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A new county workhouse costing $25,000 has been built at South Range, Wis., on a tract of 160 acres, which will be worked by the prisoners.
A modified form of self-government has been introduced at the New Jersey State Reformatory at Rahway by Dr. Frank Moore.
Governor Major of Missouri will recommend legislation to provide for a prison farm, 1000 acres in size to start with.
Road work by State prison convicts will start in a few weeks in Wisconsin. The men will be paid a certain sum for their work.
Sir A. Conan Doyle recently visited Sing Sing, and agreed with everybody but the legislators of the State of New York that Sing Sing ought to go.
A commission has been authorized by the State of Pennsylvania and appointed by the Governor, to consider revision of the penal laws. Two of the members of the commission are Edwin M. Abbott of Philadelphia and Warden McKenty of the Eastern Penitentiary.
On the first of July much more stringent regulations regarding the sale and possession of cocaine and other habit-forming drugs came into effect in NewYork State. A spectacular and effective campaign is now being waged in New York City against dope-vendors.
More than seven hundred prisoners out of 2000 at San Quentin prison have been taking correspondence courses given by the University of California. Spanish is a favorite language to be studied.
At Sing Sing the new warden has started out well. He has given to the inmates Saturday afternoon for recreation, and has introduced base ball and other sports. If it works successfully the inmates will have a recreation hour daily, at the close of the day’s work.
Several members of the board of managers of the Prison Association of New York recently made a tour of inspection of correctional institutions in New York, Pennsylvania and the Province of Ontario, being the guests of Mr. Richard M. Hurd in his automobile. The tour included about 1800 miles, and some twenty correctional institutions, among them Clinton and Auburn State Prisons in New York, the Prison Farm at Guelph, Ontario, the new Central Prison site at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the State Reformatory of Pennsylvania at Huntingdon, the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania?, the State Prison at Trenton, New Jersey, the Berkshire Industrial Farm and the State Industrial andAgricultural Farm in New York, and about a dozen county jails. The tour occupied two weeks, and gave a remarkable opportunity to make careful and immediate contrasts of various institutions.
In New York State road work by convicts is assuming important proportions. Superintendent of Prisons John B. Riley is strongly in favor or the outdoor employment of prisoners on roads.
The Prison Commission of New York is investigating the charges of Ex-Warden Clancy that drugs are smuggled into Sing Sing prison by officers and others.
On July 4th, at Great Meadow Prison, six hundred inmates were marched down to the prison ball field, one half mile from the prison, under the supervision of inmate officers. The regular prison guards were not used.
Miss Katherine B. Davis, commissioner of correction of New York City, has been having plenty of activity in the administration of the department. Several riots occurred at the Penitentiary in the early part of July, following effective methods of reducing the amount of “Dope” purveyed by the prisoners. More modern methods of conducting the city’s correctional institution and a certain antagonism to the new reform administration of the city’s correctional institutions, also played a part. The riots were successfully overcome, and Miss Davis was not only “on the job” but in the midst of it.
In Buffalo, N. Y., a new county jail is to be built for the detention of prisoners prior to or during trial. The Prison Association of New York is making a strong campaign for the erection of a thoroughly modern jail with outside cells, as contrasted with the old traditional type of inside cages, the prevalent American type of jail construction. In this campaign the Association is cooperating with a group of the Board of Supervisors of Erie county. Among those who have written long letters advocating the outside cell type of construction are Professor C. R. Henderson of the University of Chicago, Commissioner Katherine B. Davis of New York, Dr. Hasting H. Hart of the Russell Sage Foundation, Superintendent Frank Moore of the State Reformatory of New Jersey. Amos W. Butler of Indiana, and Drs. S. A. Knopf and G. M. Parker of New York City. The special committee recently appointed by the Board of Supervisors will visit institutions of both types of construction, among them the Prison Farm at Guelph.
Because of the absence of any work under the proposed State-use system which the prisoners could do, it was found necessary to continue for the present the contract system at the State Prison of New Jersey at Trenton, although by law all contracts should have expired on June 30th.
There is agitation in Baltimore for a State Workhouse similar to that of Occoquan, in the District of Columbia.