The Clinic Building at the New Sing Sing Prison
By Walter B. James, M.D.
(Reprinted by permission from the American Architect of January 28, 1920)
It is many years since men began to realize that their diseases were not the result of a divine purpose, and so they have attempted, first, to understand their origin, through study and analysis, and then from these to discover means of prevention and cure. As a result of these efforts, the prolongation of human life has more than doubled, and the disease and suffering rate has markedly diminished and is still diminishing.
To-day, resignation and patient submission in the presence of disease of the body are no longer virtues. Mental disease has only more recently been looked at from this same viewpoint, and gratifying headway is being made in this direction. The world is just beginning to realize that misbehavior or anti-social behavior presents to society a problem somewhat similar to that of physical and mental disease.
I do not mean that misbehavior is necessarily the result of or associated with disease, either physical or mental, although this is often the case, but that it presents an analogous problem to society, and that it should be attacked in the same manner, that is, through scientific analysis and classification, the discovery of causes, probably very complex, and the application of remedies, probably chiefly preventive, and based upon these causes. Only in this way can it be hoped to turn this costly waste product of social life into a useful by-product.
A New Policy
When the “Sage Prison Bill” became a law, providing for the demolition of the old Sing Sing cell block and the erection there of a new study, classification and distributing prison, and creating the “State Commission on New Prisons,” New York State committed itself to a new and more intelligent policy toward its offenders and toward the whole problem of misbehavior. The new commission, commanded to carry out the above and other provisions, soon found itself confronted by problems that belonged essentially to modern medical science, and it turned to the “National Committee for Mental Hygiene” for counsel, and an advisory medical committee was formed. About a year before this, realizing the need of a more thorough psychiatric study of criminals along the lines that had been followed so well by Dr. Healy at the Juvenile Detention Home in Chicago, the National Committee had placed Dr. Bernard Glueck in Sing Sing Prison, with the consent and sympathy of the Department of Prisons, to carry out a complete mental analysis of all new admissions.
THE NEW SING SING PRISON, OSSINING, N. Y.—PSYCHIATRIC BUILDING
Lewis F. Pilcher, New York State Architect
The results of Dr. Glueck’s studies have been published in full in “Mental Hygiene” and elsewhere, and form a valuable foundation for the scientific handling of the mental side of prisoners.
The commission and the state were fortunate in having Mr. Pilcher, the New York State Architect, to translate these ideals into actual construction, and the completion of an important part of the plans, including the Clinic Building, and, most of all, the final assigning of the contract for the erection, insured the carrying out of this interesting and important project.
The Clinic Building
Mr. Pilcher has thrown himself into the undertaking with singular diligence and intelligence, and has entered thoroughly into the spirit of modern scientific treatment and research.
The newest and most original feature of the prison is the Clinic Building, in which the study and classification of the prisoners is to take place, and in which, as well, the general medical and surgical work of the institution will be carried on. It provides for the complete physical and mental examination of every inmate. It contains the hospital wards, dispensary, operating rooms and laboratories and X-ray plant, and indeed, it corresponds on a small scale to the hospital of any community, but differs from this in that it assumes that the whole population of the community may be abnormal, and therefore requires that every member of it shall at some time pass through the clinic for purposes of study and analysis. For this reason, the psychiatric or mental division of the clinic is relatively more accentuated.
It requires courage to attack such a problem as this, an attack that may carry us into troublesome social fields. It seems to be a fact, however, that no other method gives promise of relieving society of any considerable part of this burden of suffering and cost. We must not expect ever to be entirely rid of this burden, just as we shall never be rid of the burden of physical and mental disease; but just as science has diminished and is still diminishing these latter, so we have reason to believe that similar scientific methods, properly applied, will diminish the burden of anti-social behavior, and help us to approach the irreducible minimum, a minimum which must probably always exist in a human world like ours, but a minimum from which we are at present still very far.