16 BULLETIN" 414, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 



being shot if they yield to their uncontrollable impulses, is unfairly 

 to place their lives in jeopardy. However, the seriousness of this 

 objection is minimized by a proper selection of the convicts who 

 are to be detailed to the road work. Under the present generally 

 prevaihng system, judges are compelled to impose defirdte sentences 

 and when such a sentence has been served the prisoner is released 

 regardless of his fitness again to take his place in society. It 

 would seem therefore that the escape of a prisoner thus arbitrarily 

 sentenced may not be much more dangerous than his premature 

 release at the expiration of an irrationally determined period of 

 imprisonment. It must be understood that this is not a criticism of 

 the trial judge^but of the system which requires the imposition of the 

 definite sentence rather than an indeterminate sentence. 



A fifth objection is that road work can not prove to be a solution of 

 the prison-labor problem because it is impracticable to provide such 

 employment during the winter. This objection does not apply at all 

 to the employment of prisoners in most of the Southern States, for in 

 those States the cHmate is sufficiently mild to make road work possible 

 at all times. In the North and West the climate may present a serious 

 obstacle, for it would not be good economy to maintain the addi- 

 tional equipment necessary for the indoor employment of large bodies 

 of men to be used only a few months in the year. But to road v/ork 

 as it can best be used in the Northern States — that is, as an employ- 

 ment for a smaU number of picked men who are assigned to it as a 

 reward — there can be no greater objection than to farm work or 

 other forms of outdoor industry, and for such smaU. numbers of men 

 work aUied to road construction, such as rock crushing and the manu- 

 facture of concrete culvert pipe, which can be performed during the 

 winter, may be provided conveniently and at small expense. 



The sixth and seventh objections are closely alhed with each other. 

 Tlie former is that outdoor employment, particularly on road work 

 involving frequent moving of the men and their camp equipment, 

 entails a larger expense for the maintenance of the prisoners than 

 work conducted within the penitentiary. This objection is frequently 

 pointed out by penitentiary officials upon whom falls the responsi- 

 bnity for the expenditure of prison funds. 



The seventh is usually suggested by the highway commissioner or 

 supervisor, who is responsible for the road labor of the convict, and 

 it is that such use of convicts is economically bad, because the same 

 work frequently can be done at less expense by free labor, on account 

 of the comparative inefficiency of the convict labor. Both these ob- 

 jections lose much of their force when it is considered that in some 

 States it is a question not whether the convicts shall be employed on 

 road work or any remunerative work, but rather whether the con- 

 victs shall be maintained in idleness or placed upon the roads; while 



