PRISON 



PRISON 



and scientific management is changing the char- 

 acter of many institutions. 



Under the warden are numerous guards, who 

 are armed officers, charged with the task of 

 maintaining order and enforcing discipline. 

 Where these officials are political appointees 

 the quality of sen-ice is apt to be low, but 

 under civil sen-ice appointment their conduct 

 is usually praiseworthy. It is vital that they 

 be loyal to the warden and that they follow 

 his guidance implicitly. There is a prison 

 chaplain, appointed by the governor or by the 

 warden; his work is of vast importance, and 

 frequently more far-reaching in its effect than 

 the coercive regulations of the institution. 



Equipment. Every prison has its large num- 

 ber of cell rooms, constructed tier upon tier 

 and built of concrete and iron. Some are ex- 

 tremely insanitary and have been condemned 

 by every investigating authority. As new pris- 

 ons are built construction defects are remedied ; 

 the most modern idea tends to the cottage 

 plan for prisoners, but this requires a large area 

 for the entire prison plant. There is always 

 a prison library, usually well-stocked; a chapel, 

 for church services and for entertainments; a 

 barber shop ; a laundry, and a fairly large, open 

 space for athletic contests, open at specified 

 times to prisoners whose conduct is exemplary. 



Occupations of Prisoners. If idleness is the 

 greatest vice of free men, it is the worst pos- 

 sible condition under which men in prison can 

 live. Labor is enforced in every penal institu- 

 tion. Each man is given work, if possible, simi- 

 lar to his occupation when he was "outside;" 

 when this cannot be done he is assigned to a 

 department where he can be most useful. In 

 some prisons the men are paid a small sum for 

 their work; in others, they are paid for over- 

 time only. Occasionally after regular hours 

 inmates are permitted to work at any chosen 

 private task and thus earn money. All earn- 

 ings are either held to the credit of prisoners 

 by the warden or are sent to families or other 

 relations, as may be requested. 



In some prisons what is known as the con- 

 vict labor system is in force. It is explained 

 in the article CONVICT LABOR, on page 1564. 



Prison Reform. It is difficult to imagine the 

 horror of solitary confinement in a poorly- 

 lighted, ill-ventilated, concrete cell, where the 

 prisoner can see no person save a guard and is 

 forbidden to speak even to him. Such was 

 once the conception of what prisons and pun- 

 ishment should be. When it was found that 

 such places were becoming madhouses, reforms 



slowly appeared. Work was given the victim 

 in his solitude, but even this mental stimu- 

 lus did not prevent madness. It was at length 

 realized that man, a social being, must have 

 at least some degree of intercourse with his 

 fellow men. The workshop was introduced, 

 and prisoners worked together, under orders 

 not to hold communication with one another. 

 This strict rule is yet in effect in most prisons, 

 but its enforcement is difficult; prisoners 

 shrewdly arrange codes and signals, and use 

 them even under the eyes of guards, so in- 

 genious are some of them. 



Well-behaved prisoners in the better class of 

 institutions are given privileges which enlarge 

 their freedom of movement, extend to them 

 certain conversational privileges and in general 

 put them on their honor. These are termed 

 trusties, and few thus favored fail to meet the 

 expectations of officials. Prison farms are fre- 

 quently established, and on these trusted pris- 

 oners live and enjoy a good degree of freedom. 

 Another recent departure from the iron rule 

 of prison management is the organization of 

 prison camps, to which are assigned trusted 

 prisoners, to construct public roads. Cases are 

 known in which 150 prisoners have occupied 

 such camps, with fewer than half a dozen 

 guards to watch them. Betrayal of confidence 

 in such cases is rare. 



Among the American prisons in which re- 

 forms have raised the standards of conduct and 

 of living are the state penitentiaries of Colo- 

 rado, Oregon and New York (Elmira). Illi- 

 nois attempted to enlarge upon the honor sys- 

 tem, and for a year or more succeeded fairly 

 well; but abuses arose from various sources 

 and these culminated in a serious riot in June, 

 1917, which required two companies of militia 

 and an entire city's fire and police department 

 to quell. 



Punishment for the crime of the prisoner is 

 the foremost consideration in securing the ends 

 of justice, but the era has arrived which marks 

 him as a man worth reforming and remaking 

 into a good citizen. There are, perhaps, not 

 more than twenty men in America who have 

 succeeded in instituting helpful and beneficial 

 reforms of a permanent nature into prison man- 

 agement. Many others have sincerely tried, 

 but their institutions have not been organized 

 with the necessary freedom from political ma- 

 nipulation, and they have failed. J.L.W. 



Consult Potts's Some Practical Problems of 

 Prison Reform; Osborne's Within Prison Walls; 

 Ives's History of Penal Methods. 





