CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 15 



laborers and with, the general public . They give reasons for this position . If prisoners 

 are set to work on public roads or streets of cities where people are' constantly passing, 

 they must be chained and guarded by men armed with, deadly weapons. If the 

 weapons are used in places where citizens pass, there is danger of killing the WTong 

 person. Nothing can be more degrading to a prisoner, nothing more hardening to the 

 public feeKng, than the pubHc punishment of convicts. 



These conclusions carry the weight of the highest authority; but 

 it should be noted that they are directed only against the employ- 

 ment on the roads of that class of prisoners which can be so employed 

 only when secured by chains and armed guards. It is generally 

 conceded that any successful employment of prisoners depends 

 upon their proper classification and the adapting of the labor imposed 

 to the needs and ability of the individual convict; and for those pris- 

 oners who can be employed in public under proper conditions road 

 work offers a convenient, productive, and beneficial occupation. It 

 is beHeved, however, that the foregoing objection is valid when 

 apphed to the indiscriminate employment of convicts in public. 



The second objection, which also carries force when apphed to any 

 system of outdoor labor which does not include a classification or 

 grading of prisoners according to character, habits, and ability, is that 

 tlie congregate life of the road camp exposes the better convicts to 

 the physical, mental, and moral contanunation of their more depraved 

 associates. However, this objection, like the first, is not directed 

 solely against road labor and can not apply to such labor when con- 

 ducted under proper conditions. 



A third objection is to the effect that road labor is not suited to the 

 abihty or physical strength of all prisoners, and that there is a class 

 of prisoners, such as physicians, lawyers, merchants, clerks, whose 

 previous habits of life entirely unfit them for such work, who will 

 never apply such manual experience after release and who may 

 receive actual physical injury through such employment. Table 

 3 shows that this class does not form more than 20 per cent of 

 the entire prison population of any State Hsted, that in many the 

 proportion is far below that, and that the average for aU States 

 included in the table is only about 10 per cent. Therefore, this 

 objection also can apply only to the indiscriminate employment of all 

 prisoners on road work, and. can not be held against any system 

 which provides for the careful classification of prisoners and the 

 subjection to road labor of only those who are found to be fitted for 

 such work. 



The fourth, a more serious objection to road work than any of the 

 foregoing, is that such work, in common with other forms of outdoor 

 employment, affords much greater opportunity for escape than does 

 any form of indoor employment. To offer this greater opportunity 

 to prisoners weak in self-control is to phuie before them a temptation 

 they can not well resist; and to subject them to the possibility of 

 53o77°— Bull. 414—16 2 



