12 
BULLETIN 414, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Table 3. — Classification of convicts in 22 representative States according to employment 
prior to arrest. 
Percentage of total population by occupations. 
Name of State. 
I Profess- 
ional. 
New England group: 
Connecticut 
New Hampshire 
Middle Atlantic group: 
New York 
Pennsylvania 
Maryland 
Southeastern group: 
South Carolina 
Georgia 
Louisiana 
Middle Western group: 
Illinois 
Indiana 
Iowa 
Minnesota 
Western group: 
Montana 
Idaho 
Wyoming 
Utah 
Oregon 
Colorado 
New Mexico 
Arizona 
California 
South Dakota 
Average by States . 
10 
7.43 
Mer- 
chants 
and 
trades- 
men. 
Outdoor 
laborers, 
skilled 
and un- 
skilled. 
50 
65.50 
Shop 
workers 
and in- 
door 
laborers. 
Unem- 
ployed. 
23.09 
0.23 
The desirability of providing open-air work, as on roads, is enhanced 
by the fact, shown by the prison statistics of practically all States, 
that a majority of the prison inmates are of the laboring class or of 
those classes whose habits of life prior to conviction kept them much 
of the time out of doors, engaged in occupations similar to those 
afforded by the various phases of road work. As an indication of 
the strength of this argument, Table 3 has been prepared, based upon 
the latest reports of the penitentiaries in the 22 States which were 
selected as typical of conditions in the various sections of the coun- 
try. All convicts in these States have been grouped into five classes 
according to their occupation prior to conviction, namely: Pro- 
fessional; merchants and tradesmen; outdoor laborers, skilled and 
unskilled; shopworkers and indoor laborers; and unemployed. 
The table shows that an average of practically two-thirds of the 
inmates of the institutions represented were engaged in outdoor 
occupations, that about one-tenth belonged to the professional and 
mercantile classes, and that only about one-fourth of all the con- 
victs were fitted to endure the confinement of life in penitentiary 
shops. Upon members of all but the fourth class, then, such confine- 
ment has an undoubted physically degenerating effect, and particu- 
