54 BULLETIN 414, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



DISCIPLINE AND METHODS OF CONTROL. 



As stated elsewhere in this bulletin, one of the most serious objec- 

 tions to the employment of convicts on road work or other form of 

 outdoor labor is that such employment invariably presents greater 

 opportunity for escape than any work conducted entirely within 

 walls. When the work is well conducted this disadvantage is out- 

 weighed by more favorable considerations, but it is generally accepted 

 that every effort should be made to reduce the number of escapes to 

 a minimum, and in order to accomplish this, the system of discipline 

 and methods of securing the prisoners must be well adapted to the 

 special conditions of the work and the particular character of the 

 convicts. 



Until a few years ago all convicts employed in the open were 

 restrained by armed guards and chains and were distinguished from 

 free citizens by suits of striped material and, frequently, by shaven 

 heads. This system of discipHne will, for the sake of distinction 

 in the following discussion, be termed the "guard system." Lately, 

 however, there has been developed another plan under which the 

 security of the convict is placed largely in his own hands, and this 

 is popularly known as the "honor system." A number of State 

 wardens have inaugurated work under this system with much appar- 

 ent success, and the more enthusiastic of its supporters advocate 

 its general adoption by all the States. But conservative officials 

 hesitate to attach value to a system which depends so largely upon 

 what they believe to be the questionable honor of a convict. In the 

 controversy that has arisen between the adherents of the two systems, 

 much misunderstanding and confusion has resulted from a failure 

 on the part of each group to understand the aims and purposes of the 

 other, and by an erroneous belief in the sufficiency of one system or 

 the other. 



In the attempt to clear up this confusion the principal methods 

 of discipline practiced under each system are briefly described 

 herein, with reference to the most noticeable limitations and advan- 

 tages of each. 



THE GUARD SYSTEM. 



This system of discipline is practiced in one form or another in 

 connection with road work in the States of Alabama, Arizona, Cali- 

 fornia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, 

 Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, 

 North Dakota, Oregon, South CaroMna, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, 

 and Virginia. 



In its most rigorous form it is practiced in the southeastern States 

 of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Virginia, 

 Here prisoners while at work in the open are under the constant sur- 

 veillance of guards armed with double-barreled or repeating shot 



