with the government of this institution. ”

“ The stage represents a grass-grown prison-yard which, on the right side, is adjacent to the gardens of a Herodian Palace, divided from them by a low wall, which continues in a right-hand direction to the centre of background. On the left side of background a higher wall, and entrance with heavy doors. To the left, the clumsy pile of the prison buildings and a door. In the garden wall is a gate, over which hangs the green foliage of the garden beyond, which bounds the right side of background. ”

“ I threw a glance into the courtyard, and calculated the amount of space which each man could claim in the only spot in the whole prison where there is any circulation of air; I came to the conclusion that, when the prisoners were assembled here of an evening, after their friends had left, each might possess for himself a fraction of a fraction of a square yard of mother earth."
The debtors trooped down to the office to finger their doles. ”

“ There is no uniformity of neatness or cleanliness in the cells, the care of each being entrusted to its occupant; and beyond a certain, not very high standard, no special attention to these matters is enforced.
The buildings upon the eastern and western sides of the prison yard, afford accommodations for the cook-house or kitchen, blacksmith and wagon shops, in addition to a range of cells. The meals are all served to the prisoners in the cells—breakfast before they leave in the morning, and supper after their return at night. ”

“ The prisoners are turned absolutely loose one hour each day in the prison yard.
General Efficiency the same as the previous year, but on account of the farm work we estimate the grade at 70 per cent.
WESTMORELAND COUNTY.
Here is a county prison reporting for the year 1916 an average [Pg 24] daily number of inmates of 58. And yet they could send 12 men to work at road-making in a prison camp, and 10 men to work on the county farm. The employment record is a vast improvement over the report of the previous year when a few at domestic employments about the jail were the only inmates at work. ”

“ The yard is about one hundred feet square, partly paved with bricks or cobble-stones. [E] On the side of this yard, extending from this wooden building occupied as sutler’s shop, mess-room and hospital, and running back to the gate, is a one-story [55] stone building in which are the cook house, guard house and wash house. Back of this building are the sinks used by the prisoners. These are wide trenches with a long wooden rail in front, after the manner of the trenches in the camps, except that when those in the camps become offensive they are filled in with earth and new ones dug. ”

“ Most of the colored prisoners, and those accustomed to outdoor life, such as farmers and the like, quickly develop the germs of consumption in close confinement. Now, this willful murder -- for it is nothing else -- is absolutely unnecessary. The yard is big and well protected by the thirty-foot wall, with armed guards patrolling it. Why not give the unemployed men air and exercise, since the management is determined to keep them idle? ”

“ In case any of the prisoners escape, one of the guards has some two or three hounds trained to catch runaways, and used to track the fugitives. As some of the prisoners are employed outside the prison yard, about the storehouse and warehouse, and in the garden, the opportunity thus presented, for attempting an escape, is sometimes improved ”

“ I was in separate confinement in Millbank, and I suppose it is necessary to explain, for the benefit of those who never had the good fortune to live in a prison, that separate confinement means that the convict so sentenced is to be shut up in his cell with light work, sewing or picking coir, and to have one hour's exercise per day, which consists in walking in single file, with long distances between the prisoners, around the exercise yard, and then turning an immense crank, which pumps water into the corridors. ”

“ It is another beautiful, sunny autumn day as we look out into the yard.
A sharp rap of the Captain’s stick on the stone pavement, and we stand at attention, the handle of each man’s bucket in his right hand. Two more quick raps, and we “short-step” out of the building and then “full-step” down the yard. Our route is the same as that of yesterday afternoon. We meet many other companies returning. We march down to the extreme southwest corner of the prison inclosure where is the small brick [Pg 72] building which serves as a sewage disposal plant. ”

“ It seemed the quintessence of prison, the very heart of it. The length of each side [188] of the rough, triangular formation is, I should think, about twenty-four feet. The walls facing south-west and east are very high, so that a deep shadow lies across the yard at all hours; on the right, as we entered from D X, is a low walled building used apparently, for cooking and laundry purposes and facing south. This seems to be a more modern erection, and from its low, single-storey construction is responsible for most of the sunlight allowed to enter the enclosure. ”

“ Each block possessed its own wide exercise yard and shelter from snow or rain, its proper supply of sweet water always running, and its cachot, or prison within a prison, for punishment of the refractory and disobedient. ”

“ You know how vitiated the atmosphere of these corridors becomes, since hundreds of prisoners must traverse them every morning as they are engaged in the work of cleaning their cells after thirteen hours’ seclusion therein. You know the yard in which we are permitted to spend a few hours each afternoon. You know as well as I do that when one has walked seventy paces he has traversed the whole limit of the three sides of the triangle. ”

“ The prisoners allotted to these yards have their sleeping cells in the main wing, to which they are conducted along a passage, at the end of those upper yards which join the prison wing; the prisoners are therefore in their passage to and from the sleeping cells, concealed from the others; should there at any time be a greater number of prisoners belonging to the ward on the ground floor than there are sleeping cells they are then taken to the spare cells in the wards above through a door at the end of the upper yard, and yet concealed from those classes in the sunk yards. ”

“ In our room there are two, one, I think, a Yankee deserter, known as “Dutchy” and “Slim Jim,” who are unable to contribute their quota to the commissary fund, but as they can make a pot of coffee or tea, and wield a broom or wash a dirty dish, they are always ready to make up their deficit by taking the place of room-mates afflicted with hook-worm or victims of inertia.
Having our meals in our own room, we can take the whole half-hour allowed at meal time for recreation in the prison yard, which gives us an opportunity to mingle with prisoners from other rooms than our own. ”

“ Ascending the platform, we are greeted by a cordial round of applause; the men have apparently not forgotten my talk to them in the yard last July, when I explained what our Prison Reform Commission hopes to accomplish, and asked their assistance.
I take my seat upon the platform and, while awaiting my turn to speak, endeavor to listen to the service. Before me sit rows and rows of men in gray trousers and faded shirts, upward of 1,300—not a full house, for a considerable number are out in the road-building camps. Gray predominates—not only in the gray clothes but in the heads and faces. ”

“ In some of the smaller prisons the prisoners are together during most of the day with entire freedom to engage in games, conversation and such exercise as their quarters will permit. At a few of the smaller jails the full freedom of the yard is allowed at all times of the day. ”

“ Every man forgot the many tedious days and nights he had so often numbered over within these prison walls. On the 13th of February one of four prisoners who had been sentenced the previous August to remain in his cell during the rest of the war, watched an opportunity to get among the other prisoners in the yard, and being led into the yard of that building for the benefit of the fresh air and seeing the attention of the turnkeys and soldiers occupied by some other object at this time, jumped over the iron railing that separated this building from the yards Nos. ”

“ In the darkness the lofty walls looked grimly frowning, and I imagined what feelings must possess the ordinary criminal who passes under their black shadow to his first night's taste of imprisonment. Another massive door was opened in the wall of Newgate, and we were ushered into what at first sight appeared a large hall. It was really the interior of the prison. Glancing up, I saw dimly-lighted corridors, running round tier on tier of cell-doors, and connected by light, graceful staircases; a clear view of every door being commanded from the office at the west end of the ground-floor. ”

“ A prison under ground is something awful to contemplate. Whose hair does not stand on end at the thought of possible confinement in a dark, damp, cold stone prison-house, with rusty-hinged or even sealed doors, where no window opens to the light of day ”

“ A slit in the walls, five or six feet deep, lets in all the breath and light of heaven which the wretched man must enjoy till he is violently plunged into a closer cell, whence breath and light are for ever excluded. A narrow bed, and perhaps a small, rude table, are all the furniture that can be crowded in with the prisoner. But books are seldom if ever denied him; and occasionally these little cells take a domestic air that renders them less prison-like, and less gloomy as the tastes and habits of the inmates develop themselves. ”

“ It is not far from the Court House to the prison, a wholesomely situated building on a hill, made of concrete, with an attap roof. The whole building is one hundred feet long by thirty feet broad. There are six cells for solitary confinement. A jailer, turnkey, and eight warders constitute the prison staff. The able-bodied prisoners are employed on the roads and other public works, and attend upon the scavengers' cart, which outcome of civilization goes round every morning! ”

“ It is small, of course; and the door being not solid, but grated, and without blind or curtain, the prisoner within is at all times exposed to the observation and inspection of any guard who may pass along that tier at any hour or minute of the night. Every day, the prisoners receive their dinner, singly, through a trap in the kitchen wall; and each man carries his to his sleeping cell to eat it, where he is locked up, alone, for that purpose, one hour. The whole of this arrangement struck me as being admirable; and I hope that the next new prison we erect in England may be built on this plan. ”