Part 3

_Other Items From the Reformatory._--During the year 456 inmates of the New Jersey State Reformatory worked outside of the enclosure. There have been only two escapes, one from those working inside the wall, who was returned by the police, and one from the details working outside, who was captured and returned to the institution by other inmates.

The physical condition of the inmates now present in the institution is as follows:

Those who have increased in weight, 67 per cent.

No change in weight, 19 per cent.

Loss of weight, 14 per cent.

The reduction in the number losing weight is explained as follows:

A larger number of the inmates have been assigned to the outdoor work, gardening and farming, than ever before.

The amount of food served in the dining room has been increased, and its quality much improved.

Many low places in the grounds where mosquitoes breeded and from which malaria emanated have been filled.

During the year more inmates have been paroled, and with better results than ever before in the history of the Reformatory.

Number placed on parole 413 Returned for crime 8 Returned, or not returned, being declared delinquent because of committing new crime or breaking other conditions of parole 84 Percentage failing to keep parole 20

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_Contracts in Iowa._--The Fort Madison Farming Tool company will make a fight to retain its business of manufacturing tools at the Fort Madison penitentiary. It will ask that its contract to employ 150 prisoners be continued for at least a year from the expiration of the present contract on November 1, 1914.

The board has announced, however, that it will not renew the contract for any certain period of time, if any extension is granted. It may be advisable, it is said, to continue the present arrangement to keep the men employed from November 1 until such time next year as the legislature can provide some industry at the prison which will take the place of the tool contract.

The State of Iowa has registered a protest against the convict labor system. As fast as the contracts at the penitentiary expire the state must make some new arrangement. At Fort Madison one contract expires this year. The chair contract, employing a maximum of 179 men, does not run out until 1916. This then will free this prison of contracts and the buildings now housing the machinery of private companies will be used by the state in the manufacture of some product which will most benefit the state.

The Fort Madison Tool Company pays the state $50,000 for the use of 150 men, or $333.33 a year per man, based on the maximum permitted under the agreement. The board of control has stated that this sum is not sufficient, and that if the company is to get a temporary extension of contract it must offer a higher rate.

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_Education For Prisoners._--Education by correspondence for prisoners in the Kansas Penitentiary would be possible if a plan outlined by the Chancellor of the University of Kansas should be adopted by the Board of Administration. He would have the privilege of the extension division of the University, including vocational training by correspondence, offered to the inmates of the Penitentiary at the expense of the State.

In this connection it is worth while noting that more than 90 per cent. of 269 men committed to the Wisconsin State Penitentiary for murder in recent years were sent to work before they were 15 years of age, says the Bethlehem, Pa., Times. Of these 269 convicts, of whom a special study has been made, about one-third have never been to school, half reached the fourth grade and but 3.2 per cent. finished high school.

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_Utilizing Prison Labor._--The Cleveland, O., Plaindealer, says that:

Ohio expects to save more than a million in the construction of the new state prison in Madison county through the employment of convict labor. When Andrew L. Harris was governor it was estimated that to build the kind of a penitentiary the state needed would cost at least $2,600,000. The prison commission now declares a much finer institution than was then planned will be built for not to exceed $1,300,000.

Prison labor constitutes the difference. Men in custody of the state will be utilized to make brick from material on the site, to cut and dress timber now growing on the tract for use in the buildings, and for the actual labor of erection.

At the Mansfield reformatory more prison labor will be utilized further to reduce the cost of the development in Madison county. Furniture and fixtures for the new prison offices and library will be manufactured there and shipped.

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_Parole Test Case in Virginia._--The recent session of the General Assembly of Virginia passed the Allen bill providing that the Penitentiary Board might in its discretion parole a prisoner after he had served three years of his sentence; but exempting from its provisions those convicted of murder in the first degree or of criminal assault. Governor Stuart described this bill as misleading in its title. It should have been, he said, “An act to increase the powers of the board of directors of the penitentiary at the expense of the constitutional powers and prerogatives of the executive.”

The Governor referred it to Attorney-General Pollard, who, held not only the bill was unconstitutional, but that the parole act of 1904, which it sought to amend, was likewise unconstitutional. On this advice the Governor vetoed it.

In view of the opinion holding the parole law of 1904 unconstitutional, the question arose as to the future conduct of the prison directors. In a statement issued at the time Governor Stuart expressed the view that it was certainly not contemplated in the Constitution that the prison board should sit as a sort of superior court, to review and reverse in criminal cases not only the verdicts of trial juries and the judgments of Circuit Courts, but the deliberate opinions of the Supreme Court of Appeals as well. The Attorney-General upheld the view that any action releasing a prisoner before he had served the specific term for which he was sentenced by due process of law was to upset and reverse the trial court. This power, it was held, was vested by the Constitution exclusively in the Governor, who may grant absolute pardons or may grant pardons with conditions attached, which are in effect paroles.

Prior to the act of 1904, under the statute of 1896 and subsequent acts, there was a parole system, under which the prison board from time to time made recommendations to the Governor of those convicts who were, in their judgment, suitable for conditional pardons or paroles, thus acting in an advisory capacity. The act of 1904, which is the one now in question, eliminated this report to the Governor and made it possible for the prison board, in its own discretion, at any time to release any convict after he had served one-half of the term for which he had been sentenced.

Under this act the prison board has been from time to time paroling convicts at its own discretion, acting entirely independent of and without connection with the actions of the Governor in granting pardons or conditional pardons, which are in effect paroles.

It has been agreed to make a test case to determine the status of the parole law of 1904, which Attorney-General Pollard has held to be unconstitutional.

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_In Kentucky._--The Louisville Post says editorially that:

“In no department of the State government has there been progress made in the last two years comparable to that shown in the administration of the Kentucky penitentiaries, and Governor McCreary deserves liberal commendation for the wisdom he manifested in selecting the members of the board--Messrs. O’Sullivan, Conley and Lawrence--and the firmness he has shown in supporting his appointees. This is the one bright spot in our State government and the improvement made will be valuable in the future outside of the progress in prison administration by the standard it holds up for other departments of the State.”

Prison Commissioner O’Sullivan has thus summarized the recent developments:

“The most important act passed by the last General Assembly affecting the prisons was the bill providing for State aid in the building of county roads. While it makes no reference to the penal institutions, the opportunity it presents is providential. On January 1, 1915, the contracts on the labor of at least 900 prisoners will expire. In the face of the adverse legislation in Congress, it is probable that the prison contractors will not again bid for this labor, even if the Prison Commissioners were inclined to make new contracts.

“The law permitting the Prison Commission to lease farms adjacent to the prisons at Frankfort and Eddyville is of inestimable value. These farms can not only be made self-sustaining, but the tubercular prisoners can be transferred there and given the chance for life which is sometimes denied them in the narrow confines of a prison cell.

“The indeterminate sentence law does away with the automatic parole of prisoners and gives the jury the power to fix a minimum and maximum sentence proportionate to the crime committed.

“The passage of a law limiting the age of children sent to the House of Reform, near Lexington, and making the county pay part of the cost when the child is not guilty of a penal offense, will prevent the scandalous practice prevalent all over the State of consigning innocent, dependent children to this institution. Some of the officials seem to be in a conspiracy with the parents to get rid of their unfortunate offspring and make the State support them. The Prison Commissioners have returned to their homes 125 children under thirteen years of age who were sent to the House of Reform on flimsy charges. Two boys, six years old, were among the number. They were charged with ‘housebreaking.’ Dozens of cases just as flagrant could be cited.

“The Board has under way plans that will broaden and better this institution, which is one of the most important in the State, as it deals with the child after he has made his first mis-step.

“Before the recent parole of 450 prisoners under the Court of Appeals decision there were 1,450 convicts at the Frankfort Reformatory and 780 at Eddyville. The number of children at the House of Reform will average 700.

“The contractors at Frankfort and Eddyville paid into the State treasury last year $352,000. The cost of conducting these institutions, salaries, supplies etc., was $340,454. The cost of maintaining the House of Reform was $123,386.

“In eighteen months from August 1, 1912, to January 1, 1914, the prisoners have been paid in earnings the sum of $86,000. A great portion of this amount is sent home to their families.

“In the two prisons there are 556 men confined for murder, 115 for manslaughter, and 153 for malicious shooting and wounding. Of this number 340 are life prisoners.

“There are 1,250 negroes to 900 whites. There are 1,300 single men and 950 married men.

“There are 419 men serving second terms, 104 serving third terms, twenty-seven serving fourth terms, and one prisoner serving his seventh term.

“Since the adoption of the parole system 2,200 men have been paroled, which number includes the 450 men liberated under the Court of Appeals decision. Less than 5 per cent. of these men have violated their paroles and been returned to prison.

“In the past twenty-one months the present Prison Board has only paroled one life prisoner sentenced for murder. He had served fifteen years for killing a man who invaded his home and insulted his daughter, and had he been a white man he would never have been convicted.

“The night schools are very successful. Next to the abolition of the lash they have had a most humanizing effect on the prisoners.”

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_Cleveland’s City Farm._--Dr. Harris R. Cooley reported recently in Des Moines, Ia., regarding recent results in Cleveland:

“We have three different departments on the farm,” he said. “We have 100 consumptives on one section, 700 people in the alms house located in another section, and 700 prisoners working on the ‘correction farm.’ These men are convicted of different petty crimes and sent to the farm to work out their sentence.”

According to Mr. Cooley, the farm’s profits from products raised last year were $22,167.04.

“It takes a little nerve to start a farm of the kind,” he said, “as it is necessary for a time to keep up two places. While the farm is being started it will be necessary to have some prisoners in jail and some on the farm, until enough buildings are completed to accommodate all the prisoners. However it is a great system when once in working order and would be a great thing for Des Moines.

“We also have a 450 acre farm for the juvenile prisoners,” he continued, “and this too, is proving a great success. It is located twenty-three miles from the city and the large farm is ten miles from Cleveland. All boys under sixteen years are sent to the juvenile farm.

“Our large farm,” said Mr. Cooley, “cost us $330,000 ten years ago. We have recently been offered $1,000,000 for it, but of course refused to consider the offer. We have hundreds of heads of fine cattle, hogs and horses and raise everything in the way of farm products. The profits possible on a farm of this kind are not to be realized by people who have had no experience with the system.

“We also do away with the problem of labor. We have the men on hand with nothing to do with them but let them work. We do not compete with labor, either. The men enjoy the work and nine times out of ten leave the farm better morally and physically than they came to it. Such is not the case with the man who spends a week or six weeks in the stagnant atmosphere of a city jail.”

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_422 Convicts to be “Turned Loose.”_--The New York World, of April 5th, prints a special dispatch from Louisville, Kentucky.

“Kentucky is facing the problem of caring for 422 convicts, to be liberated at approximately the same time and for whom no provision has been made. The prospect is viewed with varying sensations in different parts of the State. In cities and towns there is alarm, but on the farms and plantations, where help is scarce, no fears are felt, and in fact the liberated criminals will be made welcome for the labor they can perform.

“This condition is brought about by the new indeterminate sentence law which is now operative in Kentucky and which does away with the old law by which the jury trying a case fixed the term of years for which a person should be confined, in the same verdict declaring him guilty. As it is now, the jury merely passes upon a prisoner’s guilt or innocence, and if he is found guilty his prison term is automatically fixed by the law covering the offense with which he is charged. These sentences, of course, range from a specified minimum number of years to a maximum. And it has been the rule heretofore for the Prison Board with whom the power of parole rests, to allow the prisoners their freedom largely upon the character of their crime and their conduct while in prison.

“But in the John De Moss case (recently decided by the Court of Appeals), it is held that if a prisoner has completed his minimum sentence and shows a clear record in the prison he must be issued a parole then. Another feature is that he must be able to show that he has some legitimate occupation waiting for him when he is set at liberty again. This parole, of course, does not free the prisoner absolutely. A string is held on him, and should he ever transgress again he may be brought back and made to complete his original sentence.

“Naturally, the convicts are delighted. Of the 422 convicts to get their liberty 232 will go from the penitentiary at Frankfort and 190 from the Eddyville prison.

“One of the requirements with which a prisoner must conform before he can be paroled even under the new order is that he must have a job awaiting him. This has caused the 422 prisoners who are to be released to cast about for a landing place. Among them are individuals of all classes, some very expert in certain lines, but the most of them are ordinary laborers, this being especially true of the negroes, who are in the majority. Right here is where the release of the prisoners promises to be a good thing for the State at large. For several years the question of farm labor has grown to be more and more a matter of serious nature. The negroes prefer to live in the towns or to work on the public works, where they can be together in crowds. Often the farmers are sorely tried in their efforts to get labor at rush seasons and are forced to pay exorbitant prices.

“But the ordinary laborers among the convicts find the farms their best chance for getting the coveted job. The farmers are willing to take the risk, if risk it is, and they are offering to give employment to the prisoners. In one county the seventeen negroes that are due to return have all been thus guaranteed work. Other counties are doing the same thing and probably the majority of this class of the convicts will find a home and freedom on the farms.

“Much consolation is found in the fact that a radical change in the methods of handling and treating the convicts will result. They will be better citizens when their terms are out.

“One of the results of the new law will be the changing of the Frankfort prison into a reformatory, where the female and younger prisoners will be confined, and the Eddyville prison into the penitentiary, where men only will be confined, and these only for major offenses.

“The prisoners are now allowed more liberties; they are permitted to enjoy the prison libraries, attend night school, organized in the various cell houses, attend religious services, to have the freedom of the grounds at stated times, and when the weather permits to play ball and take other healthful outdoor exercises, to receive mail, and are given better and cleaner cells and better food.

“So, after all, the situation does not appear alarming, but on the other hand it is believed by those in touch with conditions that the released prisoners will come out into the world again with a full appreciation of the joys and privileges of liberty, and few of them will again wilfully disobey the laws and be returned to bondage once more.”

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_Modern Detention Prison For Women in New York City._--After years of effort on the part of civic organizations, borough officials and individuals, the city is at last to have a Home of Detention and Court for Women. It is to be a fourteen-storied structure and is to occupy a 100×100 foot plot on the north side of West Thirtieth street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues. The working drawings are now being prepared by the architects, Griffin & Wynkoop of No. 30 Church street, and construction will begin in the near future.

The need of such a building has from time to time been emphasized by the numerous abuses attendant upon the imprisonment of women. Heretofore both men and women have been confined in the same building, and because the police stations and the City Prison were of an obsolete design, there was no way of segregating the first offenders from the hardened criminals, a condition which sociologists have long deplored.

The plans for the new building provide for this segregation. Provision is made for three general classes of prisoners, these to be again subdivided into other groups. No longer will first offenders be herded into dark, unsanitary cells along with the habitual offenders. The building is so arranged that each room will be flooded with sunlight at some time of the day; moreover, each cell will have its own individual window and will be provided with running water, basin and sanitary conveniences.

The Magistrates’ Court with its entrances and subdivisions is placed in the first four stories. The Detention Home and District Prison with their subdivisions are placed in the fifth to fourteenth stories.

It was found that by placing the small rooms of the Home of Detention and Prison around the court, recessed from the street, most of the dangers of communication between prisoners and the outside could be obviated, and the possibility of introducing drugs and weapons into the building overcome.

The prisoners are to be delivered through a driveway court into the room for arrested persons, taken to their individual temporary detention rooms on the first and second floors, from which an officer conducts them to the complaint room, or in a continuous line of circulation through the prisoners’ waiting room, the court room, the finger print room, and after sentence, to the room for detained persons, from which they are taken by guards of the Detention Home and Prison and after examination put among that group of prisoners which their degree of crime permits or requires.

The public will enter the building through a public vestibule, pass up a large stairway and enter the court room or complaint room through a public lobby on the second floor. The court room is 25 feet high, of ample size, and has abundant light and cross ventilation from the street into an interior light court, which opens at its top into the recessed light court of the Detention Home above.

The entrance to the probation and administrative portions of the Magistrates’ Court is through a special vestibule controlled by the janitor of the building at the southwest corner. Women on probation of the court can report to their probation officer in the second floor without coming in contact with the crowd frequenting the courtrooms and public vestibule. Probation officers are to be located on the floor immediately below the courtroom and will have ready access to the courtroom when their attendance there is required. Reporters are to be given a special room and provided with tables and seats in the court. The judge, the clerk of the court, the assistant clerks and the district attorney are allotted rooms on the fourth floor, which is accessible to all of the lower floors of the building by a special elevator and stairs.

On the fifth floor of the building are placed the administrative offices of the home and prison, the apartments of the superintendent and assistant superintendent and separate facilities for visitors coming to see the home and prison. The visitors cannot at any time pass to the prisoners either weapons or drugs. Double wire screens will at all times separate the prisoners from the visitors.

From the sixth to the fourteenth floor there will be twenty-four rooms on each floor, these being for housing the inmates of the home and prison. Each group of twelve rooms will have a dining and living room, a service pantry, a bathroom and a storage closet for linen and clothing. An open air exercise loggia will connect the two twelve-room groups.

The prison and home rooms will be slightly different, in that the prison rooms will have steel grilled fronts opening onto the corridor, whereas the rooms of the detention home will have regular fireproof doors fitted with a small grilled panel, for the convenience of matrons in overseeing their charges. Each of the small rooms will be provided with a wash basin, a water closet and a bed.

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_Criminals in War._--Criminals generally turn out to be cowards on the battlefield, according to observations in the cases of 225 men with jail or prison sentences in their record made during the campaign of Italy in Tripoli by Dr. Consiglio, chief of staff surgeons with the Italian army.

Dr. Consiglio says: