REPORT OF GENERAL AGENT FREDERICK J. POOLEY.
During the year 1918 the Agent made daily visits to the cell-room at the Central Station at City Hall. Twenty thousand and thirty-nine men and women prisoners were detained there for preliminary trial, 15,933 of whom the Agent visited while at the Central Station and the remainder after they arrived at Moyamensing Prison.
| Number visited at County Prisons | 2,829 |
| Number of notices and letters written on their behalf | 1,888 |
| Number discharged prisoners receiving financial aid | 345 |
The opportunities for helpful service are very numerous. In a large number of cases of suspicion or of a trivial character, the Agent has been instrumental in securing the discharge of the prisoners, or in placing them under the care of the Probation Officer, thus saving their family from disgrace and the County from expense.
It might be of interest to mention a few cases of interest.
No. 1. A young man from the west, arrested as a suspicious character, had been from home nine years, and was held for a hearing. The Agent got in touch with his relatives and he was discharged and sent home.
No. 2. A young man from Pittsburgh, Pa., money all gone, while pawning his watch was arrested; the pawnbroker thought he had stolen it, and when your Agent received word from his mother that it was his own watch, he was discharged and sent home.
No. 3. Two young men from St. Louis, with no money, were held as suspicious characters in order to give the Agent a chance to get in touch with relatives. One mother came on, and the other sent ticket, and they both went home.
No. 4. A young man who had gone from town to town, ashamed to write home, until he landed in our City Hall cell. A few words from the Agent, brought tears to his eyes and he allowed a letter to be written. The magistrate discharged him and he is now at home, and he writes: “I am so glad you found me when you did, for your letter found my mother and brought her to my rescue, and now I am free and expect to keep in the right path the remainder of my life.”
With the close of the year 1918, your Agent completed 20 years of service at the Philadelphia County Prison and eight years of service at the Central Police Station, City Hall, and in all these years your Agent has not lost sight of the fact that it is the kind word and a kindly grasp of the hand, at the proper moment, that may be the means of turning an unfortunate from the wrong to the right path.
| Very truly, | ||
| FREDERICK J. POOLEY, | ||
| General Agent. | ||
1/15/19.
| The whole number of prisoners released on parole, including some who have been re-paroled, from September, 1910, to January 1, 1919 | 2,773 |
| Number thus released in 1918 | 510 |
| Whole number returned to the Penitentiary since September, 1910 | 515 |
Some of those paroled have died, some have been pardoned and some have received final discharge.
| Number who should now be reporting | 930 | |
| Of these, the number actually reporting | 728 | |
| Number known to be in jail elsewhere | 37 | |
| Number whose present address is unknown | 165 | 930 |
Less than six per cent. of the entire number have vanished. It must not be considered that all of these have committed crime. Doubtless many of them have been in the trenches. They have broken connection with the parole officials in order to serve Uncle Sam, who has stated that he will not accept those who have been guilty of felony. From outside sources, we have known that a large number of former convicts have thus endeavored to expiate their former offenses. Much praise has been given to ex-convicts in Canada and Great Britain from which countries many were released in order to join the army or navy. In fact very few of these absconders are supposed to have again committed crime. Nearly every penal institution of the country receives notice of these decampers accompanied by their photographs, so they are easily identified. The few who again committed some crime have thus been detected and either returned whence they came or held with detainers. Probably nearly all of them desire to get entirely away from any restraint or semblance of authority. They make a grievous mistake for they are liable at any time to be apprehended and to be brought back in disgrace. They live the life of hunted animals. Never for one hour can they feel secure. We believe that a penalty should be levied upon those who abuse the privilege of parole. They have violated their word of honor, and should serve additional time.
There are some persons who will argue against the granting of parole because some eight and one-half per cent. of these obtaining this privilege have again been guilty of violations of law and order. Nearly all these violations are of the nature of misdemeanors. Comparatively few have been guilty of felonies. The problem involves a deep study of human psychology. In order to determine who shall be released, there are many elements to be considered. Mistakes are made both within and outside the prison walls. Those on the inside often give the applicant the benefit of their doubts when the logic of the case seems to urge further detention. When the man is on the outside he is often disappointed in the attitude of the community of which he really desires to become a law-abiding citizen. The members of the community assume a serious responsibility when they put stumbling-blocks in the way of the man who is endeavoring to make good. “Woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.”
But the conclusion is irresistible that an argument against release on parole, based on the fact that about eight per cent. have again become lawbreakers, is a stronger argument against release at expiration of sentence.
For a much larger percentage than eight per cent. of those who are released because their terms have expired and therefore can not longer be detained, become recidivists. Often one-half of the prisoners at a penal institution have served previously, and yet a comparatively small percentage are parole violators. In other words, the same argument which is used against release on parole will apply more strongly to any release whatever. Again, it must be remembered that the paroled man or woman is under watchful care, while the person absolutely released is subject to no restraint.
Out of every 100 persons reported January 1, 1919, as being on parole, 74 were making good. Of the remaining 26, barely two have committed felonies. This record is better than Boards in some other States have reported. Our Parole Officials are giving deep study to this subject with a view to increasing the percentage of successful effort.
A. H. V.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.
REPORT OF COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE PENAL SYSTEMS.
To the General Assembly:
Your Commission duly appointed pursuant to Act of the Legislature, No. 409, 1917, “to investigate the prison systems and the organization and management of correctional institutions within this Commonwealth and elsewhere; to recommend such revision of the existing prison system within this Commonwealth, and the laws pertaining to the establishment, maintenance and regulation of State and County correctional institutions within this Commonwealth as it shall deem wise, and to report the same to the General Assembly at the session of 1919,” respectfully submits the following report of its proceedings, together with its conclusions and recommendations and proposed bills for carrying the same into effect.
The Commission was constituted as follows:
Fletcher W. Stites, Narberth, Chairman,
Alfred E. Jones, Uniontown,
Mrs. Martha P. Falconer, Darling P. O.,
Louis N. Robinson, Swarthmore,
Albert H. Votaw, Philadelphia.
On November 1, 1917, the members of the Commission met in the City of Philadelphia, for the purpose of organization and assigned the work of investigation which had been committed to it to the several members thereof. On July 1, 1918, the Commission retained Dr. George W. Kirchwey, of New York City, as its counsel to direct the subsequent course of the investigation and to aid the Commission with his counsel and advice.
I.
Scope of Investigation.
The Commission was fortunate in having in its personnel as thus constituted four members, including its counsel, who had through long experience and previous investigations acquired considerable information as to penal institutions and their management in this and other States. The investigation covered:—
(1) A careful study and analysis of the laws governing penal conditions and institutions in this Commonwealth;
(2) An examination of the six correctional institutions directly controlled by the State, namely:
The Eastern Penitentiary, at Philadelphia;
The Western Penitentiary, at Pittsburgh;
The New Central Penitentiary, at Bellefonte;
The State Industrial Reformatory, at Huntingdon;
The Pennsylvania Training School, at Morganza;
The State Industrial Home for Women, at Muncy;
(3) A similar examination of the Glen Mills Schools—the Girls’ Department, Sleighton Farms, at Darlington, and the Boys’ Department at Glen Mills;
(4) A similar examination of the Philadelphia House of Correction and of the County Convict Prison at Holmesburg, Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia, the Allegheny County Workhouse at Hoboken and many other county institutions;
(5) A study of the constitution, organization and functions of the State Board of Public Charities, and specifically of those of its Committee on Lunacy;
(6) A study of the powers and activities of the Prison Labor Commission instituted under the Act of June 1, 1918;
(7) A careful survey of the entire history of the penal system of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from the colonial period down to the present time, based on the historical research of Professor Harry E. Barnes of Clark University, Massachusetts;
(8) An investigation of significant correctional institutions in several other States, notably in New York, New Jersey and Ohio.
To supplement and enlarge the range of these inquiries and studies, the Commission was permitted to avail itself of the results of previous investigations conducted by two of its members; on the Employment and Compensation of Prisoners in Pennsylvania, by Professor Louis N. Robinson, as Secretary of the Penal Commission of 1913-1915, and on the county jails and workhouses, made periodically from 1914 to 1918 by Albert H. Votaw, as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
The Commission desires to express its sense of deep obligation to the officials and inspectors of prisons in this Commonwealth for the courtesy and hospitality extended to its members in the course of their investigations. It also acknowledges its indebtedness to the Secretary and members of the Board of Public Charities and to the Secretary of the Public Charities Association for their helpful co-operation.
The Commission has heretofore submitted to the Governor two preliminary reports, one a Special Emergency Report on Prison Labor, bearing date September 1, 1918, and a special report on the State Industrial Home for Women, under date of September 15, 1918, both of which are hereto appended.
While both these reports were called out by war emergencies, the former by the dearth of labor power to man the war industries of the Commonwealth, the latter by the need of providing a place for the detention and treatment of the large number of dissolute women convicted of offenses against Federal and State laws enacted for the protection of the soldiers in the training camps—the Commission believes that they are still pertinent and that the recommendations which they contain should form a part of any constructive scheme for the improvement of the penal system of the Commonwealth.
II.
Development of Penal System of Pennsylvania.
The most inspiring and significant chapter in the history of penology is not the achievement of John Howard in redeeming the common gaols of England from the degradation into which they had fallen, nor of Lord Romilly in his lifelong struggle against the barbarities of the English penal laws, but the leadership which for more than a century the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gave to the world both in prison reform and in the amelioration of the penal code. The two former were the revolt of sensitive and humane natures against hoary abuses; but the latter was all this and something more. It was a bold and imaginative reconstruction of the whole basis of penal discipline. As far back as the last quarter of the seventeenth century the Quaker colonists of Pennsylvania introduced for the first time the practice of employing imprisonment at hard labor as the ordinary method of punishing anti-social action. After the reversion of the American colonies for fifty years to the barbarous criminal jurisprudence of the mother country, Pennsylvania was the first State, the first community in the world, to break with this system and to substitute imprisonment for the various brutal and degrading types of corporal punishment. The Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia, in 1790, was the earliest institution in America in which these more enlightened principles were put into practice. From this second beginning, for a period of forty years, Pennsylvania was elaborating and perfecting the first of the two great systems of penal administration which were destined to dominate the penology of the civilized world during the nineteenth century—the separate confinement of malefactors. Visited, admired and imitated by large numbers of eminent and enthusiastic European penologists, the Eastern Penitentiary at Cherry Hill was the pivotal point linking American and European penology for more than a generation after 1830.
Then followed that long period of inertia, of lassitude, of marking time, which is so apt to succeed to a period of ardent reforming energy and which to this very day has maintained its spell over the State and the Nation.
Not that there have not in the last half century been notable improvements in the theory and practice of penal administration, some of them bold enough to bring America from time to time into the forefront of interest and example to the penologists of the Old World, but in most of these the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been content to play a secondary role. Throughout this era of slackened energy she has not cared or dared to initiate, to lead, to “carry on,” but has followed belatedly and afar off the progress of other States. Examples of this are the Auburn congregate system, which divided with the Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement the interest of European as well as of American penologists, and which was adopted in the Western Penitentiary in 1869, a full generation after its establishment in New York State, and which has only recently conquered the parent institution on Cherry Hill; the justly famous Elmira experiment of progressive classification and industrial training of inmates embodied in the Huntingdon Reformatory in 1889, and the long-promised reformatory for women at Muncy, which, six years after its creation by legislative action, has not yet been rendered available for the purpose for which it was designed.
The first step in the development of an intelligent conception of delinquency and its treatment came not in an accurate conception of the nature of crime and its causes, but in a clearer and more correct notion of the function of punishment. By 1790 the element of deterrence in punishment was recognized and emphasized. The element of reformation was a cardinal point in the theory and practice of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, and this Society did its best to infuse this doctrine into the Pennsylvania system of prison administration. Before 1830 it was very generally asserted that reformation, as well as deterrence and social revenge, was to be regarded as a chief aim of punishment, though the offender was still regarded as an unregenerate free moral agent.
This theory of crime received a severe shock in the “forties” from the investigations of Dorothea L. Dix and others, who showed the great prevalence of insanity and idiocy among the delinquent classes. It could scarcely be denied even by the traditional jurists that the exercise of free will was likely to be seriously impeded by insanity or feeble-mindedness. From 1850 to the beginning of the present century the most notable advances toward a more intelligent conception of crime and its treatment consisted in the gradual but definite triumph of the notion of detention and punishment as agencies for reformation rather than as instruments of social revenge.
For more than a century of its history the penal, reformatory and correctional institutions of Pennsylvania were limited to the county jails and the few and scattered workhouses, which were erected mainly in conjunction with the almshouses. In the jails there could be no approach to anything like a differentiated treatment of delinquents. In them were herded promiscuously those imprisoned for debt, those convicted of crime and those accused or held as witnesses; those of all ages and both sexes; those convicted of all categories and grades of crime punishable by imprisonment; those of all mental states—normal, feeble-minded, neurotic, psychotic, epileptic. The few colonial workhouses were employed as little more than an agency for suppressing vagrancy.
The first step in a differentiated treatment of crime and criminals came with the erection of a semi-state prison in the Walnut Street Jail in 1789-90. This provided for a partial differentiation between those convicted of the more serious crimes and those convicted of petty offenses or awaiting trial. It did not however, attempt any scientific differentiation on the basis of age, sex or mental state. Children and adults, male and female, sane and insane, were confined in contiguity. The opening of the State penitentiaries at Allegheny and Philadelphia in 1826 and 1829, with their fundamental principle of solitary confinement, carried further the process of differentiation, but still continued to apply the same general type of treatment to all incarcerated inmates. It was a system of separation rather than of a differentiated treatment of special types of prisoners.
The second important development in the direction of specialization in the provision of institutional treatment of delinquents appeared in the establishment of a House of Refuge for juvenile delinquents in Philadelphia in 1828. Though this was at first a private rather than a State institution and was of very limited capacity, it marked an epoch in the progress of Pennsylvania penology by making possible some elementary differentiation on the basis of age, degree of criminality and relative susceptibility to reformation. The next attempt at further differentiation came with the erection of the State Hospital for the Insane at Harrisburg between 1841 and 1851, chiefly as a result of the agitation initiated by Dorothea L. Dix. This and the other State hospitals for the insane, subsequently erected, provided for a treatment of the more important types of mental disorder, though no adequate provision was made for removing the insane from the prison. Not until 1905 was an act passed providing for the erection of a State hospital for the criminal insane at Fairview which was opened in 1912.
During the quarter of a century following 1850 there was an active agitation to provide a means of differentiating the treatment of criminals on the basis of age, sex and degree of criminality. The first important achievement in this direction was the further development of reform schools for juvenile delinquents through the removal and enlargement of the Philadelphia House of Refuge in 1850-54 and the erection of the Western House of Refuge at Allegheny during the same period. Juvenile delinquents, if petty offenders, could thereafter be removed from their degrading confinement in the state prison or worse county jails and receive the properly specialized treatment which their circumstances demanded. No provision for the differentiated treatment of the less definite and confirmed types of adult delinquents was made until the opening of the reformatory for men at Huntingdon in 1889 and the authorization of the State Industrial Home for Women at Muncy in 1913. The provision of reformatories and juvenile correctional institutions marked a double process of differentiation, in that these institutions not only called for a diversity of treatment according to age, sex and degree of criminality, but also from the fact that they were clearly differentiated from the State prisons and the county jails in making reformation rather than punishment or detention their chief aims.
Along with this development of a properly differentiated system of treating the delinquent population, has gone the growth of specialized institutions for dealing with the closely related class of defectives, which was once treated indiscriminately along with the delinquent classes when its members were guilty of criminal action. The State institution for feeble-minded at Polk, opened in 1893, and at Spring City, provided by an act of 1903, and the State Village for Feeble-minded Women at Laurelton, not yet available for use, are designed to furnish scientific treatment for large numbers of those who would today be confined in the state prisons or county jails, if the ideas and institutions of 1840 prevailed. Even an institution for inebriates was contemplated in an act of 1913.
But this vital and all important process of the differentiation, classification and specialized treatment of the delinquent and defective classes has now proceeded far beyond that most elementary stage of furnishing separate institutions for dealing with the most general classes of delinquents and defectives. It has been found that the terms defective, insane and criminal have only a legal significance and are practically useless when involving the problem of exact scientific analysis and treatment. Each general class of delinquent boys, of defective girls or of criminal adults, for instance, is made up of distinguishable and distinct types which demand specialized treatment in the same way that it is required for one general class as distinguished from another. Though it is as yet very imperfectly developed, the present tendency is for each institution to differentiate into a number of specialized departments, each designed to provide the proper treatment for one of these types.
Finally, within the last decade beginnings have been made in what is likely to be an important future development, namely the non-institutional care of the less pronounced and confirmed types of delinquents, particularly of delinquent minors. The developments along this line have, up to the present, consisted chiefly in the adoption of parole systems in all the State penal, reformatory and correctional institutions and in a more liberal use of the suspended sentence and probation. The recently established Municipal Probation Court of Philadelphia is a pioneer in Pennsylvania in this promising new development in the preventive treatment of the less confirmed type of delinquents.
Looking at the whole matter as it stands today, it cannot be said that conditions in Pennsylvania are in any material respect either better or worse than in other progressive States, except in the one matter of the useful employment of the convict population. Here, as elsewhere, some lucky chance has placed a man or a woman of exceptional qualifications at the head of an institution, one who has by his strong personal initiative made the best of a bad situation, as in the case of the Eastern Penitentiary, or who has, with something akin to genius, seized upon a new opportunity, as in the case of the Girls’ School at Darlington and the new Penitentiary foundation at Bellefonte. But these are sporadic and exceptional developments and have furnished no new principle of a revolutionary character to mark the dawn of a new era in penal administration.
Meanwhile the hopeless and demoralizing idleness to which most of the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary and of most of the county institutions of the Commonwealth are doomed, is a spectacle in which the people of Pennsylvania can take nothing but shame. But even if this is remedied, as it should be at once by drastic legislative action, Pennsylvania will have done no more than reach the level of penological theory of the Quaker innovators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The step is an imperative one, but it will not restore to the Commonwealth the proud position of leadership which once was hers, which is still, by virtue of past achievements and by common fame, attributed to her.
While we have thus been dreaming, tardily and ineffectually putting into effect the aspirations of a long-distant past, a new penology has come into being, based not on humanitarian sentiment or on “the common sense of most,” but on the scientific study of the delinquent and his environment. New sciences of psychology, psychiatry and sociology have been forged to meet the conditions of the new day and these have furnished us with a new basis for penological experimentation. We have learned that the criminal is not merely a person who has in the exercise of an unfettered will chosen the evil rather than the good, but a person of complex personality shaped by heredity and environment to what he is, none the less a menace to society than the older conception made him, not the less requiring restraint and correction, but demanding and deserving individual treatment according to the nature which has been developed in him. We have learned from recent scientific study of the most rigorous and trustworthy sort that from 50 to 60 per cent. of the inmates of our correctional institutions are abnormal—feeble-minded, insane, psychopathic—to the point of irresponsibility, to all intents and purposes the same kind of people that fill our hospitals for the insane and institutions for the feeble-minded. We have also learned, from sociological case studies, that a very large proportion of those that the psychiatrist would class as normal are the victims of neglected childhood and of the depraving influences of the institutions in which they have spent a great part of their young lives.
It seems clear that this new knowledge makes for a new classification, based not, like that of the Elmira system, on behavior in confinement, nor, like that of the current penology, on the character of the crime committed, but on the exact study of the individual and that the treatment accorded him must be adapted to the results of such study.
Here, then, is the new opportunity for a further advance out of this slough of despond—an opportunity not inferior to that which this Commonwealth so superbly grasped in its heroic youth—to bring its penal administration into conformity with the newer conceptions of delinquency. Tinkering the old machine is not enough. It must be remodeled altogether. Adding to the powers of a board of inspectors here, curbing them there, setting up new boards and commissions to direct the doing of this, to restrain the doing of that—all these are but a part of the old game, which will after all continue to be played in very much the old perfunctory way. What is demanded is a genuine reconstruction of the penal system of the Commonwealth, one which shall, with as little disturbance to the existing management of the several institutions as possible, put at their service all the resources of the new knowledge of crime and its treatment. It is the purpose of this report to suggest the lines of this future development of our penal system.
III.
General Characteristics of Present Penal System.
As the foregoing outline indicates, the several State institutions of a penal, correctional and reformatory character, with the two Glen Mills Schools (which, though largely under private management, are essentially public institutions) have been developed at different times, under the influence of changing conceptions of social responsibility for different types of offenders. As a result of this circumstance each is separately managed by a board of inspectors or managers, which exercises complete control over the policy of the institution to which its authority extends. This Board appoints the Warden or Superintendent, fixes his or her compensation, determines the industrial and educational policy of the institution and, under the authority of the Legislature, disburses the funds appropriated for its maintenance. The disciplinary policy of the institution is almost invariably entrusted to the Warden or Superintendent and, as is natural, if that official happens to be a person of strong individuality and initiative, his policy in practice, if not in theory, governs the entire administration. Nowhere is there a centralized authority exercising a general control or an effective influence. The only approach to such a general agency is the State Board of Public Charities, which may investigate and require the submission of an annual report, and the Prison Labor Commission, which exercises a general supervision over the industries of the two penitentiaries and the Huntingdon Reformatory, but which has no effective power to carry its plans into execution. There is, accordingly, no uniform policy, even in the case of institutions like the two Glen Mills schools, which have a similar type of inmates and an identical aim, nor in the case of all the institutions under consideration in matters where their problems and needs are the same. That there are advantages in this policy of separate control cannot be denied. It gives to an energetic and progressive superintendent or board of managers a degree of initiative in reform and experimentation which, under a highly centralized control of all the institutions, it would be difficult to secure. On the other hand it may have the effect of depriving the individual institution, because of its poverty or because of the reactionary character of its administration, of the benefits of an advance which may have been made elsewhere. There could not be a better illustration of the unevenness of development resulting from this lack of co-ordination in the Pennsylvania prison system than the fact that the Eastern Penitentiary was compelled to wait for the initiative of its present Warden for the partial adoption of the congregate system, which had for forty years existed in the Western Penitentiary, and which had everywhere demonstrated its superiority over the system of solitary confinement.
Upon the whole, however, what strikes the thoughtful observer is not the diversity of policy and management among these institutions, even where they have avowedly different aims, but their conformity to a common type, and that the prison type. With only two exceptions—Sleighton Farms and the Training School at Morganza—the persistent shadow of the Penitentiary rests upon them all. It is true that in the new Central Penitentiary on its broad acreage at Bellefonte and in the Eastern Penitentiary, so far as the physical and industrial conditions render possible, the shadow has been lifted, but it is safe to say of the penal system of the State as a whole, that it is still too much dominated by the ancient ideal of demonstrating to the inmates that “the way of the transgressor is hard.” Even in institutions of a purely reformatory character, while they leave little to be desired in the way of healthful conditions of living, orderly administration and educational opportunities, the reformation of the wrong-doer is still too much sought through a system of stern repression, of “iron discipline”—a system which, as all experience shows, defeats its end by crushing out the finer elements of character on which the redemption of the individual must depend. An almost invariable incident of this type of disciplinary control is the persistence of the policy of securing good conduct through punishment—often severe punishment for trivial offenses—rather than by the more enlightened and humane method of holding out incentives to good behavior, either by the grant of special privileges or by putting on the inmates themselves the responsibility for the good behavior of all.
Other instances of the persistence of the traditional attitude toward the offender are the almost complete lack throughout our penal system of a scientific, balanced ration, such as has in the experience of prison administrators in other States, as notably at Sing Sing Prison in 1916, and more recently in our army camps, demonstrated the value both for health and efficiency and from the point of view of economy of a scientific management of the problem of food supply for large masses of men; the general indifference to outdoor recreation and exercise, so essential to the health and morale of the inmate body; the meagre provision for any education worthy of the name; the all but complete lack of comprehensive and well rounded systems of vocational or industrial training, on which the efficiency of prison labor and the ability of the inmates to “make good” in the world of industry after their release so largely depends; the demoralizing idleness which is still after three decades of effort the most marked characteristic of our prison system; and, finally, the insufficient care for the physical and mental health of the inmates of our correctional institutions, which still for the most part mingle indiscriminately together the tuberculous and syphilitic with those who are sound in body and the insane, psychopathic and defective with those who are sound in mind.
Many of these conditions which continue to put the brand of the prison on the inmates of our correctional institutions are doubtless due to the survival of the Bastille type of prison architecture, which is exemplified in the Eastern and Western Penitentiaries and in such structures as Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia, the Convict Prison at Holmesburg, the Philadelphia House of Correction and many others. It is scarcely too much to say that no human being is vile enough to deserve confinement in such a place or dangerous enough to need it. Even the most unbending of the old type of prison official will concede that 80 per cent. of the inmates neither need nor deserve to be confined behind triple bars of steel or in cells like catacombs or within walls like those of Egyptian tombs. Keepers and inmates alike lose half their humanity by confinement in these grim and forbidding structures. No reforming influence however humane and generous, can long survive in their atmosphere.
Public opinion is at last moving away from this antiquated type of prison architecture to the newer type represented in the honor prison at New Hampton Farms in New York and in our Commonwealth in the cottage colonies at Sleighton Farms, Glen Mills, Morganza, and Muncy. The change which comes over the men who are transferred from the Western Penitentiary to the new prison site in Centre County is a sufficient commentary on the older type of prison, and demonstrates beyond peradventure the duty of affording to all of our convict population a similar life of freedom and opportunity. This result, so desirable from every point of view, could in large measure be attained in a short time by equipping the Eastern Penitentiary with a suitable area of farm land in the Eastern Section of the State and by making immediate provision for the institution of State industrial farms for the convicts confined in the county prisons, as is recommended elsewhere in this report.
IV.
Prison Labor.
The conditions existing in the penal institutions of the Commonwealth with respect to the employment of the inmates in useful industry have been so fully set forth in the Emergency Report submitted by the Commission to the Governor in September last (a copy of which is annexed to this report) and in the comprehensive study of the problem by the Penal Commission of 1913-1915 (submitted to the General Assembly under date of February 15, 1915) that it is not deemed necessary to go into the matter at length in this place. It suffices to call attention to the fact that the conditions described in those reports have not in any material respect been improved. Of approximately 10,000 inmates in the penal and correctional institutions of the State, less than one-half are usefully employed, not more than one-fourth in productive labor. The economic waste of such a system extended over a century is scarcely less appalling than its inhumanity. By the law a large part of this interminable procession of offending and suffering humanity has been condemned to hard labor. In actual practice nearly all of it has been doomed to wasteful and demoralizing idleness.
The law of June 1, 1915, “providing a system of employment and compensation for the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary, Western Penitentiary and the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory at Huntingdon” and creating a Prison Labor Commission to carry its provisions into effect, has proved almost wholly inoperative, owing primarily to the failure of the Legislature to provide for the compulsory purchase of prison-made goods by the Commonwealth or the political divisions thereof or by public institutions. As a consequence, out of a total population of 3200 in the three institutions to which the authority of the Commission extends, at the close of the year 1918 only 169 were employed under the direction of the Commission. These were distributed as follows:—
| Eastern Penitentiary, population | 1,371 | |
| Caning chairs | 16 | |
| Cigarmaking | 11 | |
| Shoemaking | 42 | |
| Knitting hosiery | 38 | |
| —— | 107 | |
| Absolutely idle | 839 | |
| Western Penitentiary, population | 720 | |
| Broommaking | 10 | |
| Brushmaking | 2 | |
| Weaving | 18 | |
| —— | 30 | |
| Absolutely idle | 393 | |
| Huntingdon Reformatory, population | 579 | |
| Auto-tagmaking | 32 |
Whether considered as a relief from the crushing burden of expense that our penal establishments entail, or as a remedy for the physical and moral degeneration resulting from enforced idleness, or as a means to equip the inmates for lives of industry and usefulness after their release, a system of prison labor which produces the results set forth in these figures stands self condemned.
To make the plan embodied in the law of 1915 effective, it should further provide:
(1) That municipalities as well as the Commonwealth and the political divisions thereof and all public institutions shall be required, as far as may be practicable, to supply their needs from the labor of the penal and correctional institutions;
(2) That the authority of the Commission or of any body in which its powers may be vested shall extend to the reformatory institutions at Darlington, Glen Mills, Morganza and Muncy and to all State, county and municipal institutions of a penal or correctional character;
(3) That the power of such Commission or body to regulate prison industry be extended to all forms of labor activity of the inmates of such institutions, including farming, roadmaking, land reclamation, forestry, etc.;
(4) That such Commission or body be empowered to determine the compensation of prisoners for industrial and other work performed by them and the method of applying such compensation to the use of such prisoners or their dependents;
(5) That the strict “State use” plan be modified by permitting the sale in the open market, at not less than the market price, of any surplus product resulting from the labor of the inmates over and above the product disposed of as provided in the act.
V.
The County Prisons.
In Pennsylvania, as in most, if not all, of the other States of the Union, the county jail is the despair of those who look for a better day in the treatment of the wrong-doer. The admiration which our experiments in the reformatory treatment of the young have excited in eminent foreign penologists has turned to loathing when their attention was directed to the county jails. Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, the distinguished head of the English prison system, in an article published a few months after his visit to this country in 1910, described them in the following terms:
“In these gaols it is hardly too much to say that many of the features linger which called forth the wrath and indignation of the great Howard at the end of the eighteenth century. Promiscuity, unsanitary conditions, absence of supervision, idleness and corruption—these remain the features in many places. Even the ‘fee’ system is still in vogue. The gaolers are still paid by fees for the support of prisoners, and commitments to gaol are common when some other disposition of the case would have been imposed had not the commitment yielded a fee to the sheriff, who is usually in charge of the gaol. In many gaols there are not facilities for medical examination on reception, for ventilation, for exercise, or for bathing.... The foreign delegates were amazed at this startling inconsistency between the management of the common gaols and that of the State prisons and State reformatories. The evils to which I refer are well known and deplored by that body of earnest and devoted men and women in all sections of American society with whose lofty ideals on the subject of prison reform and generous aspirations for the humane treatment of the prisoner, the Washington Congress made us every day familiar, but they seem helpless and almost hopeless.... I was appealed to by leading men in more than one State, as British representative, to publicly condemn the system, and this I did, at a risk of giving considerable offense. Until the abuses of the gaol system are removed, it is impossible for America to have assigned to her by general consent a place in the vanguard of progress in the domain of ‘la science penitentiaire.’”
Your Commission desires to submit as its considered judgment that the foregoing statement does no injustice to many of the county prisons of this Commonwealth, and that the Legislature can do no greater service, nor one that will reflect more credit on the Commonwealth, than to sweep away the entire county jail system without delay.
Attention has been called elsewhere in this report to the deplorable conditions of idleness which prevail in the prisons of our Commonwealth. These conditions are at their worst in the county institutions. In the last six years the average daily number of prisoners in the county jails of the Commonwealth has been about 6500. Only about one-fourth of these have some form of employment other than domestic service. But when all of the returns are in with regard to the work accomplished, the number of days spent in complete idleness in the course of a year will average more than one million. If we regard the labor of the prisoners as worth fifty cents a day, the amount of waste thus exceeds $500,000 annually.
In order to obviate this condition of affairs, the General Assembly in 1917 passed an Act (No. 337, P. L. 1917), vesting in the officers in charge of county prisons the privilege of allowing the prisoners to work on county and poorhouse farms. Although only twenty-seven counties have taken advantage of this Act, its results have been very beneficial. The workers have improved in health, strength and morale, and the produce of their labor has been of material help in the up-keep of the institutions. Unfortunately, the operation of this Act terminates with the close of the war.
A more comprehensive Act was proposed by the Penal Commission of 1913-1915, which recommended the establishment of six industrial farms to be controlled by the State, to which all persons convicted of crime or misdemeanor, and now committed to county institutions, should hereafter be sent. This admirable measure was, however, amended in such a way as to leave the initiative in the creation of such farms and the control thereof to the County Commissioners of the nine groups of counties into which the State was divided for the purpose (No. 399, P. L. 1917). This legislation has fallen flat, not one of the industrial districts having carried the scheme into effect.
Your Commission submits that there is no remedy for the condition of affairs above described other than the complete assumption by the State of the custody and care of the offenders, whether felons or misdemeanants, who are now committed to the county institutions.
Farming for prisoners, as our investigations in other States have clearly shown, has passed beyond the experimental stage. The State of Massachusetts, some years ago, established a penal farm for misdemeanants at Bridgewater. A large tract of ground was purchased, consisting largely of swamp and abandoned land, which, by the use of fertilizers and by drainage, has been brought to a high degree of cultivation. This enterprise has been so signally successful that it is now proposed to move the State Prison at Charlestown to this same farm at Bridgewater.
Perhaps the most successful experiment of the kind has been made in Indiana, where the State has taken over the custody of misdemeanants on the plan which was recommended by the Pennsylvania Penal Commission of 1913-1915, a recommendation which is renewed in this report. The Superintendent of the Indiana State Farm makes the following report:—
“The farm had an average daily population, in 1918, of four hundred and sixty-two prisoners. All institution buildings and outbuildings, the sewer system, power plant, heating and water systems, land reclaiming, farming and gardening, has been done with the labor of misdemeanants at a surprisingly low cost for guards. The Indiana State Farm is allowed fifty-five cents per man per day for its entire maintenance, while the same man in jail, at the present time, will cost more than one dollar per day for the gross maintenance. The fifty-five cents per man per day pays the entire pay roll, subsistence, fuel, light, heat, medical services, clothing, transportation, field and garden seeds, fertilizers, common labor, tools and all other items of maintenance....
“The effect that the Indiana State Farm has had on the jail system of the State is indicated by the following figures: In the year 1914 there were 18,130 commitments to county jails, in 1915, 14,644, and in 1916, 9,896. The doors of the State Farm were opened April 12, 1915, and the full effect of the State Farm was not noticeable until the close of the year 1916. The moral effect of the institution on the misdemeanant class was one very important factor in reducing the jail commitments.”
During the year ending September 30, 1918, this penal farm was two-thirds self-supporting, and it is confidently expected that the institution will soon be entirely self-supporting.
New York City has established a reformatory farm of 630 acres at New Hampton, N. Y., to which boys and men from sixteen to thirty years of age are committed. They have no bars, no wall, no restraining thing, except supervision. They have no cell for punishment. From the farm they secure most of their provisions. In handling 2000 prisoners, they have lost only five. The health of the inmates is greatly improved. It is estimated that 45 per cent. of the prisoners there were addicted to the drug habit. Most of them were sent away restored. What they needed was to be built up by fresh air, good food and exercise, and to be employed in wholesome work. In fact, they have been taught the dignity of labor—a thing to which most of them had hitherto been strangers.
But we need not go beyond the limits of our own State to prove the benefit and success of farming for misdemeanants. The administration of the Allegheny County Workhouse illustrates the economy of providing employment for prisoners on an industrial farm. Here the average daily number of inmates in 1918 was 722. The daily average cost of each inmate was 81 cents, but after deducting the earnings of the inmates, the net cost was only 32 cents. This means that the inmates earned 49 cents a day toward their own maintenance. Their bookkeeping indicates merely the cost of raising the crops. If the institution had charged itself with the produce used by it at the prevailing market price, the net cost would have been much less. The farm has 670 acres, of which 560 acres are farmed and used as pasture. The inmates are continually coming and going. Many of them are committed for ten days or less, and a large part are sentenced for 30 days, while comparatively few of them remain longer than one year. This shows that a great deal of efficient work can be secured, even from those who serve for short terms.
A similarly striking result has been attained in Delaware County under the law of 1911, empowering the judges of the Courts of Common Pleas to release on parole convicts confined in county jails or workhouses under the supervision of designated probation officers. Acting under this law, the President Judge of that county has during the year 1918 paroled a number of inmates of the county jail to work on farm lands rented for the purpose with the remarkable result that only two of the men so paroled made their escape (both being afterwards retaken) and that nearly $14,000 worth of crops were sold for cash in addition to the vegetables used and stored in the prison. The net profit is estimated at $7,000.
Logically, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the State ought to assume the care of all offenders. The laws are made by the State, and the indictments charge the accused with offences against the “peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” not against the peace and dignity of the county, municipality or borough. The conclusion is inevitable that the Commonwealth should assume the responsibility for the protection of the community from both felons and misdemeanants. And since such an arrangement as has been proposed will result in reduced taxation, uniformity of management and in greater facilities for the education and reformation of the delinquent, we feel that the establishment of State industrial farms to receive the delinquents now committed to the county prisons should receive your favorable consideration.
The bill submitted to carry this recommendation into effect omits the counties of Philadelphia and Allegheny from its operation. Allegheny County already has a prison farm which in many ways may be considered a model of its kind. Philadelphia has a farm in connection with the House of Correction which furnishes employment to many prisoners and supplies much produce for the institution. We recommend that at some early date the City of Philadelphia may, by the purchase of more land, extend the advantages of a penal farm to its convict prison and in some way combine under one management the entire penal system of the municipality.
The fee system, whereby the sheriff or warden receives a stipulated sum each day for the board of prisoners, is so liable to abuse that we submit a proposition to abolish the practice in all our prisons. Whenever the profits from boarding the prisoners is a part of the remuneration of the officer in charge, the tendency is doubtless to exploit the prisoners, or to reduce to a minimum the supply of food, in order to derive the greater profit.
In 1915 a comprehensive study of the cost of boarding the prisoners in the largest 25 counties of the Commonwealth indicated that the average daily cost of food per prisoner in the 15 prisons where the food was purchased on the contract system was 12 cents, and in the 10 counties where the fee system was in vogue 33.7 cents, the difference in favor of the contract system being 21.7 cents per day for each prisoner.
We estimate that in these 10 counties alone the saving to the taxpayers by the adoption of the contract system will be at least $50,000 annually. The economy of the proposition is evident, making due allowance for providing in some counties additional compensation for the official in charge of the prison. In all cases where a change has been made from the fee system to the contract system, the food has improved in character, thus tending to the betterment of the health and morale of the inmates.
Moved by these considerations, the General Assembly in 1909 provided that in all counties having a population of 150,000 or more, the food for the prisoners must be purchased by contract. We are now proposing to extend this principle to all the counties of the Commonwealth, with the understanding that no such change is to take place during the incumbency of the officials who are at the present time in charge of the prisons.
VI.
Probation and Parole.
(a) Under the law of May 10, 1909, the several courts of criminal jurisdiction are invested with the power of suspending sentence on certain classes of convicted offenders and of placing such offenders on probation instead of committing them for definite or indeterminate periods of imprisonment. Probation officers, charged with the duty of supervising the behavior of such probationers, are appointed by the judges to serve in their respective counties. In this Commonwealth, as in many others, experience has demonstrated that there is little uniformity in the practice of the courts in suspending sentence or of the probation officers in exercising their powers.
Conceived as a mere incident of the sentencing power, to be exercised only in exceptional cases, the suspended sentence and probation are beginning to disclose themselves as a momentous, not to say revolutionary step in the progress of penology, not less important in its ultimate consequences than the substitution a century ago of imprisonment for the death penalty and other forms of physical punishment. Like the older forms of punishment which it superseded, imprisonment too has proved a failure, so far at least, as the newer aim of punishment, the reformation of the wrong-doer is concerned. And we are coming to see that the protection which society enjoys through the imprisonment for a few months or years of a small proportion of the criminal class is dearly purchased by a system which returns the offender to society less fitted than before to cope with the conditions of a life of freedom. More and more, as we develop a probation service worthy of the name, will the courts be reluctant to commit men, women and children to the demoralizing associations and discipline of institutional life and will give them their chance to redeem themselves under competent guidance and supervision among the associations and activities of everyday life.
Even under existing conditions it is safe to say that far too many adult and youthful offenders convicted of criminal offences are committed to prison and far too many delinquent children to reformatories and other correctional institutions. Your Commission believes that the suspended sentence should be more liberally employed by the courts of the Commonwealth under strict conditions requiring a life of useful industry under careful supervision; that children under 12 years of age should never be committed to penal or correctional institutions but rather, where institutional care is deemed necessary, to parental schools such as have been established in other States as a part of the regular educational system; and that children of larger growth, say from 12 to 16, should, wherever possible, be placed on probation or put under private guardianship.
Those considerations have led the Commission to the conclusion that the whole subject of the suspended sentence and probation in this Commonwealth should be thoroughly studied in order that the principles that should govern it may be carefully defined and its procedure worked out, supervised and put on a uniform basis. New York and other States have for this purpose created a permanent probation board or commission and the success which has attended their labors suggests the institution of a similar body in this Commonwealth.
(b) The indeterminate sentence, which made its appearance in this Commonwealth in the law of May 10, 1909, has passed through several phases to a state in which its purpose is almost completely defeated. In its original form it provided that the maximum term to be imposed upon a convict who should be sentenced to imprisonment in either the Eastern or the Western Penitentiaries should not exceed the maximum time prescribed by law and that the minimum term when not fixed by law, should not exceed one-fourth of the maximum time. This law was amended by an Act approved June 19, 1911, striking out the restriction as to the minimum sentence, thus leaving to the courts complete discretion to fix the minimum to be served at any period short of the maximum. Many of the courts have in frequent instances virtually nullified the indeterminate sentence principle by imposing minimum sentences so excessive as to bring the judicial office into disrepute. Sentences of from 18 years to 20 and from 19 years to 20 have been common, and there have been cases so grotesque as sentences of 19 years 11 months, or of 19 years, 11 months and 29 days to 20 years, of 23 years and 3 months to 25 years and of 27 to 28 years. These are only the more extreme illustrations of a practice which has been common enough to justify a demand for a law which will result in greater uniformity in the matter of imposing sentences for crime.
At its best the maximum-minimum form of the indeterminate sentence is an unsatisfactory compromise between the ideal aim of penologists and the traditional attitude of the courts, which cling tenaciously to their ancient prerogative of “making the punishment fit the crime.” That the power of determining the period of imprisonment requisite to meet the demands of justice and the interests of society may safely be confided to other than judicial hands has been conceded in the case of all offenders entitled to commitment to reformatories, who are sentenced to an indeterminate term limited only by the maximum fixed by law, or, in the case of minors, to the attainment of their majority, and who may be released on parole in the discretion of the boards of managers of the institutions to which they are committed. It is only in the case of hardened offenders or of those guilty of certain major offenses that a minimum sentence is imposed.
For more than a generation prison reformers have urged the extension of the pure indeterminate sentence to this class of offenders also. Their logic is sound; it is the facts that are against them. The argument runs like this: The offender should be kept in confinement only until he is fitted by his prison experience to lead an honest and useful life; when this end is attained he should be released. The answer is that the prison doesn’t in fact reform the wrong-doer; that good behavior under the conditions of prison life is no assurance of the intention or capacity of the prisoner to lead an honest and useful life after his release, and that the inspectors or other paroling authority have no other guide to go by in determining the inmates’ fitness for a life of freedom than his prison record. If the reformer makes the obvious retort—“then reform your prison so that it shall reform its inmates, and reform your paroling authority so that it shall make its determination on all the facts of the inmate’s personal history including a study of his mental conditions, his heredity and the social influences that have shaped his character,” he is admitting that we are not yet ready for the complete acceptance of the indeterminate sentence in all classes of cases.
But there is a middle ground between the position of the extreme reformer and that which has been assumed by the courts of this Commonwealth. If there is to be anything short of a fixed sentence, declared by law, it should be a reasonable minimum which should also be declared by law. The policy of the indeterminate sentence is that the delinquent shall be supervised and guided and his capacity to lead an honest and useful life tested by actual experience under normal conditions of living for a period of years long enough to try out his capacity to readjust himself to a life of freedom in society. For this reason an adequate interval between the expiration of his minimum sentence, when he becomes eligible to parole, and the expiration of his maximum sentence, when he becomes free from judicial control, should be guaranteed by law.
There is great diversity of opinion as to the best form of paroling authority. Generally, as in this Commonwealth, this power is lodged in the inspectors or managers of the several institutions or, in the case of commitments to county prisons, in the courts of criminal jurisdiction. In some States, as in New York, a distinct Board of Parole is constituted which visits the convict prisons at intervals and hears and determines all applications for parole that may be awaiting determination. Neither system has worked with complete satisfaction. Under both the grant of parole is largely a perfunctory matter, the inmates who have served their minimum sentences being generally admitted to parole at once, except in those cases, comparatively rare in number, where the applicant has been penalized for misconduct while in confinement. It would seem, therefore, that the first step toward a reform of the paroling system is not to set up a new paroling authority but to devise some more effective machinery to put before the existing authorities all the essential facts as to the applicant’s mental, moral and physical capacity to conduct himself as a self-respecting, useful member of the community. A second, but not less necessary step, is such a change in the spirit and method of prison discipline as will develop in the inmates by actual practice the qualities of self-respect and self-reliance, the sense of honor and of responsibility and the habit of co-operative action so essential to fit them for a life of freedom and responsibility, and at the same time to equip them with the habits of industry and the vocational skill which will enable them to make good in the life that awaits them beyond the prison-wall.
VII.
General Conclusions.
In the foregoing analysis of the penal system of this Commonwealth, the Commission has endeavored not only to present a picture of the existing conditions in the light of modern conceptions of penology but to point out, also, the lines of a sound and progressive development of the system. Most of the suggestions thus made have already been embodied in the penal systems of other states and of enlightened communities beyond the seas. Especially is this the case in such matters as the general employment of the prison population in useful and productive labor and in the substitution of farm and cottage colonies for the old type of prison. In a few of the larger cities and in some institutions promising beginnings have been made in the mental examination of delinquents with a view to the provision of specialized treatment for those found to be mentally afflicted or seriously defective. But in no State or country, as yet, have all these improvements been welded into a comprehensive system which makes them available for the entire delinquent population. The inertia or indifference which leaves the extension of these benefits to chance or to the slow contagion of example is unworthy of a great and progressive Commonwealth which has in the past more than once demonstrated its capacity for leadership in penal reform.
It is evident that the general adoption in this State of these modern improvements in the treatment of the criminal problem can be effected only through the institution of a central agency adapted to secure a co-ordination of effort and a uniformity of development which under the present system of separate control has been demonstrated to be impossible. It seems equally evident, however, that the system of separate management of the several institutions with their diverse aims and problems possesses advantages which we would not willingly sacrifice to an ideal unity. For this reason the Commission has not deemed it wise to recommend the example of other States which have committed the management of all their correctional establishments to a central board of control. Moreover, with such a body as the Board of Public Charities already vested with a certain authority over the penal institutions of the State, it has not been deemed desirable to recommend the creation of a new and independent body to exercise a new jurisdiction over such institutions. It seems better to utilize the authority which already exists, to enlarge its range of functions to meet the needs of the proposed development and to commit the exercise of these functions to a standing committee analogous to the existing Committee on Lunacy. Through such a committee of the Board of Public Charities your Commission believes that the desired co-ordination and future development of the penal system of the Commonwealth can best be secured.
VIII.
Recommendations.
Upon the foregoing facts and conclusions the Commission submits the following recommendations, which are herewith submitted for such action as the General Assembly may deem proper:—
First.—The Commission recommends that the General Assembly provide for the enlargement of the Board of Public Charities by the addition of two members thereto, at least one of whom shall be a woman, and by the institution of a standing committee of five members of such Board, at least one of whom shall be a woman, such committee, which shall be chosen annually by a majority vote of the Board, to be known as the “Committee on Delinquency” and to be vested with the following powers:—
(a) To inspect and investigate the condition and management of all penal, correctional and reformatory institutions within the Commonwealth and inquire into all complaints against the same and report thereon, with recommendations of appropriate action, to the Board of Public Charities, the Governor, the General Assembly, or the Courts, as the circumstances may require;
(b) To institute, maintain and supervise a medical service adapted to the examination of the inmates of such institutions and the proper professional treatment of all such as are mentally or physically afflicted or deficient;
(c) To make recommendations to the governing authorities of all such institutions for the improvement of the sanitary and hygienic conditions, the medical and hospital equipment, and the medical service thereof;
(d) To transfer inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction to other institutions owned, managed or controlled by the Commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, or, if suitable arrangements can be made, to other institutions, where such inmates may receive treatment more suitable to their mental and physical condition;
(e) To institute, maintain and supervise in institutions within its jurisdiction a system of correctional and reformatory education;
(f) To institute, maintain and supervise a system for the employment of the inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction;
(g) To prepare and submit to the Board of Public Charities not later than the first day of December of each even-numbered year, a biennial budget for the Committee and such of the institutions within its jurisdiction as are wholly or partly supported by the Commonwealth, and for that purpose to require of such institutions such reports from time to time as the Committee shall deem necessary; and
(h) To make rules and regulations establishing a uniform system of accounting and bookkeeping in all institutions within its jurisdiction.
It is also recommended that the Committee on Delinquency be authorized and directed to choose a Secretary, not a member of the Board of Public Charities, at a salary of $7500 per annum, who shall be the executive officer of the Committee and an expert in the care and treatment of delinquents, and who shall be known as the “Commissioner of Delinquency.”
Second.—The Commission further recommends that the General Assembly provide by appropriate legislation for the employment of all the able-bodied convicts of the Commonwealth in useful and, so far as possible, in productive labor, and especially, that it vest in the Committee on Delinquency the powers of the Prison Labor Commission and the functions of the Business Agent of such Commission and enlarge such powers and functions as suggested on page 15 of this report.
Third.—The Commission further recommends the enactment of a law establishing four State Industrial Farms, to receive, care for and provide for the useful employment of the inmates of county prisons and jails and of persons hereafter convicted of any offense punishable by imprisonment in any county jail or prison who have been or shall hereafter be sentenced for a term of thirty days or more.
Fourth.—The Commission further recommends that the Act of Assembly approved July 17, 1917 (No. 337), providing for the employment, during the continuance of the war, of inmates of county jails at agricultural labor on any county or almshouse farm, be amended so as to continue its operation indefinitely after the conclusion of peace.
Fifth.—The Commission further recommends that the General Assembly provide for the purchase of a tract of land, of not less than 600 nor more than 1200 acres, to be used for the benefit of the Eastern Penitentiary as a prison farm.
Sixth.—The Commission further recommends that a law be enacted prohibiting fees or allowances and contracts for furnishing meals to the inmates of county jails or other penal institutions of the Commonwealth.
Seventh.—The Commission further recommends that the Act approved June 19, 1911, authorizing the courts in the case of a person sentenced to a penitentiary to fix as the minimum term of imprisonment any period less than the maximum prescribed by law for the offense of which such person was convicted, be amended by a provision that the minimum limit of the sentence imposed shall never exceed one-third of the maximum prescribed by the Court.
In the foregoing recommendations the Commission has confined itself to matters requiring legislative action and to such only as seem to it to be essential to a consistent, integrated policy of penal administration. All other matters with respect to which the Commission has given expression to its views are either subsidiary to those on which immediate legislative action is recommended or are such as may be properly referred to the wisdom of the proposed Committee on Delinquency for consideration and action. The greatest abuse of the prevailing prison system—the lack of imagination and of understanding which keeps alive in most of our penal establishments the methods of a severe and repressive discipline—cannot be abolished by legislative decree. The greatest reform of which the system is capable—the awakening in the inmates of the new life which comes from active, responsible participation in the life of the prison community—is equally beyond the reach of legislative action. These will be the fruits of a keener intelligence and of a deeper understanding than have yet, except in a few rare instances, been brought to bear on the problem. But your Commission believes that the plan of penal administration which it has recommended, and which provides for the most thorough-going study and the most intelligent treatment of the individual delinquent which has yet been attempted, will gradually prepare the way for these and other reforms in the penal system of the Commonwealth.
| Respectfully submitted, | ||
| January 1, 1919. | FLETCHER W. STITES, Chairman, | |
| ALFRED E. JONES, | ||
| MARTHA P. FALCONER, | ||
| LOUIS N. ROBINSON, | ||
| ALBERT H. VOTAW, | ||
| Commissioners. | ||
| George W. Kirchwey, | ||
| Counsel to the Commission. | ||
COMMITTEE ON DELINQUENCY ACT.[1]
Section 1. Be it enacted, etc., That the Board of Public Charities shall appoint a standing committee of five of its members to be known as the Committee on Delinquency. Such Committee shall be chosen within thirty days after the approval of this Act, and annually thereafter, by a majority vote of all of the members of the Board, and at least one member of such Committee shall be a woman. Vacancies in the membership of the Committee shall be filled in like manner. Within thirty days after their selection, the Committee shall each year elect one of its members as chairman.
The members of the Committee shall serve without compensation but shall receive all of their travelling and other necessary expenses incurred in the performance of their official duties.
Section 2. The Committee selected under the provisions of this Act shall appoint a secretary, who shall not be a member of the Committee or of the Board of Public Charities. The secretary shall be the executive officer of the Committee and shall be known as the Commissioner of Delinquency. He shall be a person having expert knowledge respecting delinquency, and the care and treatment of delinquents and shall devote his entire time to the duties of his office. He shall be appointed for a term of five years and shall receive a salary of seven thousand, five hundred dollars per annum. The Committee shall have the power to remove the Commissioner at any time for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or misconduct in office, and shall, whenever a vacancy occurs either by death, resignation, or removal from office, appoint a Commissioner to fill the unexpired term.
Section 3. Subject to the approval of the Committee on Delinquency, the Commissioner of Delinquency shall appoint a medical director, an educational director, a director of industries, and such other directors, experts, agents, and employees for such terms and at such compensation as shall be fixed by the Committee on Delinquency. The Commissioner with the approval of the Committee shall have the power at any time to remove any director, or any expert, agent, or employee, so appointed.
Section 4. The Board of Commissioners of Public Grounds and Buildings shall provide the Committee on Delinquency with suitable rooms in the State Capitol, and elsewhere if necessary, ....
Section 5. The Committee on Delinquency shall have jurisdiction for the purposes of this act over all institutions within this Commonwealth of a penal, correctional, or reformatory character now existing, or which may hereafter be established including industrial farms, workhouses, and reformatories, and reformatory institutions for minors or women, whether managed by the Commonwealth, or any political sub-division thereof or otherwise; Provided, That this act shall not be interpreted to deprive any warden, superintendent, or other officer, or board of inspectors, managers, or trustees, of any such institution of the right to manage its affairs, but every such institution shall make such reports to the Committee on Delinquency as the Committee shall be authorized by this Act to require and shall obey the rules and regulations established, and follow the recommendations made, by the Committee as authorized by this Act.
Section 6. The Committee on Delinquency shall have the power and its duty shall be:—
(a) To inspect and investigate the condition and management of all institutions within its jurisdiction, and inquire into all complaints against the same, and report thereon with recommendations of appropriate action to the Board of Public Charities, the Governor, the General Assembly, or the courts, as the circumstances may require;
(b) To institute, maintain, and supervise a medical service to accomplish the purposes enumerated in this Act;
(c) To make recommendations to institutions within its jurisdiction for the improvement of the sanitary and hygienic conditions, the medical and hospital equipment, and the medical service thereof;
(d) To transfer inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction to other institutions owned, managed, or controlled by the Commonwealth or any political sub-division thereof, or if suitable arrangements can be made, to other institutions, where such inmates may receive treatment more suitable to their mental and physical condition:....
(e) To institute, maintain, and supervise in institutions within its jurisdiction a system of correctional and reformatory education to accomplish the purposes enumerated in this Act;
(f) To institute, maintain, and supervise a system for the employment of the inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction as provided in this Act;
(g) To prepare and submit to the Board of Public Charities, not later than the first day of December of each even-numbered year, a biennial budget for the committee and such of the institutions within its jurisdiction as are wholly or partly supported by the Commonwealth. Such budget shall set forth the expenditures of the Committee and such institutions during the preceding two years, their estimated financial needs for the succeeding two years, and such other information as the Committee shall deem appropriate.
To enable it to prepare such budget, the Committee shall have the power to require of institutions within its jurisdiction, and such institutions shall prepare and submit, such reports from time to time as the Committee shall deem necessary, but to the extent that reports shall be required by the Committee for the purpose of preparing such budget; institutions within the jurisdiction of the Committee shall not be required to report to the Board of Public Charities; and,
(h) To make rules and regulations establishing a uniform system of accounting and bookkeeping in all institutions within its jurisdiction.
Section 7. The medical service which the Committee on Delinquency is by this Act required to institute, maintain, and supervise shall include:—
(a) The prompt and thorough examination of all the inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction with a view to the proper diagnosis, classification, and treatment of all such persons;
(b) The prescription and maintenance of standards in diagnosis and treatment in all institutions within its jurisdiction and the determination of the qualifications of those selected as physicians, psychiatrists, stewards, or nurses, in such institutions;
(c) The furnishing of instructions in personal and social hygiene to the inmates of all institutions within its jurisdiction, and of instruction in professional training to such officials, employees, or inmates of such institutions as may be called upon to serve as assistants, nurses, or otherwise, in the medical or hospital departments thereof;
(d) The frequent inspection of the institutions within its jurisdiction with respect to their sanitary and hygienic condition, the adequacy of their medical and hospital equipment, and the competency and efficiency of their medical service; and,
(e) The installation and supervision of a proper dietary adequate to the maintenance of the health, efficiency, and morale, of the inmates in all institutions within its jurisdiction.
Section 8. The system of correctional and reformatory education which the Committee on Delinquency is by this Act required to institute, maintain, and supervise shall include:—
(a) The prescription and maintenance of standards of correctional and reformatory education in all institutions within its jurisdiction and the determination of the qualifications of those selected as teachers; and,
(b) The education in elementary branches of illiterate and undeveloped inmates of such institutions; the instruction of all inmates of such institutions in the principles, organization, and practice of American government; and the furnishing of a thorough industrial training to any of the inmates of such institutions for whom such training shall be deemed useful and desirable.
Section 9. With respect to the labor of the inmates of any institutions within its jurisdiction to which persons are committed for crime or delinquency, the Committee on Delinquency shall have the power and its duty shall be:—
(a) To require every such institution to afford to the inmates thereof, who are physically capable, an opportunity to perform useful labor in such institutions;
(b) To determine what industries shall be established in such institutions and to regulate and supervise the installation of machinery and equipment therein;
(c) To establish rules and regulations for the employment of inmates of such institutions at road-building, quarrying, or crushing stone, agricultural work, land reclamation, or forestry, or other suitable work outside of such institution; and,
(d) To establish rules with regard to the number of hours per day during which such inmates shall be employed; Provided, That except in agricultural work such inmates shall not be employed for more than eight hours in any one day.
Section 10. With respect to the labor of inmates of such of the institutions within its jurisdiction as are owned or managed and controlled by the Commonwealth or any political sub-division thereof, the committee shall, in addition to the powers and duties enumerated in the preceding section of this act, have the power and its duty shall be:—
(a) To maintain a manufacturing fund for the purposes specified in this section. The original manufacturing fund of the committee shall be the manufacturing fund paid to the committee by the Prison Board Commission, as provided in this act, together with any and all sums due and owing to such Commission, and the unexpended balance of any appropriation made for the use of such commission. To such fund there shall be added from time to time such amount or amounts as shall be appropriated by the General Assembly;
All receipts from the sale of the products, manufactured or produced by the labor of the inmates of any such institution, shall be credited to the manufacturing fund and used for the purchase of machinery, equipment, raw materials, and supplies, and for the payment of wages to such inmates;
(b) To sell to the Commonwealth or to any political sub-division thereof, or any institution, owned, managed, or controlled by the Commonwealth, or any political subdivision thereof, at not more than the prevailing market price the products of the labor of such inmates; Provided, That institutions within the jurisdiction of the Committee owned, or managed and controlled by the Commonwealth, or any political subdivision thereof, shall have the privilege of selling directly such of their agricultural products as they do not consume, but every such institution selling agricultural products shall account for and pay to such committee the proceeds of the sale of such products.
Any surplus of the products of the labor of such inmates which cannot be sold to the Commonwealth, etc., shall be sold in the open market, but any such product sold in the open market shall not be sold for less than the prevailing market price.
Should any institution desire to use the products of the labor of its inmates, other than agricultural products, it shall purchase the same from the Committee on Delinquency;
(c) From time to time to fix the compensation of such inmates for labor performed by them; Provided, That the rate of compensation to such inmates shall be based both upon the pecuniary value of the work performed and on the willingness, industry, and good conduct of the inmate performing the same;
(d) To make rules and regulations governing the payment of compensation earned by such inmates. Such rules and regulations may provide for the payment of a part of their compensation to inmates during their term of confinement to be used for such purchases as such rules and regulations shall permit. They shall also provide for the bi-monthly payment of such part of the compensation of such inmates as the committee shall determine to the dependents of such inmates, and for the payment of the unpaid balance of such compensation to such inmates at the time of their discharge, or at periodic intervals on and after their discharge; and,
(e) To establish rules and regulations for the keeping of records and accounts by all such institutions, showing the labor performed by the inmates thereof, the value of the products thereof, and the wages paid to inmates, or their dependents, or both.
Section 11. All wages paid to the inmates of institutions within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Delinquency owned, or managed and controlled by the Commonwealth, etc., shall be paid out of the committee’s manufacturing fund upon the order of the warden, superintendent, or other proper officer of the institution in, or in connection with, which the labor shall have been performed.
Section 12. The Prison Labor Commission created by the act approved the first day of June one thousand nine hundred and fifteen, ... is hereby abolished, and shall cease to exist, thirty days after the chairman of the committee on delinquency shall have notified the Prison Labor Commission in writing that the Committee on Delinquency has been duly organized as provided in this act. Within such period of thirty days the Prison Labor Commission shall transfer and set over to the Committee on Delinquency all books, papers, and records, and all moneys and evidence of debt, in its possession, and the Auditor General is hereby authorized and directed to draw a warrant on the State Treasurer for the payment to the Committee on Delinquency of the unexpended balance of any appropriation made for the use of the Prison Labor Commission.
Section 13. For the purpose of inspecting any institution within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Delinquency, such committee, the Commissioner of Delinquency, and any director, expert, agent, or employee, deputized by the Commissioner of Delinquency for the purpose, shall have free access to the grounds, buildings, and all books, papers, and records of such institution, and all persons, connected with any such institution, are hereby directed and required to give such information and to afford such facilities for inspection as the person making such inspection may require....
Section 14. ...
Should any institution within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Delinquency which is not owned, or managed and controlled by the Commonwealth, etc., fail to obey such rules and regulations, or make such report, such institution shall not be entitled to receive any financial assistance from the Commonwealth, and it shall be unlawful for the Auditor General, after having received notice in writing from the Committee on Delinquency that any such institution has failed to obey such rules or regulations, or to make such report, to issue a warrant for the payment of any money appropriated to such institution so long as such institution shall continue to refuse to obey such rules and regulations, or to make such report.
Section 15. All salaries, compensation, and expenses, payable under this act, except wages for labor performed by inmates shall be paid by the State Treasurer on the warrant of the Auditor General.
Section 16. To carry out the purposes of this act the sum of two hundred thousand dollars, ($200,000), or such part thereof as shall be necessary is hereby appropriated to the Committee on Delinquency.
Section 17. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed.
STATE INDUSTRIAL FARMS ACT.[2]
Section 1. Be it enacted, etc., That this act shall be known and may be cited as “The State Industrial Farms Act of one thousand nine hundred and nineteen.”
Section 2. There are hereby established four state industrial farms for the first, second, third, and fourth districts respectively.
Section 3. The first district shall comprise the counties of Berks, Bucks, Chester, Dauphin, Delaware, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, and York; and the state industrial farm therein located shall be known as the “Southeastern Industrial Farm.”
The second district shall comprise the counties of Bradford, Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Lycoming, Monroe, Montour, Northumberland, Pike, Schuylkill, Snyder, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, Union, Wayne, and Wyoming; and the state industrial farm therein located shall be known as the “Northeastern Industrial Farm.”
The third district shall comprise the counties of Armstrong, Butler, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, McKean, Mercer, Potter, Venango, and Warren; and the state industrial farm therein located shall be known as the “Northwestern Industrial Farm.”
The fourth district shall comprise the counties of Adams, Beaver, Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Cumberland, Fayette, Franklin, Fulton, Greene, Huntingdon, Indiana, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry, Somerset, Washington, and Westmoreland; and the state industrial farm therein located shall be known as the “Southwestern Industrial Farm.”
Section 4. Upon the approval of this act a board of managers for each district shall be appointed by the Governor. Each board shall consist of either five or seven reputable citizens, one or two of whom shall be women. The members of such boards shall serve without compensation, but all of their expenses actually and necessarily incurred shall be paid by the State Treasurer on the warrant of the Auditor General, which shall be issued upon the order of the board, countersigned by the secretary of the Committee of Delinquency of this Commonwealth. The members of the various boards shall serve for a term of five years and their successors for the same period. The Governor may remove any of the managers for misconduct, incompetency, or neglect of duty, and in case of a vacancy for any cause shall fill such vacancy by appointment for the unexpired term.
Section 5. The board of managers of each district is hereby authorized by a majority vote to select a suitable site for the state industrial farm of the district. Such site shall be within the district, and shall either be chosen from lands donated to the Commonwealth for the purpose or purchased by the board with moneys appropriated or donated for the purpose; Provided, That any such site shall not contain more than two thousand (2,000) acres. The title to land donated or purchased as herein provided shall be taken and held in the name of “The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” and shall be examined and approved by the Attorney General prior to the acceptance or purchase of the land. In the selection of a site the board of managers shall take into consideration the objects and purposes of the institution, the accessibility of any proposed site to the counties included in the district, and all or as many as practicable of the following enumerated advantages and resources. The land selected and purchased shall be of varied topography with natural resources and advantages for many forms of husbandry, fruit growing, and stockraising; for brick-making, and for the preparation of all other road and paving material; and shall have good railroad drainage, sewage, and water facilities. Waste land or land requiring drainage may be selected if deemed susceptible of profitable cultivation after its improvement.
Section 6. All buildings constructed in pursuance of this act shall be plain and inexpensive in character and the labor in constructing such buildings, improvements and facilities shall be supplied by persons committed to the state industrial farm or confined in State or county penal, reformatory, or correctional institutions so far as found practicable.
The board of managers shall procure all necessary materials; erect and equip such buildings; employ such skilled labor as cannot be furnished by the persons committed to their respective industrial farms or by persons confined in State, or county penal, reformatory or correctional institutions and provide all proper facilities for their use and for the practical use of the institution.
When the board of managers of any State industrial farm shall have made all preliminary arrangements for the construction of the buildings and equipment therein, they shall notify the Governor who shall issue a proclamation announcing such fact, and thereafter prisoners having more than thirty days to serve shall be transferred to such State industrial farm from any jail or workhouse in that district on the order of the Governor.
Section 7. The boards of inspectors of the State penitentiaries, and of the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory at Huntingdon, upon the request of a board of managers of a State industrial farm, are hereby authorized to transfer to such State industrial farm from their respective institutions any prisoners of special or mechanical ability therein who may be found in the judgment of such board and the board of managers of such State industrial farm suitable for the purpose, and provide transportation and proper guards for such prisoners and while such prisoners remain at such State industrial farm they shall be subject to the orders of the inspectors of the institution from which they were transferred as to their return, and in all other respect, except as to discipline and government. While at such State industrial farm they shall be under the control, discipline, and government, and subject to the orders, of the board of managers of such State industrial farm and its executive officers.
The expense of transporting and transferring prisoners used in the construction of buildings and equipment to and from any State industrial farm shall be paid by the State Treasurer upon the warrant of the Auditor General out of any moneys appropriated for the establishment of such State industrial farm. The Auditor General shall issue warrants for such purpose upon the order of the executive officers of the board of managers of such State industrial farm.
The maintenance of such prisoners as are transferred from a State penitentiary or reformatory shall be paid by the institution from which they are transferred, but the cost of such maintenance in excess of the average per capita cost of maintaining prisoners at the institution from which such prisoners shall have been transferred shall be refunded to any such institution out of any moneys appropriated for the establishment of the State industrial farm.
Section 8. When any State industrial farm shall have been established and ready for operation, a superintendent and matron and such other officers as may be deemed necessary shall be appointed by the proper board of managers. Any persons so appointed shall hold their offices respectively during the pleasure of the board of managers. The compensation of all such persons shall be fixed by the board of managers.
Section 9. When in any district the arrangements for the reception of inmates shall have been completed, the Court of quarter sessions of every county embraced in such district shall transfer from the county prisons and jails respectively to the State industrial farm of the district all persons who shall have been sentenced to any of said county prisons and jails for any crime, misdemeanor or felony, murder and voluntary manslaughter excepted, or who shall have been committed to any of such county prisons and jails for non-payment of any fine or penalty, or for non-payment of costs, or for default in complying with any order of court entered in any prosecution for desertion or non-support, and any other persons legally confined in any of said county jails or prisons except persons confined awaiting trial or detained as witnesses; Provided, That any person whose term will expire within thirty days shall not be transferred.
Thereafter, when any person is convicted in any of the said courts of any offense, crime, misdemeanor, or felony, murder and voluntary manslaughter excepted, the punishment of which is or may hereafter be imprisonment in any county jail or prison, the said court shall, if sentence of imprisonment for thirty days or more be imposed upon such person, commit such person to the State industrial farm of the district in which said court may have jurisdiction. If sentence of imprisonment for more than ten but less than thirty days be imposed, the court may in its discretion commit such person to the State industrial farm for the district.
Courts of record and courts not of record of the counties included in any such district shall hereafter commit to the State industrial farm of the district all persons who might be lawfully committed to the county jail or prison on charges of vagrancy, drunkenness, or disorderly conduct, or for default or non-payment of any costs, fine, or penalty, or for default in complying with any order of court entered in any prosecution for desertion or non-support, where in any such case the commitment will be for a period of thirty days or more. If the commitment be from ten to thirty days the committing authority may in its discretion commit any such person to the State industrial farm.
The superintendent may under the direction of the court of quarter sessions remove any inmate to the county jail for the unexpired term of his or her term of commitment, or to the poorhouse of the proper city or county, or to any hospital or lunatic asylum in such county as circumstances may require.
Section 10. The cost of transporting any persons committed to a State industrial farm shall be paid by the county from which the prisoner is committed, and the sheriff of the county shall receive the same mileage, and fees for prisoners committed to a State industrial farm as are now allowed by law for transporting prisoners committed to the State penitentiaries. When any prisoner is discharged from a State industrial farm the superintendent thereof shall procure for him a railroad ticket to any point to which said prisoner may desire to go not farther from such State industrial farm than the point from which he was sentenced, and it shall be the duty of the superintendent, or his duly authorized agent, to accompany the prisoner to the railroad station, deliver the ticket to the proper railroad conductor, and formally release the prisoner on the train which he takes for his destination.
Section 11. It shall be the purpose of every State industrial farm to employ the prisoners committed, or transferred thereto, in work on or about the buildings and farm, and in growing produce and supplies for its own use, and for the other institutions of the Commonwealth, in the preparation of road materials and in making brick, tile, paving material, and such other products or materials as may be found practicable for the use of the Commonwealth, or any political subdivision therein, and in other industries which may be approved by the board of managers of the State industrial farm and the Committee on Delinquency of this Commonwealth. Should any State industrial farm produce supplies or materials in excess of its needs and demands, or in excess of the demands of the Commonwealth, or of any political subdivision thereof, such surplus may be sold by the Committee on Delinquency at the prevailing market price.
Section 12. Any State industrial farm shall make such reports and keep such accounts as are now or may hereafter be required by law, and shall in all such matters be subject to the rules and regulations established by the Committee on Delinquency.
Section 13. The original cost of the site and buildings of any State industrial farm, and all additions thereto, and all fixed overhead charges in conducting the institution, shall be paid by the Commonwealth out of moneys appropriated for the purpose by the General Assembly.
The cost of the care and maintenance of the inmates of such institution shall be certified monthly to the counties from which inmates shall have been committed. Such cost shall be paid by the counties in proportion to the number of days spent by the inmates committed from each county. All payments shall be on requisition of the board of managers and on warrants of the county commissioners countersigned by the county controller.
Section 14. (Provides for transferring prisoners from one institution to another, if deemed advisable.)
Section 15. All the property real and personal authorized to be held by virtue of this act shall be exempt from taxation by the Commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof.
Section 16. The rules and regulations governing State industrial farms shall be uniform and shall be made by the Committee on Delinquency. They shall be general in character and the respective boards of managers of each institution may add local rules not inconsistent with the spirit and substance of the regulations adopted by the Committee on Delinquency.
Section 17. To carry out the purposes of this act the sum of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000), or so much thereof as shall be necessary, is hereby appropriated but not more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) shall be expended for the purchase and equipment of the State industrial farm of any district.
Section 18. (Repeals the Act of 1917, authorizing the establishment of nine Industrial Farms.)
AGRICULTURAL PRISON LABOR.
Harry R. Campbell.
An article prepared for the County Commissioners’ Convention, Pittsburgh, August 7, 1918.
Agricultural prison labor is strongly advocated by prison authorities and has been in general use in the penal institutions of Pennsylvania for many years. The movement for outdoor work for prisoners has grown rapidly, and as a result, the Pennsylvania legislature, at its 1917 session, extended the scope of agricultural work for prisoners, and authorized by an Act approved July 17, 1917, the employment of prisoners, undergoing sentence in county jails, on county or poor farms.
There is no greater curse than idleness. An unemployed prisoner is a future menace to society, and no effort should be spared to keep him busy—to impress upon him the dignity and necessity of work, and to make him know that he is stronger physically and better morally if he is regularly employed.
Prison labor should be approached with a desire to help the prisoner and restore him to society cured of his criminal ailment. If the only purpose in the minds of the authorities is to make a profit for their district, they are in grave danger of reverting to the old convict labor system, which at best was only a modified form of slavery.
Agricultural prison labor offers the opportunity of a direct profit to the district, and places the prisoner in an environment peculiarly adapted to his own physical and mental betterment. I am informed that it is used with great success in several counties, including Delaware, Montgomery, Chester, Berks, Lehigh, Beaver, Bucks, Cambria, Fayette and Westmoreland.
Another important measure enacted by the Pennsylvania legislature and approved July 20, 1917, requires the erection of an Industrial Farm, Workhouse and Reformatory in each of nine districts created by the Act. Each institution is to be built and managed by a Board of Trustees, consisting of one County Commissioner from each county in the district, appointed by the President Judge of the proper Court.
It is the purpose of the institution to keep all persons employed about the farm and buildings, in growing all kinds of farm produce, raising live stock and in manufacturing supplies for its own use, or for the use of the several counties in the district, or any public or charitable institution owned or managed by any of the district counties.
Prisoners may also be employed in the making of brick, tile, and concrete, or other road building supplies for the use of the several counties. All material manufactured shall be sold at prices fixed by the Trustees, preference being given in the sale to the counties comprising the district, and to the cities, boroughs and townships therein.
The cost of the site, buildings and additions thereto, and all fixed overhead charges are to be paid by the counties comprising the district, in ratio to their population. All moneys received from the sale of produce or manufactured articles or supplies shall be credited to the overhead expenses.
This, in brief, is a digest of the law which is designed to inaugurate agricultural prison labor on a large scale in Pennsylvania.
The Trustees were promptly appointed by the Courts of the State. The Fourth district, organized in March with the election of Mr. George W. Deeds, of Westmoreland County, as president. This board has been actively engaged in inspecting proposed sites, a number of which have been offered, but no selection has, as yet, been made.
Another phase of prison labor that must be taken into full consideration in the establishment of industrial farms, is the attitude of the Courts in reference to the parole law now in effect. If the Judges believe that the ends of justice are best served by paroling convicts, rather than committing them to some institution, the necessary capacity of the proposed buildings would be materially affected. In most of the counties but little has been done toward a general use of the parole law, but in a few of them the Courts are evidently giving it a trial.
The parole law is regarded with especial favor in Washington County, where the Courts have at the present time, 672 prisoners under parole. Every one of this number is employed in the county and must report monthly to the parole officer, who is also the Court’s employment agent, and who places every paroled prisoner in a job suitable to his ability and inclination.
This might be called another phase of prison labor, as industry is one of the conditions of the parole, and the labor is done by the paroled prisoners for their own profit and advancement—with freedom to enjoy their homes and pursue their own inclinations after working hours. So far has the system been carried, that the Court House, once cleaned entirely by prison labor, is now necessarily cared for by a paid force of men outside the draft age. You may better understand why the Court is going to this apparent extreme, when you know that practically every industry in Washington County is engaged in war work, and that these paroled men are placed on farms, and in mines, mills and factories, where they are helping win the war, though only a small percentage of them are American citizens and very few are native born.
About 90 per cent. of these men are faithfully complying with all the conditions of their paroles, 95 per cent. are paying in monthly installments, the fine and costs imposed upon them by the Court, and less than five per cent. are proving themselves unworthy of the confidence reposed in them.
Clearfield County has 10 paroled prisoners; Clinton, 25; Indiana 40; Lycoming, 8; Lehigh, 104; Center, 6; McKean, 47; Butler, 35; and Somerset, 64. It is doubtful if the entire number in all the other counties in the State would equal the number paroled in Washington County.
Montgomery County has taken a unique step in the employment of prison labor and uses the 80 inmates of its county jail in knitting socks, on knitting machines, for the Red Cross. Many other counties employ their prisoners, in their jails, in useful occupations.
Agricultural prison labor has been tried out in many States with gratifying success. Down in Alabama there are 325 men at work on State farms, where they raised 2300 bushels of wheat last year, which is an excellent record for a section where wheat is not supposed to grow. Convicts down there are also worked in the Alabama coal mines, and are producing 4500 tons of coal daily. Their farm prison labor is not satisfactory, but in the mines it is pronounced superior to free labor.
Nebraska is using agricultural prison labor in a small way outside State institutions and is meeting with splendid success. Maryland is having the same experience with about 75 convicts who are helping to relieve the farm labor shortage. Georgia’s male convicts are employed on the public roads, and the women prisoners are now engaged in light farm work.
Michigan is farming 4000 acres, but still found sufficient prison labor to help the farmers with their harvest last year. Wisconsin has about 100 prison labor farmers and is of the opinion that their work is as productive as free labor.
New Hampshire objects to agricultural prison labor because it gives the prisoners no winter employment, and continuous work is regarded as desirable. Mississippi is meeting with good success on her State controlled farms, but the law does not permit the use of prison labor except at State institutions.
Massachusetts is utilizing prison labor on farms, to relieve the scarcity of farm labor caused by the war, successfully employing about 100 for that purpose. They regard convict labor, properly directed, as efficient as free labor.
Vermont believes that its present experience justifies a more extended use of agricultural prison labor.
Kansas uses its prison labor mostly in prison coal mines, but is diverting some of its convicts to help the farmers during the war. Six hundred convicts are employed in Florida on State owned farms. They are meeting with great success and their prison labor is in considerable demand. Tennessee has a number of convicts employed in agricultural labor. The men have gained in health and earned a profit for the State.
Connecticut uses her prison labor on roads and farms. They think it is better and more efficient than available free farm labor, and the farmers of the State are well satisfied with the results obtained.
Minnesota uses prison labor on roads, and is conducting State agricultural farms with success. Nevada uses prison labor to harvest crops on shares. They report the cost disappointing and think their best results are obtained with agricultural prison labor on State farms. Virginia uses its prison labor for grinding agricultural lime for fertilizer. The State employs about 250 convicts on its own farm, in agricultural work, and finds the work beneficial to the prisoner as well as to the State.
Illinois is making a special effort to utilize its prison labor, not only to relieve the scarcity of farm workers, but to help in all other war industries. About 100 men have been paroled especially for farm labor, and 350 are successfully employed in factories where equipment for the government is being manufactured.
The great war has brought forth one outstanding fact in criminology—no matter what his instincts may be in times of peace, the convict is a patriot, according to his lights, in time of war, and in all my investigations, covering practically every eastern, southern and middle western State, I have not learned of a single prisoner who violated a parole given him to engage in work that would help win the war.
Iowa is operating nearly 3000 acres by agricultural prison labor, and is making a wonderful success, not only from a financial viewpoint but also in fitting the convicts to regain their place in society.
Indiana has done wonders with prison labor along agricultural lines, having established one large Industrial Farm for misdemeanants. In addition, the State is utilizing its prisoners to a considerable extent to relieve the scarcity of farm labor caused by the war. About 100 convicts built sidings to coal mines to get out fuel for the war. At the time of a disastrous flood they worked day and night, without guards, saving by their efforts thousands of dollars worth of private property. They were also successfully used at the time of a severe tornado, recovering the lost, and clearing away the debris. Indiana does not favor the use of prison labor on public roads.
North Carolina is working 500 prisoners on State owned farms with excellent success, and in addition is helping out the farmers to some extent. The State also employs about 100 men on the highways, but believes road work by prison labor is good for the roads but bad for the men.
New York thinks that every available prisoner should be employed, but because of constitutional limitation cannot use its convicts on private farms. Practically every penitentiary and county jail in the State is employing its prisoners either at gardening or farm work on State or county owned or leased farms. Food production has been materially increased by these concerted efforts towards agricultural products, and the prisoners themselves are benefited by the outdoor work. Prison labor is also extensively used on the public roads.
A notable example of the successful employment of agricultural prison labor, that is coming into more than local prominence, is in our own State of Pennsylvania, where Warden Francies is working wonders with his advanced methods at the new penitentiary at Bellefonte.
Washington, Pa., August 7, 1918.