The Review, Vol. 1, No. 5, May 1911

All inmates over 18 years of age who are not incapacitated from work by sickness or old age, are furnished with healthful employment; the principal industries being those that furnish products needed and to be used by the City. A limited and comparatively small percent of the inmates are employed in the manufacture of articles placed on the market in competition with those manufactured by paid labor. For instance, the city uses a great amount of crushed stone in the repair and building of streets. This is quarried, crushed and loaded in the cars on our grounds by inmates at a great saving to the city. They are also engaged in the manufacture of sewer brick used by the city, the clay used in this industry being excavated within the walls of the institution. We also conduct a printing shop where most of the city’s printing is done.

The laundry work for the Police and Health Departments is done here at a great advantage to those departments. We manufacture all clothing, shoes, etc., that the prisoners wear. We make all permanent improvements to buildings and grounds as well as do the new construction work. About one-fifth of our inmates are engaged in the manufacture of chairs, broom and leather goods and these are the only articles placed on the market.

The actual receipts of the institution during the year 1909 were $210,591.48; this amount, however, includes $38,287.00 collected as payment on fines. In addition to the above, it is conservatively estimated that the earnings of the institution in making permanent improvements and in new construction work are not less than $148,873.00. The total expenditures including the purchase of materials for new construction and of amounts appropriated by the city to be used at the House of Correction in its management amounted to $291,053.03.

The per capita cost per diem for feeding inmates during the year 1909 was twelve cents; the cost per diem including all expenditures was forty-six cents. The cost as stated above is somewhat increased because of the fact that we maintain as one of the departments of the institution what is known as the John Worthy School. This is not a school in name only, but has all the facilities for giving the class of boys that are sent to us from the Juvenile Court the education and training they need; and their needs are greater than those ordinarily sent to the public schools, for most of them have not had the chance in life to develop physically or morally as boys have who come from well regulated homes where proper influence prevails, and where they are encouraged to profit by the educational advantages furnished by our public schools. You will find there not only the ordinary class rooms with a competent teacher in charge of each, but manual training facilities and a well-equipped trade school, an indoor gymnasium, as well as outdoor play grounds and a swimming pool. We also teach them to do gardening and in a limited way give them an opportunity to develop any inclinations they may have to follow an agricultural life.

I desire to call particular attention to a cell house recently built here for men, in which there are 334 cells, each having an outside window which can be operated by the occupant of the cell. Each cell is also equipped with high class plumbing, including wash basin; in fact, sanitary conditions are as perfect as it seemed possible to make them. You will find no dark corners in the building or places where the ventilation is not perfect. The valuation has been conservatively fixed at $225,000. The actual cost is less than $65,000.00. The difference between these amounts represents the value of the inmates’ labor and the product of the institution used in its construction. No mechanical superintendents were employed, our officers acting in the dual capacity of guards and instructors, the inmates performing all the labor, even the plumbing, electrical work, and, in fact, all of the labor required to finish the well-constructed up-to-date building. The center corridor is 260 feet long by 30 feet in width, which we converted into a dining hall. All the prisoners occupying cells in the building have their meals served in this space and the tables and benches used for this purpose are also used for carrying on religious and educational work among the inmates during the evening or on Sundays. This is an entirely new innovation in prison management, but is being carried on with success.

The many advantages of a cell house like this one, built on the plan of the center corridor, are becoming more and more apparent as they are put into practical use. The outside window in each cell goes a long way toward preventing the spread of that dreaded disease, tuberculosis. Light and airy cells not only mean sanitary conditions, but afford an opportunity for the inmates to look out through windows and over walls and witness natural, if not pleasant scenes, which have a tendency to inspire them with more wholesome thoughts than if their gaze rested continually upon stone walls and iron bars. The entertainment of wholesome thoughts is much more apt to be an inspiration to better citizenship than can be suggested by dismal surroundings.

The experience we have had in this cell house has shown that the objections raised by some to a style of construction that would permit the prisoners sitting in cells facing each other across a center corridor is not justified. We have had no difficulty whatever because of this. The discipline maintained has been of a higher order than in the old-style cell houses and has been obtained with comparative ease. It is the intention of the management of this institution to prevail upon the city authorities to grant an appropriation for a series of cell houses built on the center corridor plan to take the place of the old-style ones.

Society nowadays expects more of the management of penal institutions than merely to keep its inmates safely. Some inmates may be lacking only in moral or religious training; with others it may be of the utmost importance that they receive medical or surgical attention; and again, educational advantages often prove to be just the needed inspiration to the unfortunate. Proper physical or mental development is nowadays acknowledged to be the panacea for the delinquent youth, and to some extent the adult. The consideration of these facts will tend to inspire the inmates with at least a wholesome respect for the law, and I believe that a more helpful discipline can be maintained among the inmates when they can be satisfied that something is being done for their benefit and enlightenment. This has been proved to be true in the handling of the delinquent youth in our modern institutions who are no longer looked upon as or called criminals, but young men who can be developed into good citizenship, by first determining their needs and then finding ways and means of supplying them.

In my opinion what has been done for the youth can also be accomplished in a large measure with the adult, especially in a corrective institution such as this. The discipline in a corrective institution must necessarily be exacting but at the same time it should be permeated with that degree of kindness that would inspire the prisoner to his best efforts with the feeling that not only the right but the beneficial thing is being done for him. The law commits to our keeping the undisciplined, the unsocialized and the lawless, who have perhaps never realized the importance of self-control. The discipline maintained among this class by creating only a fear of punishment will in most cases fail to bring about results that are beneficial; such discipline does not prove to be correctional, but on the contrary has the tendency to encourage the practice of deception, for often they have no other incentive when violating the rules than to show that they can avoid detection. It seems to me that discipline to be corrective should be instructive and educational; instructive to a degree that would satisfy the prisoner that the law is not revengeful, but that in restraining him from his liberty it wants to point out to him his weaknesses and to assist him in overcoming them; and educational to a degree that would teach him to formulate rules to govern himself so that he might become a useful member of society. Then he will be more apt to consider the rules made to govern his conduct while in prison as really for his good, and he will co-operate with them to such an extent, at least, that he does not resort to deception. If a prisoner can be taught the lesson of self-control he is better prepared to adapt himself to the outside world and to good citizenship. If all inmates are not susceptible to this form of discipline, a sufficiently large percent respond, and when the great number of first offenders in an institution of this kind is considered, it is well worth an extra effort to maintain a discipline that will appeal to them with beneficial results to the community.

In my estimation, it is highly important in an institution of this kind to be prepared to give the best of medical or surgical treatment to those of the inmates who need it. We have a medical department well equipped with all the facilities of a first-class hospital. The regular staff of that department consists of four physicians and two trained nurses who live on the grounds, besides specialists who visit the institution at regular intervals. In addition to this we have a staff of consulting surgeons and physicians, each of whom visit the department at least once a week. No better attention is given patients in any hospital than our inmates receive. From fifty to seventy-five major operations are performed each month by as competent surgeons as there are in the city. The results obtained in this department have been most gratifying, and tend to prove that if permanent progress is to be made in the matter of the management of penal institutions, much assistance must come from a well regulated medical department, where the mental condition of the inmates is considered as well as the physical.

THE AMERICAN JAIL PROBLEM

FREDERICK H. WINES, SECRETARY ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION.

[If the discussion which has followed the meeting of the International Prison Congress in Washington last October has brought anything clearly to the surface, it is that the county jail system of this country has succeeded in turning upon itself the spot-light of Europe. Why should we not take advantage of this borrowed illumination to become familiar with our own problem?--Editor.]

The following extracts give the gist of an interesting study of our jail system which was read before the last Maryland State conference of charities, and recently published in _The Institution Quarterly_ of the Board of Administration of Illinois.

“So much has been said, and so well said, regarding the folly and iniquity of the county jail system in the United States, that it seems like a waste of breath to discuss it further.... No fault can be found with any one jail, that may not be found with scores or hundreds of others. There are jails that are too large, and jails that are too small; insecure jails, unsanitary jails, jails without light, jails without heat, jails without ventilation, filthy jails, jails that are not properly governed, palatial jails, and jails that are not fit for occupation as stables or pigstyes. I suppose that I have personally inspected nearly or quite one-fourth of all the jails in this country, and my attention has been drawn to every form of defect and disgrace by which a county prison can he disfigured.... But in what forum is the case to be tried? Who is to exercise the necessary jurisdiction? Where is the jury charged with the duty of rendering a verdict? Who will select the jurors? and when? and where?...

“It is not difficult, where the conditions in some county jail are shown to be shameful and intolerable, to arouse local sentiment in favor of some measure of improvement. If it is overcrowded, build an addition. If it is filthy, inaugurate a general house-cleaning. If it is unsafe, make it stronger. If it is unsanitary, it is easy to supply artificial light and heat, or to put in sewerage, water and modern plumbing. With these and other changes, it will do. If not, or if the sheriff needs a fine official residence, and the town wants a handsome public building and profitable contracts for its erection, then it may be possible to bring about the construction of a new prison.

“But what does all this really amount to? In all the essentials of good prison organization and management, the new jail is no better than the old one; and the money spent upon it is simply an addition to the immense investment in a wretched and indefensible system. Instead of being an aid to reform, it is an obstacle to reform. It increases the weight of the already too heavy burden resting on the shoulders of the friends and advocates of the thorough and effectual reconstruction of our existing prison system, from the top to the bottom.

“It would therefore seem to be high time for a radical change in our method of attack. We must adopt a new plan of campaign, which will aim not at the capture here and there of an outwork, so much as at the occupation and destruction of the innermost citadel.

“... Does any one imagine that the abuses at which I have barely hinted could long survive, if all convicted offenders, major and minor, misdemeanants as well as felons, were in the custody of state instead of county officials? The initial result would be a diminution in the number of prisons. There are many times too many local prisons. Some of them stand empty from year to year; some are overcrowded, at least during the weeks immediately preceding a term of the criminal court. The needless multiplication of jails entails a heavy pecuniary burden upon the people.

“The massing of sentenced prisoners would admit of their classification, and of the introduction of reformatory methods of dealing with them--useful, healthy occupation both for body and mind, and some measure of education and religious influence.

“The officers in immediate charge would naturally be men of higher grade, their tenure of office would be more secure, and they would have no other duties to distract their attention from their proper work. They would have little time or opportunity for pernicious political activity. They could be better paid.

“The corrupt fee system, under which it is to the pecuniary interest of some official that arrests should be multiplied, would go by the board.

“We might hope to see the last of iron cages, and foreigners could no longer satirize our prisons under the generic term of menageries. The state would avail itself of the services of competent architects, and traveling salesmen would not be able to sell to unsuspecting and simple-minded commissioners and supervisors their illusory spectacles in shagreen cases.

“In a word, we should have an opportunity to replace irresponsible by responsible prison management, and competency would in time take the place of incompetency.

“This proposal implies, of course, the complete and final disseverance of the prison for men convicted of crime from the house of detention for those awaiting trial, whose guilt is yet unproven, and who may be innocent. From the days of Plato to the present moment, that has been a cardinal maxim of prison reform. The jail system has prevented the realization of this ideal.

“It is not the house of correction, but the house of detention, which constitutes the most refractory element in this complex problem. Let us lay that portion of it aside, for the moment, and consider the other, which is easier. There is no practical obstacle to the establishment of one or more state houses of correction in any state, except the indifference of the legislature; and that can be overcome by a campaign of education....

“The point is to insist that the condemned misdemeanant, like the condemned felon, shall be committed to the custody of the state, which alone shall have the power to execute upon him, the sentence of the court. This simple measure may be relied upon to do away with one-half of our present grounds of complaint.

“I have no fear that, this first step taken, the state will not, sooner or later, see its way clear to take a second, and a third, and as many other steps as may from time to time appear to be expedient and practicable. ‘I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.’

“I confess that I do not see how, at present, it is possible to dispense with the county jail as a house of detention. Ill-adapted as it is to that use, if we gain nothing, we at least lose nothing by conservatism as to this point. Consider the absolute necessity for having a place of confinement for prisoners awaiting trial. Consider the enormous cost of providing a new and improved house of detention in each county. If it should be said that so many houses of detention are not requisite, that the state might be redistricted for judicial purposes, or that prisoners might be carried back and forth between counties, remember that the witnesses would also have to be transported, at great expense. Neither of these suggestions is likely favorably to impress a practical mind. Possibly there are jails which might be remodelled, so as to serve reasonably well as houses of detention only; and there may be counties in which the present jails should be condemned as nuisances, and houses of detention, properly planned for that exclusive use, might there be built. These are details which may be left to take care of themselves. Why put off doing what we can do, because there are other things that we can not do? The time may come when we can do more. Why advocate reforms which are sure to provoke such a united opposition as to insure their defeat in advance?

“On this subject, however, there is one suggestion that may well be made. The population of our minor prisons might be materially reduced, if a more liberal use were made of the constitutional right of bail. The purpose of temporary release under bond is twofold; to relieve the public and to relieve the prisoner. It is expected that the courts will exercise this power in a liberal spirit, and they do. Some of them are authorized to release prisoners on their own recognizance, at the discretion of the court. Every court should possess this right, and greater use might well be made of it. In our large cities, there are many persons guilty of disorderly conduct, or charged with the violation of some police regulation, or some trivial or purely technical offence, who would face trial, without being held in custody, but are unable to procure bondsmen. In both civic and rural communities, there are also many whose family and business relations are such, that there is no reason to apprehend that they will seek to avoid trial by running away. The fact that such persons can not furnish bail is no sufficient reason for their imprisonment. In all such cases, the committing magistrate must of course use wise discrimination in the exercise of his right to waive the usual bail-bond.

“It is further desirable that the criminal code should provide for the probation of the accused, in advance of trial.

“By the adoption of these and other similar methods, fewer men and women would be exposed to the peril of moral contagion in prison, which, under our present system, affects even those who may be, and in fact often are, innocent. Moreover, it is an error to imagine that all who are guilty of the charges for which, under the statutes, if unable to pay a reasonable fine, they must endure a term of incarceration, are depraved. The boy who throws a ball through a plate glass window and is caught, is no worse than the boy who does the same thing and makes his escape without being arrested; nor the boy who can pay a fine, than the boy who can not.”