CONVICT LABOR FOE, EOAD WORK. 
27 
As has been stated, it is exceedingly difficult to secure reliable cost 
data on the employment of convicts, but after a wide study of the 
convict problem throughout the United States the following examples 
of accurate and authoritative information have been selected from 
a mass of generalities and superficial statements. They present re- 
liable comparisons of the efficiency and economy of the two kinds of 
labor employed on the same roads in different sections of the United 
States. 
Example I. From September, 1913, until August 26, 1914, guarded 
convicts were employed under the supervision of the State highway 
engineer on the Bisbee-Tombstone highway in Arizona. On the 
latter date the convicts were withdrawn from the work in order to 
provide employment for free labor thrown out of work by the condi- 
tion of the copper industry which followed immediately after the 
opening of the European war. The free labor employed to continue 
the work consisted, therefore, largely of copper miners, and was paid 
at the rate of $3 per eight-hour day. A comparison of the work done 
by convicts during the month of July, 1914, and that done by free 
labor on the same road during September of the same year, both 
forces being employed under the same general superintendence, 
shows a marked advantage in the use of the convict labor. The 
daily average number of prisoners actually employed in the road 
work in July was 77, and the daily average number of free laborers 
actually employed during September was 71. A comparison of the 
various items in Table 6 will show not only that the work was done 
by the convicts at lower unit costs, which might be attributed to 
the extremely high price of free labor, but the actual amount of work 
accomplished per individual in the same time was greater in the case 
of the convicts than of the free men. 
Table 6. — Comparison of free 
and prison labor on 
Bisbee-Tombstone road, Arizona. 
July, prison labor. 
September, free labor. 
Activity. 
Total 
quantities. 
Quantities 
per man. 
Unit 
price. 
Total 
quantities. 
Quantities 
per man. 
Unit 
price. 
Grading: 
Solid rock 
Cubic yards. 
1, 649. 7 
961.3 
829.8 
389.5 
21.5 
143.4 
44.4 
84.1 
39.8 
17.0 
Cubic yards. 
21.42 
12.48 
10.78 
5.06 
.28 
1.86 
.58 
1.09 
.52 
1.09 
$1,375 
.59 
.81 
1.23 
1.16 
6.0 
5.46 
1.52 
.46 
11.31 
Cubic yards. 
981.6 
521.6 
937.9 
219.1 
3.0 
65.0 
37.0 
21.7 
53.0 
13.0 
Cubic yards. 
13.82 
7.34 
13.21 
3.09 
.04 
.91 
.52 
.31 
.75 
1.04 
$2.13 
Loose rock 
1.515 
Bowlders 
Excavation: 
1.777 
2.676 
1.666 
Concrete 
Masonry 
Ditching: 
Solid rock. 
9.44 
6.53 
2.64 
Earth 
Clearing and grubbing 
.925 
11.87 
Acres. 
