Big Increase in Prison Ranks.
A marked increase in the population of the various State prisons, reformatories, penitentiaries, county jails, and New York City institutions reporting to the State commission of prisons for the year ended September 30, 1914, is shown in statistics collected by the commission. The total prison population on that date was 16,678, an increase of 1,817 over the preceding year. The increase for the year 1913 over 1912 was seventy. Ten years ago the prison population was 12,793, showing an increase in a decade of 3,885. A marked increase is also shown in the number of actual commitments. The number jumped from 101,611, in 1913, to 118,027, in 1914.
The number in custody in the four State prisons, including the State prison for women, at Auburn, was 4,955, an increase of 235. There was, however, a decrease in the number of inmates of the women’s prison from 116 to 103. The number of prisoners in the State prisons at the close of the fiscal year was 1,503 more than it was ten years ago.
The population of the three reformatories for males—the New York State Reformatory, at Elmira; the Eastern New York Reformatory, at Napanoch, and the New York City Reformatory at Hart’s Island—increased fifty-one, from 2,026 to 2,077. This is an increase during ten years of 421. The New York City Reformatory statistics date from 1906.
A decrease of fifty-five is shown in the combined population of the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford and the Western House of Refuge for Women at Albion. The population in 1913 was 708, and this year it had decreased to 663. The population of these two institutions increased 241 in ten years.
The greatest increase in population is shown in the five penitentiaries. These institutions in 1913 had 2,488 inmates; this year the number was 2,965, an increase of 477. The increase since 1905, when the Kings County Penitentiary was in existence, has been 736.
The number of inmates in the county jails, and in the workhouses, city, and district prisons and the House of Detention in New York City was 6,028, an increase of 809 over the preceding year, and 1,261 more than the number in custody ten years ago.
The number of actual commitments to the various prisons, reformatories, penitentiaries, county jails, workhouses, et cetera, during the last fiscal year was 118,027, an increase of 16,416 over 1913 and an increase over 1905 of 16,981.
The number of women in custody at the close of the year was 1,930, an increase of 138 as compared with the preceding year.