60 BULLETIN 414, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 



rules shall be followed by immediate return of the offender to the 

 penitentiary, where the prescribed punishment is administered. 



In two States, Washington and Texas, the honor system is appHed 

 only to conditionally paroled convicts, who are required to enter into 

 "honor agreements" or contracts with the governors of the States, 

 in which they promise to work faithfully and well under the conditions 

 prescribed, either until given final release, as in Washington, or for 

 a specified period of a year, as in Texas. In the former State, a cash 

 per diem of 50 cents is paid and in the latter a similar per diem of 

 25 cents is granted under the terms of the contracts. In both these 

 States, however, the disciplinary measures effective in the camps are 

 in all essentials the same as in other States. 



COMPARISON OF THE GUARD AND HONOR SYSTEMS. 



The guard system may be adopted effectively, as it has been in 

 the South, for the discipline of convicts of all classes. The honor 

 system, on the other hand, is apphcable only to a selected number 

 of any prison population, and can not, with safety, be indiscriminately 

 apphed. However, in maintaining the security of those prisoners 

 who are employed under them, the two systems appear to be equally 

 effective, as will be noted by comparison of the following percentages 

 of escape reported from a number of States using each system. In 

 the road camps of New York and Utah, the number of convicts 

 who escaped in 1914 formed less than one-half of 1 per cent of the 

 total number of individuals handled; in New Jersey the proportion 

 was 2.5 per cent; in Virginia 3.5 per cent; and in the counties of 

 North Carohna, South CaroUna, Georgia, and Florida the percentage 

 varied from 1 to 6. AU the foregoing States employ some form of the 

 guard system, yet the percentages of escapes sustained are roughly 

 the same as in the following States, which employ the honor system 

 in their road camps: Oklahoma, 1 per cent; Colorado, 1.2 per cent; 

 Kalamazoo County, Mich., 2 per cent; New Mexico, 3 per cent; 

 Washington, 3.5 per cent, and Montana, 5 per cent. It wiU appear by 

 examination of the above statistics that the lowest proportions of 

 escapes were registered in the States of New York and Utah, in 

 which a modified form of the guard system is apphed to a selected 

 group of convicts; but it should be stated that in the Southern States 

 in which the convicts are employed indiscriminately under the 

 guard system with its chain gang, the majority of escapes occur in 

 the trusty class. It is urged in favor of the guard system in the 

 Southern States that under it large numbers of convicts hcve for some 

 time been safely employed at work on the roads; that their work has 

 been largely productive in the construction of many miles of improved 

 highways, and that during the time they have been thus employed 

 the States have been relieved of the burden of maintaining expensive 



