16 BULLETIN 414, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
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 
prevailing system, judges are compelled to impose definite 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 climate 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 work 
as it can best be used in the Northern States — that is, as an employ- 
ment for a small 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 small numbers of men 
work allied 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 allied with each other. 
The 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- 
bility 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 
