State prison

“ The House of Correction stands in a unique relation to the state prison, and while it may, under circumstances and in the discretion of a condemning court, be a place of imprisonment for offenders that might be committed to the state prison, yet always it is kept distinct from the state prison. It does not, therefore, make its use as a place of confinement for other offenses a penitentiary, with its attachment of infamy. Its purpose is reformation, instruction in conduct, and diversion from a criminal career. To make it, therefore, a penitentiary, would defeat the purpose of its creation. ”

“ Few states have a Department of Correction, and usually each prison is in the charge of a separate board, appointed either by the governor or the state legislature. The county jails in which short term prisoners or offenders awaiting trial are confined are almost invariably under the management of the local authorities and the condition of many is deplorable. Some state prisons are models in construction, sanitation, and government, and challenge comparison with the best in Europe. Others are poorly constructed, overcrowded, badly kept and worse governed. ”

“ New Jersey State Prison.—We learn that there are now confined in the State Penitentiary at Trenton 350 convicts. In many of the cells three prisoners are put together, and some far-seeing newspaper observes, that unless the prison premises are enlarged, there is danger that the separate system, which the law requires to be carried out in the prison, will have to be abandoned! If a man was as near being dead as the separate system is to being violated there, most doctors would give him up. ”

“ DESIGN OF PENITENTIARIES IN RESPECT TO THE TREATMENT OF CONVICTS, ACCORDING TO THE VIEWS OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE CONNECTICUT STATE PRISON, WITH REMARKS. "Upon the subject of the general treatment of the convicts, and the discipline of the institution, we would remark that the State Prison is designed to be, and emphatically is, a place of PUNISHMENT. The feelings of humanity and mistaken mercy should not be suffered to interpose, to disarm its punishment of that rigor due to justice and the violated laws of the land. ”

“ How far a convict sentenced by a court of the United States to imprisonment in a state prison or penitentiary, and not in terms sentenced to hard labor, can be put to work, either as part of his punishment or as part of the discipline and treatment of the prison, was much discussed at the bar, but we have not found it necessary to dwell upon it, because we cannot doubt that at the present day imprisonment in a state prison or penitentiary, with or without hard labor, is an infamous punishment. ”

“ Not only in my own State but to every State in the Union the death-knell of the old penitentiary, with its noisome cells and dark dungeons, has struck. The bloodless revolution of the reform movement is irresistible simply because it is in line with human progress.
Not until the present generation of criminals has passed away can adequate results of the widespreading change in prison management be [Pg 281] expected; for a large percentage of our convicts to-day are the product of crime-breeding jails, reformatories, and prisons. ”

“ The law contemplates that the construction work shall be done largely by State Prison and Reformatory men. The new institution is for men who have a jail sentence of sixty days or more, and prisoners may be transferred from the State institutions whenever room for them exists at the farm. Eventually there will probably be several such farms in the State, and this movement, with proper amendments to existing laws, should in time do away with the use of the county jails for the confinement of convicted offenders, and leave them only as places of detention. ”

“ Neither do I consider the present system, as practised at Sing Sing, the state prison of New York, as tending to reform the offenders; it punishes them severely, but that is all. Where corporal punishment is resorted to, there always will be feelings of vindictiveness; and all the bad passions must be allowed to repose before the better can gain the ascendant.
The best system that is acted upon in the Penitentiary at Philadelphia, where there is solitary confinement, but with labour and exercise. ”

“ The completion of a State Lunatic Asylum, it is to be hoped, has removed the last obstacle to a course already long approved of by every one, and urgently demanded by all the material and moral circumstances concerned in the case. For the object of prisons, if I understand it, is the punishment and prevention of crime, and, possibly the reformation of criminals. But the mischief that irresponsibles may do, is not crime, nor are they criminals: they may be restrained, but not punished. ”

“ Should not United States prisoners incarcerated in the various state prisons have the restrictions of the indeterminate sentence and the parole, thus securing a uniform system of treatment for all prisoners and greatly promoting the discipline? ”

“ According to this Act, the Court “may, in its discretion, sentence” a convicted offender to the county jail, to the Industrial Farm, or to any penal institution legally entitled to receive convicts. We repose much confidence in the judiciary of this State. ”

“ Another step forward, and one of which the wisdom and far-reaching consequences for good cannot be over-emphasized, is the law that directs that, at the discretion of the judge, all men with jail sentences, and all men sentenced to the penitentiary for from one to five years, shall serve their sentences at hard labor on the State road force. ”

“ The one progressive penal act for which the last Legislature deserves credit is the bill “providing for the selection and purchase, or the appropriation from State forest reserves, of a tract of land and the erection thereon of buildings for the Western Penitentiary; making an appropriation therefor; authorizing the removal thereto of the inmates of the said penitentiary, and directing the sale of the site now occupied by the said penitentiary, and the buildings and materials thereon.” ”

“ It is far less costly to the State than keeping them in prison, and often leads to the establishment of an honest life. [4]
Jails and Prisons: Every community has some kind of jail for the detention of offenders. Those who come in contact with the law are often the poor and the friendless who cannot get bail. Even innocent persons may be held some time awaiting trial, or the action of the grand jury. Young girls are often detained, sometimes as witnesses, sometimes pending investigation of their own cases, sometimes as runaways from home. ”

“ The terms of the parole in each and every case was a regular report every month, that the prison officials, representative of the power and supervision of the State, might know exactly the situation of each convicted person who has been liberated upon obligation to keep the State informed of his movements.
“Some of these persons have never rendered a single report. Others have reported for a time, and then ceased to trouble themselves about the matter. In very many cases their whereabouts is unknown. ”

“ The justice which, for the sake of society, restrains the freedom of the offender, yields entirely to the mercy that turns to that offender’s temporal and eternal good. This infliction, that separates him from his associates in felony, frees society from apprehension of his crimes.
We speak here of the infliction of the Penitentiary. The case of a convict in the County prison has in it much less of severity, and is proportionately therewith of less benefit to him and less advantageous to society. ”

“ One hundred and thirty convicts with terms ranging from 2 to 15 years, too busy with their day’s labor or their evening’s sports to think of evil, are building the new penitentiary or tilling the soil. Only nine hours a day, that time allotted for sleep, are the prisoners under lock and key. They go about their various duties under the direction of a guard or overseer, but the shotgun or rifle, usually accompanying such officer, is conspicuous by its absence.
The prison gives promise of being the ideal penal institution of the world.
The site is ideal for the work to be accomplished. ”

“ It is not pretended by those who send these offenders to the prison, that the incarceration will amend their habits,—it is only the means of punishment; nor is it more than desired,—scarcely to be hoped,—by those who seek to alleviate the miseries of the prison, that the confinement of thirty days will tend to repentance and amendment of the vicious offender.
It is evident that more is required,—more in the way of wholesome discipline, more in time, more in direct appeals and instruction, more in the enforcement of industry. The prison cannot do much more than it is doing for the vicious. ”

“ Criminals are not sent to prison for punishment, as many seem to believe, but prisons exist for the confinement of prisoners for the safety of society and for the reform of the man or woman there. They should, if possible, be reformed and returned to society. ”

“ It is perched, like a bird of ill omen, on a rocky ledge, where all might see it in passing over the high-road. Thus, in the early day, the traveler on entering the county town encountered, first, the stocks and whipping-post; continuing his route, he in due time came to the gallows, at the town's end. The exterior of the jail is not especially repulsive, now that it is no longer a prison; but the inside is a relic of barbarism—just such a place as I have often imagined the miserable witchcraft prisoners might have been confined in. The back wall is of stone. ”

“ He releases hundreds of innocent persons, every year. He restores to family and friends those who have been detained for insignificant offences. He calls from the cells of the prison such as may have done acts that would have lead to a criminal life, and he gives them their freedom before association with the bad has weakened their moral perception,—before they can have formed resolutions to revenge upon society the offence of their incarceration. ”

“ Would it not be better to sentence every offender under an indeterminate sentence law, so that when the experts who have him in charge are convinced that he is thoroughly reformed, that on their recommendation and with the pardon board’s approval, he could be paroled and turned over to a prisoners’ aid society? This society should be a branch of the state convict department and it should retain control of paroled prisoners and sustain them until they could be placed at work. ”

“ The potentialities for organization given by the Act are almost unlimited. Any existing prison may be closed by order of the Lord-Lieutenant, new prisons may be built, and all prisoners, irrespective of their place of sentence, may be confined in any prison the government may select. ”

“ It is for the court to determine whether the imprisonment shall be in a jail or a penitentiary. If in a penitentiary, then a penitentiary must be found inside of the State suitable and available, in order that the sentence to be pronounced may be executed there. If there is none, resort may be had to those of another State. Imprisonment need not necessarily be ordered in a jail because the penitentiary of the State is unsuitable. ”

“ I have long held that no judge should be authorized to sentence a man to prison until the judge knew by experience what prison life really was. And now we are having authentic reports from those in authority who have taken a voluntary experience of convict life.
[2] In 1913 an Intra-Mural School was started in the Maryland penitentiary, and the story of its effect on the minds and the conduct of the thirty per cent of illiterate individuals in that prison is most interesting. It unquestionably confirms my statement that the rank and file of our convicts are inarticulate. ”

“ Not only is this jail an example 39 of an altogether faulty type of prison construction, but as at present conducted it is unclean, and therefore unsanitary; it is shamefully overcrowded; young and old, first offenders and hardened criminals, are allowed to congregate indiscriminately in the corridors; no attempt at classification or reformation is apparent, and thus the history of many another county jail is repeated in the midst of a community that by reason of its Christian character, intelligence, and wealth ought to be among the first in penal reform. ”

“ Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. The difference between that mode of dealing with the convict and the lesser evil, that of allowing him to perish in inactivity, and acquire strength in bad resolves, and instruction for future crimes, is what policy and unaided humanity have wrought out of the condition of the offender. The difference between the latter condition and that of the inmates of the Philadelphia County Prison, and especially the Eastern Penitentiary, is what results from the labor of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Prisons. ”

“ Whipping is expressly forbidden in the prison. The most severe punishment which the governor is allowed to inflict, is three days solitary confinement. Should it become necessary to exercise a greater punishment, application must be made to a committee of magistrates, who meet weekly in the prison, and the punishment is left to their option. A court-house, built of sandstone, adjoins the prison. The grand entry is ornamented with a portico of six Ionic columns: it communicates with the prison by a small back-door, through which the prisoners are conducted unperceived into court. ”

“ Sitting tonight in our lonesome cell, bounded on three sides by blank and barren walls of steel, through our two-by-six door, constructed of massive bars of iron, there comes to us the conversation of our fellow prisoners, as with head pressed close against the bars to catch the other fellow's words, we listen to the talk of the men "committed for crime"—men strong and healthy, who should be engaged in some honest labor, but, instead, are "doing time" for a broken law. ”