EVENTS IN BRIEF
[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]
Warden Bridges.—The Boston (Mass.) Record says:
Warden Bridges wishes to retire from the post at the State Prison which he has held for more than 20 years. He is past 78 years of age. If Gen. Bridges insists upon his retirement the State will lose the services of a man who through a long career in a post of extreme difficulty has maintained the dignity and efficiency of an important branch of the public service in a manner which will never be forgotten. The trials and suspense of such a position as Gen. Bridges has held for two decades are hardly weighed by the average citizen, who regards them as matters of course, and expects, in this State, thorough efficiency. During these past 20 years that public expectation has not been disappointed. It has been worth much to the Commonwealth to have had a man of Gen. Bridges’ sort at the head of its State Prison.
Warden Bridges wishes to retire from the post at the State Prison which he has held for more than 20 years. He is past 78 years of age. If Gen. Bridges insists upon his retirement the State will lose the services of a man who through a long career in a post of extreme difficulty has maintained the dignity and efficiency of an important branch of the public service in a manner which will never be forgotten. The trials and suspense of such a position as Gen. Bridges has held for two decades are hardly weighed by the average citizen, who regards them as matters of course, and expects, in this State, thorough efficiency. During these past 20 years that public expectation has not been disappointed. It has been worth much to the Commonwealth to have had a man of Gen. Bridges’ sort at the head of its State Prison.
He assumed his present position in 1893 when he was appointed by the late Governor William E. Russell. Only one prisoner remains who has been an inmate continuously since General Bridges took control. The man is Jesse Pomeroy.
Convict Labor and Labor Unions—According to the Cedar Rapids (Ia.) Times, Union labor’s war to prohibit state authorities to allow honor prisoners at the penitentiary at Fort Madison to work for outsiders as painters, plumbers, etc., at Fort Madison, will now go into court, following the passage of an ordinance by the Fort Madison city council, which prohibits prisoners entering the city only on official business. Police will be ordered to arrest them and the ordinance provides for a fine of from $1 to $100 in violation of the ordinance. The war against the system has been going on for two years. The Governor and State labor commissioners have been appealed to but nothing was done. The State board of control allowed Warden Sanders to put honor prisoners outside in competition with union labor. Leaders of union labor took the matter to the city council, which resulted in the passage of the prohibitory measure and will now be tested out in court.
Says Georgia to Tennessee—The Atlanta Georgian has this to say in a recent issue:
“Since Governor Hooper of Tennessee and his party of prison investigators, who came to Atlanta last week to inspect convict conditions in Georgia, have returned home they have given interviews to Tennessee papers upholding the Tennessee system of convict control as superior to that of Georgia, particularly from health and humanitarian viewpoints.
“To one who has spent several years in each state and has had opportunity to observe the prison systems of the two states—not in a three-day cursory inspection, but at frequent intervals extending over these several years—the view’s of the Tennesseans seem open to question.
“In Georgia all the able-bodied men convicts are worked out of doors, under the direct supervision of state and county officials and inspectors, constructing public highways.
“In Tennessee about half of the able-bodied convicts are worked under ground in state-owned and operated mines, having exceedingly little opportunity to enjoy the fresh air and sunlight necessary to the physical well-being of a man. The other able-bodied half are worked in factories within the penitentiary walls at Nashville under the lease system that Georgia five years ago abolished as inhuman and unjust.
“A small per cent., too old or too infirm for mine or factory, are worked on a farm adjacent to the Tennessee penitentiary. Georgia has equally as good a farm at Milledgeville for its prisoners of the same class who are not fitted for work on the roads.
“Tennessee convicts in the mines and in the factories come in direct competition with organized free labor. Georgia’s road building convicts are worked for and not in competition with other classes of labor.
“It is true that the temporary road building camps, which of necessity must be moved from place to place as construction progresses, do not possess the permanent sanitary improvements that Tennessee has installed inside the walls and at the mines—a condition to which the Tennessee party calls attention—yet this is more than offset by the health-giving open-air life led by the Georgia prisoners.
“It is a matter of record that both Governor Hooper and his predecessor, Governor Patterson, pardoned hundreds of Tennessee convicts because they were victims of tuberculosis, produced by the close confinement in the mines and factories. Without comparative statistics on which to base the assertion, the writer is confident that in the last five years there have been at least fifty per cent. more cases of tuberculosis among Tennessee than Georgia convicts, despite the fact that Georgia with its larger area and population, has about fifty per cent. more convicts than Tennessee, of whom eighty per cent. are negroes against Tennessee’s sixty per cent. of negro prisoners.
“Governor Hooper says Georgia is making fine roads. There may not be as many prayer meetings in the Georgia road camps as in the Tennessee mines, but Georgia is not blindly killing off the bodies with tuberculosis while trying to save its convicts’ souls. Georgia believes in saving both, but says to save the body first and have a better chance at saving the soul.”
A New Warden at Sing Sing.—Warden Clancy, who made a creditable record at Sing Sing, has resigned, and Superintendent of Prisons Riley has appointed Thomas T. McCormick of Yonkers as warden. Which leads the New York Evening Post to say:
“Sing Sing Prison has long been a disgrace to the State, but this fact was never so familiar to the people as it has been during the past few months. The Superintendent of Prisons appears, however, to think the present an auspicious moment for placing in charge of the prison a man whose only recommendation for the post, so far as known to the public, is that he has been successful in the plumbing business, and that he is one of the mainstays of the Westchester County Democratic machine. In the face of things like this, the men and women who are laboring to get our penal institutions properly conducted have need of all the faith and resolution they can command to keep on in their endeavor. But theywillkeep on, and the time will come when the idea of appointing the warden of a great prison for any other reason than his special fitness to conduct it wisely and well will seem too monstrous for belief. We must not forget the encouragement there is in the fact that, bad as these things are now, we have got beyond the utter shamelessness which was so often shown in former times.”
The New York Commission on Prison Reform—The New York State Commission on Prison Reform which was appointed by Sulzer a year ago has just filed the preliminary report of its findings. The commission of which Thomas Mott Osborne is chairman was authorized to examine and investigate the management and affairs of the several State prisons and reformatories, the prison industries, employment of convict labor and all subjects relating to the proper maintenance and control of the State prisons of the State. The Commission has made careful study of these several matters and the report which has been released contains many interesting and valuable suggestions.
The abolition of the ill-famed Sing Sing prison is recommended and the erection on its site of a receiving station for the observance and study of all persons sentenced to imprisonment in a State prison for medical examination and treatment of those afflicted with diseases and for weeding out those found to be mentally defective—the latter to be sent to separate institutions devoted solely to the care of the mentally defective.
The indeterminate sentence is a further recommendation of the Commission, which urges that the penal law of the State be so amended as to make it incumbent on all judges sentencing prisoners to confinement in a State prison to impose sentences without either maximum or minimum limit; while for the purpose of investigating all applications for pardon and parole it is suggested that local advisory boards of pardon and parole be instituted in connection with each prison and reformatory of the State.
The Commission places itself on record as favoring the employment of able bodied male convicts in constructing and repairing the highways of the State and the several counties in addition to which farms should be developed at all of the institutions so that as many convicts as possible may be employed in the open air—all possible work to be conducted under the so-called honor system, together with a considerable and increasing measure of self-government.
As a final and essential basis for permanent improvement the Commission recommends the consolidation and reorganization of the various offices, boards and commissions which now divide among them the administration of the prison affairs of the State into a permanent State Department of Correction, to which the entire penal administration of the State shall be committed.
Will Works or Won’t Works?—An examination of 2000 inmates of the New York municipal lodging house showed that 63 per cent. of the 2000 were able to do hard work; another 10 per cent. were capable of doing lighter work, such as gardening or using a broom, and still another 9 per cent. could do extremely light work, but still enough to keep themselves in food and decent clothing. More light would have been thrown on the general subject of unemployment if the city had been able to go further and learn how many of this 2000 would be willing to do the work they were physically capable of doing, were the chance actually offered.
More Privileges at Stillwater—Prisoners at the penitentiary at Stillwater demonstrate in many ways their approval of the new rules inaugurated by Warden Henry Wolfer.
All the men in the third grade have been advanced to the second grade, and now not a stripe is worn in the new prison.
All convicts will be permitted to talk to their neighbors at meal time Sundays and holidays.
Each Tuesday and Friday at 4.30 P.M. motion picture shows will be given in the prison auditorium. The prisoners are given half day off on Saturday.
Prisoners Earning Money at Joliet.—Warden Edmund M. Allen of the Joliet penitentiary announces that for the first time in Illinois prisoners employed in a penitentiary have become wage earners.
Employees in the reed and rattan department, where furniture is made, have been given a share in the earnings. There has followed a marked improvement in efficiency. Each employee earned $5.69 in March—small, but a beginning.
Prisoners in this work learn a trade which can be followed profitably upon their obtaining freedom. In March, 1914, with 259 workingmen, 6,595 pieces were made, as against 5,153 in March, 1913, with 288 employees. In April $6.32 per man was earned.
In addition to the share in the profits granted to employees in the reed and rattan shop, the warden has given the prisoners the privilege of making any articles which they are capable of manufacturing in their cells during leisure hours. Materials are supplied where the supplies of the prison permit, and the articles made are sold by the prison and the money given to the convicts.
Joliet convicts to the number of 500 were back at their work peacefully recently following a night of fire-fighting when flames destroyed a portion of the rattan shop of the State penitentiary. Convicts, from embezzlers to life termers, fought side by side with the prison guards and members of the Joliet fire department. None tried to make their escape, and when the fire companies withdrew from the blackened ruins the men quietly returned to their cells.
Warden Allen says that he believes the introduction of the “honor system” during his administration had much to do with the action of the prisoners. For a long time the big east gate leading to the prison stood open, and he has yet to learn of any prisoner that made any attempt to get away.
Harmless “Pirates.”—At the State Reformatory for Women in Massachusetts, on June 6th, before an audience of 300 guests, friends of the institution, the “Pirates of Penzance” was given by the women inmates. About 60 of the women took part on the stage. The excellent work and good voices were a surprise and gratification, and this performance, which was heartily applauded, was, undoubtedly, the most elaborate and successful ever given by inmates of any penal institution in the country.
The costumes, stage arrangements and decorations, were the work of the women. All winter long the work has been an uplifting and engaging employment for all the inmates, giving them new tasks outside the daily prison routine.
At the rehearsals, the 350 inmates have gathered in the large hall, and watched the performance of the 50 to 60 women on the platform. The study and work has benefited every inmate, and especially inspired all who took part.
The work is an indication of the broad scheme of Mrs. Jessie D. Hodder and her staff in renewing the lives of the women in her charge.
New Prison Training Effective—So says the Buffalo Inquirer: Of the 1,639 convicts in the Ohio State prison at Columbus, 1,331 are first termers. Of the 784 discharged and the 743 received in the last year only fourteen were second termers.
“Such figures indicate that the Ohio prison management is doing something to lessen the number of repeaters. Apparently the training the prisoners receive is doing something to work up the ability and will to lead to the life that saves them from being sent back again.
“It is related that the 500 Ohio prisoners who were allowed to work in the open last year on their promise not to run away only twenty-four escaped. That is to say, ninety-five per cent. showed the stamina to stay on the prison job and five per cent. yielded to the temptation to make a break for liberty. The ninety-five per cent. capable of staying in prison when they might have escaped should be capable of keeping out of prison after their release. Every statistical table showing a diminished proportion of ‘repeaters’ is evidence that the new training is really accomplishing in the way of abolishing the ‘comebacks.’”
The Situation in New Jersey—The Plainfield (N.J.) Courier outlines it as follows:
It is claimed that politics interferes with the harmonious solution of the new labor system in the State Prison, replacing the prison labor contract system. The interruption has created an annoyance, because all the present labor contracts at the State Prison expire on July 1, and a serious condition will be presented for the majority of the 1,400 convicts will be thrown into lives of idleness. State Prison Keeper Thomas B. Madden regards the prospect as menacing. On July 1 all the prison contractors will cease their work and will remove their machinery from the prison shops where so long the prisoners were kept busy manufacturing shoes, clothing, brooms, brushes, caps, handkerchiefs, overalls, etc., will be closed until the new prison labor methods can be put into operation. It will take at least six months to get the new system fully installed.
No definite plans exist for an immediate resumption of labor in the prison, although the act abolished the prison labor contract system and substituting the “State use” method under which the convicts manufactures articles for use in all the State institutions, was passed in 1911, three years ago. The new Commission is composed of Cook Conklin, of Bergen county, president; Commissioner of Charities and Corrections Joseph P. Byers, of Trenton, secretary; Joseph M. Dear, of Jersey City, representing the Board of State Prison Inspectors; Freeman Woodbridge, of Middlesex county, representing the Board of Managers of the Rahway Reformatory; Richard H. More, of Bridgeton, and Henry Isleib of Paterson.
“The condition is a serious one,” said Prison Keeper Madden today, “and I do not know what we are going to do after July 1 when all the prison shops must be closed. I know what it means to have a big lot of prisoners idle, for I was here back in the hard times of 1873 when one of the big prison contractors failed and the shops were closed down. We had trouble then, and there were not nearly so many prisoners as we have now.”
The act of 1911 abolishing the contract labor system created a Prison Labor Commission composed of the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, the warden of the State prison, the superintendent of the Rahway Reformatory and two other persons to be appointed by the Governor. President Wilson was then Governor and his appointments made the Commission Democratic. It has been claimed that if the original commission had been let alone something would have been accomplished ere this. In 1912 the Legislature was Republican. A bill was introduced changing the Prison Labor Commission so that it would be composed of six men, three Republicans and three Democrats. This was passed and Governor Wilson promptly vetoed it as also were many other bills sent to him by the Republican law makers. This bill was passed over his veto, together with a lot of others, thus revolutionizing the Commission. This is the Commission which has just been legislated out of office.
Prison Keeper Madden does not think the “State use” will employ nearly all the convicts. For instance, less than ten prisoners now do all the tailoring work for the 1,400 men in the prison, so that, in his opinion, all the industrial needs of the various State institutions will be met without using the labor of anything like all the convicts in the prison. It has been suggested that more convicts be employed outside the prison, and that then some of the others be employed in remodeling the old and unsanitary sections of the prison. This plan will likely be discussed by the Commissioners next Tuesday. Only about 65 prisoners are now employed on the roads of the State, and it is proposed that this be increased to 300. The suggestion is that at least 150 convicts be sent to the Prison Farm in Cumberland county, where only 87 are now at work. There is a law permitting the State to acquire a prison to mine and crush stone for good road work, and it is urged that this would be put in operation and 100 convicts employed in this way. An average of fifteen per cent. of the convicts are employed in the prison as domestics and general helpers, or are in ill health and cannot work. This leaves in round numbers, 600 convicts to be utilized in the prison industrial system.
It would take from six months to a year, however, to put all these plans into operation. Meanwhile the pressing problem is what to do at once.
An appropriation of $25,000 is available in the supplemental bill for immediate use for the establishment of the new prison labor system, but although the money has been ready since April 15, nothing has been done about utilizing it to meet the need.
Shale.—Says the Boston Transcript: Shale is to be no longer the outcast of the rock and soil families. It is fit to make into brick to be laid down for the best of highways. In the past to point at a bit of land and say, “Shale,” meant that the sale for any price above the waste lot figure was impossible. The shale land farmer never prospered. The word was good only for the novelist to write into the descriptions of places where ghosts were found. But shale is about to be respected. It may be fit punishment for that despised rock and soil derived from that rock that it should be placed under the feet of men, the hoofs of horses and the rubber of the auto tires, to be pulverized slowly into dust, but that does not matter. Shale is making a reputation. Governor Glynn of New York has announced that the tests of brick made from shale about the Elmira reformatory have proved that the bricks are right for laying down for the surface of highways. Samples of the brick sent to the makers of clay brick machinery have been found to fill all the requirements of the experts there employed, and that means that shale almost anywhere may be made into brick with such economy that it is forthwith regarded as one of the best materials for surface highways. The advantage of the shale about the Elmira reformatory is that the convicts there can be employed to collect the material and make the brick for State roads. The highway commissioner and a scientist are to direct the construction of buildings at the reformatory for the manufacture of brick. Convicts are to make the brick and put up the plant for permanent operations of the same materials. In many reports of industrial enterprises of late there is used the expression, economy was the result of finding the building materials on the spot or close by. The use of shale in many sections is bound to come under that head. Brick is now made of many materials which in the past have been tabooed. Sand is considered as good as clay for making brick, and it is handier to many places. The use of different materials makes a variety in the building materials of blocks. Cities look better because of that variety. But one of the best uses for brick appears now to be the surfacing of roads for the joy machines as well as the business motors of all kinds, and for horses. In the course of time the country turnpikes may be generally paved like city streets, at least with hard brick and that will have been done at reasonable cost to the country because of the employment of convict labor.
In Kentucky: The New York Evening Post says editorially:—“From Kentucky comes the report of a decision of its Court of Appeals which appears to be most unfortunate in its effect, but entirely justified by the facts of the case. The decision declares unconstitutional a prison-reform act passed by the Legislature in 1910, which provided for one of the State prisons becoming a reformatory for first offenders, and the other a penitentiary, for the education of prisoners, and for the assignment to them of a portion of their earnings under the prison labor contracts. The decision was not based on any objection whatever to the provisions of the bill; neither was it grounded on a “technicality”. The trouble was that the bill, which was in the nature of an addition of new sections to a pre-existing law, did not set forth the whole act as it would appear after amendment, as required by the State Constitution; also the payment of prisoners was not mentioned in the title. The Court disavowed any desire to interfere with the freedom of the Legislature except so far as distinctly required by the Constitution; but the opinion went on, “to say that this act does not boldly violate section 51 would be to say that the words of this section have no meaning or effect, and that a section of the Constitution has no more force than a legislative act.” There is no getting away from this view of such a matter, unless we are to take the position that there should be no Constitutions at all. In support of that position there is room for valid argument; but to have a Constitution, and yet set it aside when we please, is to invite the dangers that would go with the abolition of Constitutions without getting its advantages.”
The Indeterminate Sentence and “Good Time.”—According to the Louisville (Ky.) Courier Journal, “some of the prisoners in the Frankfort Reformatory are said to be preparing to file a suit to compel the Prison Commission to carry out the law which gives eighty-four days’ good time to every convict.
“There is no question as to the existence of such a law, but the Prison Commission has not seen proper to apply it to those prisoners who were convicted under the indeterminate sentence law. This seems to have been in accordance with common sense. A prisoner sent up under the indeterminate sentence law for a term of, say, one to five years is eligible to parole after he has served his minimum term of one year. If the good time allowance also is applied such a prisoner, one of the commissioners has pointed out, would have to serve only about nine months to be eligible for parole.
“The absurdity of making a good time allowance to those who are serving the so-called indeterminate sentence is more apparent when the case of a prisoner convicted of manslaughter is considered. This prisoner was sentenced to serve from two to twenty-five years. In the natural course of events he would be eligible to parole after two years. Given the benefit of the annual good time allowance he would have to serve only about eighteen months before being eligible for parole.
“The Attorney General has given an opinion to the effect that the prisoners convicted under the indeterminate sentence law are entitled to the good time allowance. Evidently there has been a good deal of legislative bungling in connection with these prison laws. With a few more amendments it is much to be feared the State will be unable to keep anybody at all in the penitentiary longer than the time required for hearing a mandamus suit.”
How Newspapers Err.—The Providence (R.I.) News says that:
“There was a queer mix-up over a sentence passed by the district court of Minnesota on a youth of twenty years. Two New York state papers had the story that the youth was sentenced to forty years in prison for robbing a man of $1.85. One paper used the sentence as a text for a general cry down of Wisconsin’s very progressive, although what a sentence passed in St. Paul had to do with the laws of Wisconsin, progressive or otherwise, was not clear. The other paper commented on the affair under the caption: ‘The Crime of a Court.’
“It appears by a letter from Judge Orr, who sentenced the youth, that he was not sentenced to forty years in prison, but was sentenced under the indeterminate law, and can, after two years, apply for a parole. It is true that in robbery cases the maximum sentence is forty years, but it is up to the board of parole and to the youth himself, very largely to the youth, as to how long he will stay in prison. As the young man had been a waif and pleaded guilty, the story, if true, was one that could not fail to cause indignation. There was very little truth about it, fortunately, and Judge Orr, speaking for his state says:
‘Minnesota is in the front rank in the matter of legislation recognizing the principles of modern penology and criminology, including the indeterminate sentence all cases, limited suspension of sentence, etc., and the administration of justice in the courts of this state is in full sympathy and accord with the statutes. Such blunders as these are apt to do courts everywhere an injury, so the truth should be known.’”
Convicts make Brick and do other Work in Ohio.—Shipments have been started from the brick plant established by the State board of administration for the employment of penitentiary prisoners at Junction City, Perry county, Ohio. Mason Chilcote of East Liverpool, is the superintendent of the plant. Fifty prisoners are employed at the plant and as soon as a new dormitory is completed another fifty will be sent there. The plant can turn out 40,000 bricks daily. State Highway Commissioner James R. Marker says that his department can use the entire output of the plant for road building.
By using the convicts the State board of administration saved the State more than $2,000 in tearing down old buildings and excavating for the new administration structure at the Institution for the Blind in Columbus.
It required 24 convicts 8274 hours to do the work. They were paid three cents an hour by the State. The total was $248.22. The same number of hours paid for at 27-1/2 cents an hour, the prevailing rate of wages, would have cost the State $2,275.35.
Besides saving the money to the State the board furnished outdoor labor for the prisoners.
Work on the foundation of the new structure which is to house the board of administration, has been commenced. It is expected to have the building ready for occupancy by early fall.
Board of City Magistrates of the City of New York (First Division).—The annual report giving the work of magistrates in Manhattan and the Bronx in the City of New York is always anticipated with great interest, and is read with an increasing amount of satisfaction both in general progress recorded and in the improvement of form and statistical method. It is a great pity as Chief Magistrate McAdoo remarks, that the important strides toward significant criminal statistics that are being made in the magistrates’ courts can not be combined and developed, together with data from the higher criminal courts. There should be, in any event, a centralized statistical bureau, covering all the courts concerned with the criminal bar in Greater New York. “What was done with the man I held for keeping a gambling house, a disorderly house, or maintaining a public nuisance last month or the month before. I don’t know——.” We might add, “Nor does any one else know.” The report presents the work of eight district courts, a night court for men, and a night court for women, and two domestic relations courts. There is no end of interesting material in it. Perhaps the most interesting facts, however, relate to the extension of the use of the finger-prints to cases of disorderly conduct, “jostling” and “mashing,” with prospects of soon including automobile speeders; and the increase of the percentage of convicted among those arranged. The former will make it difficult for real lawbreakers to escape punishment after arrest, while the latter shows that the number of arrests of innocent persons is fast diminishing. A remarkable fact is also the diminution of the number of defendants placed on probation, directly attributable to the greater frequency of preliminary investigations of such cases by probation officers.
STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, ETC. of THE DELINQUENT.
Published monthly at New York, N. Y., required by the Act of August 24th, 1912.
There are no bondholders, mortgages, or other security holders.
O. F. LEWIS, Editor and Business Manager.
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 27th day of March, 1914.
H. L. McCORMICK, Notary Public No. 6, Kings County.My Commission expires March 31, 1914.