CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 35 



accounts are kept. This failure to keep adequate cost accounts is 

 responsible for the extreme paucity of reliable information with 

 regard to the economy of convict labor, and it is needless to sa}^ 

 that if practices and methods are to be much improved, a reform 

 of procedure in this direction is vitally necessary. To this end it is 

 proposed to state m detail the reasons for the introduction of cost 

 accountmg and rehable personal records, and to indicate the general 

 form which a system of such records and accounts should take. 



Briefly, the specific purposes which a system of accounts should 

 serve are as follows: 



(1) To make proper account, for the information of the pubhc, and 

 especially the appropriating body, of the total expenditure of funds. 

 This function is more or less adequately served by such simple sys- 

 tems of accounts as are in general use. But though this is the only 

 function of accounting that is generally recognized, it is really the 

 least important of the services which a properly designed system can 

 be made to yield. 



(2) More important in the present beclouded state of the question 

 is the value of records and accomits indicating whether convict labor 

 is being employed at a profit. This function can be served only by 

 the mtroduction of cost accounts which make it possible to analyze 

 the total cost in such a way as to indicate the cost of each process and 

 of the results in detail. It is undoubtedly true that convict labor is 

 conducted at considerable advantage in numbers of instances, but 

 it is also an estabhshed fact, that lacking such information, many 

 communities unwittingly employ convict labor disadvantageously, 

 and are daily paying more for such labor than it would have been 

 necessary to pay for free labor. 



(3) In addition to indicating what may be termed the ''total 

 economy" of convict labor, cost accounts also furnish a means of 

 checking what may be termed ' ' internal economy. ' ' A system of con- 

 vict labor may be, as a whole, economical with respect to free labor, 

 and still there may exist many sources of waste and inefficiency in 

 the system which, if remedied, would make for even greater economy. 

 Such elements of weakness are to be found in uninteUigeht super- 

 vision, improper distribution of labor, wastefulness in the handling 

 of material and supplies, and unreasonable losses of time. In many 

 cases it is only necessary to know of these weaknesses to remedy 

 them, yet they may well escape attention if only general results are 

 known. Furthermore, it is to b(^ observed that such a d(^tail(Hl record 

 of cost kept daily indicates to dat(^ the existence of faults and ufFords 

 the opportunity to correct, in its incipiency, any tendency to ov(vrrun 

 proper costs. 



(4) An adequate- system involving a subdivision of cost ac(M)unts 

 provides the means of recognizing merit and ol' deteclhig and eliminal- 



