FAMILIES OF PRISONERS.
Judge DeLacy of the District of Columbia sent a communication with regard to the dependent families of prisoners. He informed the Association that such families are cared for in two ways: one by direct appropriation from the public funds and the other by a collection of the earnings of the prisoners. In 1907 there was paid for this purpose from the funds, $200.00; and from prisoners’ earnings, $6,050.00. In 1911 the public appropriation had reached $3,000.00; and the amount dispensed from prisoners’ earnings, $38,684.00.
The eloquent earnestness of Maud Ballington Booth met with sympathetic attention.
“Every man who works in prison should, after his own board and clothing have been paid for, work for the support of his family or for those depending upon him. Some officials seem not to know that a convict may have a family, yet there is always this heart-saddened, home-broken circle of gloom, the mothers, wives and children of convicts, about every penal institution. Wherewith are they to be fed and clothed? What recognition does the state give to them from whom it has taken their only source of support? I know of one case where the state gets $500,000 a year from its convict labor. The larger the number of convicts, the greater the revenue. But what of the army of helpless and hopeless wives and children who are being deprived of the support of these laborers who are their husbands and fathers? The helping hand extended to the family has a reflex action on the man in prison. He realizes that his efforts are helping those who have been, and are still, dependent on his services.”