10 



BULLETIN 4U, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



period represent only 186 of the 296 institutions included in the fuU 

 report for 1903-4; but a comparison on the basis of identical insti- 

 tutions is made possible by the inclusion of the third and fourth 

 columns of 1903-4. 



This table shows that, though the proportions of convicts employed 

 in indoor and outdoor work have not changed greatly since 1885, the 

 numbers and percentages of convicts employed in road work have 

 steadily increased from 584, or 1.3 per cent of the total convict popu- 

 lation represented in 1885, to 8,341, or 12.7 per cent of the convict 

 population represented in 1914-15. That the percentage of prisoners 

 engaged in outdoor work has not increased correspondingly may be 

 due to the partial substitution of road work for railroad building, 

 lumbering, the turpentine industry, farming, and other forms of out- 

 door work. 



Table 2.^Convicts employed in indoor and outdoor xvorh and in road luorh in 1885, 



1903-4, and 1914-15. 



Employment. 







1903-1 



1914- 



-15 





296 institutions. 



186 institutions. 



186 institutions. 





Number. 

 28,280 

 16,997 



Perct. 

 62.5 

 37.5 



Number. 

 28, 479 

 22, 693 



Per ct. 



55.7 

 44.3 



Number. 

 19,967 

 14,906 



Per ct. 

 57.3 



42.7 



Number. 

 36,036 

 28, 593 



Perct. 



55.8 





44.2 







Total 



45,277 



100 



51,172 



100 



34,873 



100 



64,629 



100 





584 



1.3 



3,508 



6.8 



2,497 



7.1 



8,341 



12.7 







A number of the States are now using convict labor in the construc- 

 tion of roads largely because present conditions have forced a change 

 in the old methods of employing the prisoners, and it is probable that 

 other States, sooner or later, will find themselves in the same position. 

 In the South the sentiment against the leasing of convicts has 

 reached the point where it was imperative to evolve some other sys- 

 tem. At the same time most of these States were inadequately 

 equipped for the housing of the entire convict population, and in a 

 few there were no State penal institutions at all. Under these 

 circumstances it was impossible to provide indoor work of any char- 

 acter for all the convicts, and, as in those States there is a pressing 

 need for the improvement of highways, the employment of the con- 

 victs in highway construction has seemed to offer the best solution 

 of both problems. 



Throughout the country the opposition by skilled free labor to 

 the direct competition of convict labor in the manufacture of trade 

 articles has become so pronounced as to make the abandonment of 

 such competitive work almost necessary, and the adoption of either, 

 or both, the State-use system and the pubUc-works-and-ways system 



