Hospital and Reception Building
The hospital quarters are small, because in the prison with the individual room a man who is sick is better off in his cell than he would be in a general hospital ward, and the men very frequently prefer to stay by themselves.
The prisoners brought to the institution enter the bath and reception building at the rear, where the process of their reception is as follows:
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING—ENTRANCE SIDE
They enter to the left, where they undress and bathe. Their clothes are tied up in a bag, temporarily placed in a metal-lined closet, which can be fumigated, and later taken to the general county farm laundry and sterilized. After the prisoner has had his bath he goes into the doctor’s office, where he is given a careful physical examination, and here also are made the finger-print and other records of identification which are very desirable from many points of view.
He then goes to the barber if necessary and has his hair cut. It is not now the custom to crop all prisoners’ heads unless the actual physical condition makes such treatment necessary. After he has been given clean underclothes and a clean prison suit he goes to the warden’s office and is there interviewed by him. The prisoner is told what the rules of the institution are, and his first meeting with the warden is of consequence to both, as it gives the warden an intimate opportunity to regard and to counsel his man, and the prisoner his first intimation of what is expected of him and what his treatment will be. After his interview with the warden the prisoner is placed in cell block 3 to stay during the period of observation, which is usually about two weeks. This is not only for the purpose of finding out what his physical condition may be, and to guard against the development of contagious disease, but also that the prison authorities may make the equally important diagnosis of his mentality, from which is largely determined his future treatment.