CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 11 
has seemed the only alternative. Experiment with the State-use 
system in a number of the States has revealed the fact that large 
prison populations can not be employed conveniently at full time 
under the system alone by reason of the limited demand of the 
State institutions and departments for such articles as the prisons 
can be equipped to manufacture. Hence prison officials have been 
forced to look to road work, farm work, or similar outdoor labor 
to find a medium for the employment of their charges. 
In a number of States the large increase in the criminal population 
has resulted in the overcrowding of the old penitentiaries ; while, in the 
light of modern knowledge of sanitation, some institutions have been 
found to be a menace to the health of their inmates. Road work or 
other outdoor employment seems to offer the best solution of these 
problems of sanitation and health. 
Finally, the general impression is that convict road labor is cheaper 
than the same class of free labor, and there is a consequent demand 
for such labor on the part of counties and smaller political units with 
limited funds for necessary road work at command. 
In all of the States one or more of these conditions exist, and in a 
number the resort to the employment of the convicts on road work has 
proved satisfactory, both from the economic and from the humani- 
tarian standpoint. The scheme has both valuable and objectionable 
features, the most important of which are detailed below, but a full 
consideration of its advantages and drawbacks seems to show that 
such employment for at least a part of the prisoners of all the States 
might be provided with good results. 
Of all the advantages that are urged in favor of road work as an 
occupation, that which carries the greatest force is that such work 
undoubtedly is more healthful than any form of employment which 
may be provided in a prison shop. Hard manual labor, in close touch 
with nature and its fresh air and sunshine, is universally recognized as 
most beneficial, while continuous dwelling within doors, with only 
such periods of exercise in the open as it is convenient to allow, is a 
most unnatural life for all but a small proportion of the State's pris- 
oners, and is observed to have a depressing effect upon the vitality of 
most of the convicts, with no marked good effect upon any of them. 
