The Review, Vol. 1, No. 5, May 1911

by Various

CHICAGO HOUSE OF CORRECTION

John S. Whitman, Warden.

The Chicago House of Correction was established and is maintained by the City of Chicago in accordance with the provisions of an Act of the State Legislature, in 1871. It covers sixty (60) acres of ground, the total valuation of real estate, buildings and equipment being $1,618,688.00. During the year ending December 31st, 1910, there were 13,083 commitments to the institution. This total includes 1,383 women, 355 boys under 18 years of age and 11,345 men. The daily average population was 1,631 (a decrease from 1,766 in 1909, and this latter figure was a decrease from 1,852, which was the daily average during 1908). Persons are committed for violation of state statutes in cases of misdemeanor, and for violation of city ordinances. In the latter case the fine imposed is worked out at the rate of fifty cents per day; however, the maximum term of imprisonment for failure to pay fine is fixed at six months, and an allowance of three days per month is made for good conduct if the limit of imprisonment is served. For violation of the state statutes a fixed sentence is imposed by the Court, the maximum being one year. For violation of certain sections of the statutes an additional fine may be imposed, which, if not paid, may be worked out at the rate of $1.50 per day after sentence has been served. The law providing for the allowance of three days per month for good conduct also covers these cases if confinement is for six months or more.

All inmates over 18 years of age who are not incapacitated from work by sickness or old age, are furnished with healthful employment; the principal industries being those that furnish products needed and to be used by the City. A limited and comparatively small percent of the inmates are employed in the manufacture of articles placed on the market in competition with those manufactured by paid labor. For instance, the city uses a great amount of crushed stone in the repair and building of streets. This is quarried, crushed and loaded in the cars on our grounds by inmates at a great saving to the city. They are also engaged in the manufacture of sewer brick used by the city, the clay used in this industry being excavated within the walls of the institution. We also conduct a printing shop where most of the city’s printing is done.

The laundry work for the Police and Health Departments is done here at a great advantage to those departments. We manufacture all clothing, shoes, etc., that the prisoners wear. We make all permanent improvements to buildings and grounds as well as do the new construction work. About one-fifth of our inmates are engaged in the manufacture of chairs, broom and leather goods and these are the only articles placed on the market.

The actual receipts of the institution during the year 1909 were $210,591.48; this amount, however, includes $38,287.00 collected as payment on fines. In addition to the above, it is conservatively estimated that the earnings of the institution in making permanent improvements and in new construction work are not less than $148,873.00. The total expenditures including the purchase of materials for new construction and of amounts appropriated by the city to be used at the House of Correction in its management amounted to $291,053.03.

The per capita cost per diem for feeding inmates during the year 1909 was twelve cents; the cost per diem including all expenditures was forty-six cents. The cost as stated above is somewhat increased because of the fact that we maintain as one of the departments of the institution what is known as the John Worthy School. This is not a school in name only, but has all the facilities for giving the class of boys that are sent to us from the Juvenile Court the education and training they need; and their needs are greater than those ordinarily sent to the public schools, for most of them have not had the chance in life to develop physically or morally as boys have who come from well regulated homes where proper influence prevails, and where they are encouraged to profit by the educational advantages furnished by our public schools. You will find there not only the ordinary class rooms with a competent teacher in charge of each, but manual training facilities and a well-equipped trade school, an indoor gymnasium, as well as outdoor play grounds and a swimming pool. We also teach them to do gardening and in a limited way give them an opportunity to develop any inclinations they may have to follow an agricultural life.

I desire to call particular attention to a cell house recently built here for men, in which there are 334 cells, each having an outside window which can be operated by the occupant of the cell. Each cell is also equipped with high class plumbing, including wash basin; in fact, sanitary conditions are as perfect as it seemed possible to make them. You will find no dark corners in the building or places where the ventilation is not perfect. The valuation has been conservatively fixed at $225,000. The actual cost is less than $65,000.00. The difference between these amounts represents the value of the inmates’ labor and the product of the institution used in its construction. No mechanical superintendents were employed, our officers acting in the dual capacity of guards and instructors, the inmates performing all the labor, even the plumbing, electrical work, and, in fact, all of the labor required to finish the well-constructed up-to-date building. The center corridor is 260 feet long by 30 feet in width, which we converted into a dining hall. All the prisoners occupying cells in the building have their meals served in this space and the tables and benches used for this purpose are also used for carrying on religious and educational work among the inmates during the evening or on Sundays. This is an entirely new innovation in prison management, but is being carried on with success.

The many advantages of a cell house like this one, built on the plan of the center corridor, are becoming more and more apparent as they are put into practical use. The outside window in each cell goes a long way toward preventing the spread of that dreaded disease, tuberculosis. Light and airy cells not only mean sanitary conditions, but afford an opportunity for the inmates to look out through windows and over walls and witness natural, if not pleasant scenes, which have a tendency to inspire them with more wholesome thoughts than if their gaze rested continually upon stone walls and iron bars. The entertainment of wholesome thoughts is much more apt to be an inspiration to better citizenship than can be suggested by dismal surroundings.

The experience we have had in this cell house has shown that the objections raised by some to a style of construction that would permit the prisoners sitting in cells facing each other across a center corridor is not justified. We have had no difficulty whatever because of this. The discipline maintained has been of a higher order than in the old-style cell houses and has been obtained with comparative ease. It is the intention of the management of this institution to prevail upon the city authorities to grant an appropriation for a series of cell houses built on the center corridor plan to take the place of the old-style ones.

Society nowadays expects more of the management of penal institutions than merely to keep its inmates safely. Some inmates may be lacking only in moral or religious training; with others it may be of the utmost importance that they receive medical or surgical attention; and again, educational advantages often prove to be just the needed inspiration to the unfortunate. Proper physical or mental development is nowadays acknowledged to be the panacea for the delinquent youth, and to some extent the adult. The consideration of these facts will tend to inspire the inmates with at least a wholesome respect for the law, and I believe that a more helpful discipline can be maintained among the inmates when they can be satisfied that something is being done for their benefit and enlightenment. This has been proved to be true in the handling of the delinquent youth in our modern institutions who are no longer looked upon as or called criminals, but young men who can be developed into good citizenship, by first determining their needs and then finding ways and means of supplying them.

In my opinion what has been done for the youth can also be accomplished in a large measure with the adult, especially in a corrective institution such as this. The discipline in a corrective institution must necessarily be exacting but at the same time it should be permeated with that degree of kindness that would inspire the prisoner to his best efforts with the feeling that not only the right but the beneficial thing is being done for him. The law commits to our keeping the undisciplined, the unsocialized and the lawless, who have perhaps never realized the importance of self-control. The discipline maintained among this class by creating only a fear of punishment will in most cases fail to bring about results that are beneficial; such discipline does not prove to be correctional, but on the contrary has the tendency to encourage the practice of deception, for often they have no other incentive when violating the rules than to show that they can avoid detection. It seems to me that discipline to be corrective should be instructive and educational; instructive to a degree that would satisfy the prisoner that the law is not revengeful, but that in restraining him from his liberty it wants to point out to him his weaknesses and to assist him in overcoming them; and educational to a degree that would teach him to formulate rules to govern himself so that he might become a useful member of society. Then he will be more apt to consider the rules made to govern his conduct while in prison as really for his good, and he will co-operate with them to such an extent, at least, that he does not resort to deception. If a prisoner can be taught the lesson of self-control he is better prepared to adapt himself to the outside world and to good citizenship. If all inmates are not susceptible to this form of discipline, a sufficiently large percent respond, and when the great number of first offenders in an institution of this kind is considered, it is well worth an extra effort to maintain a discipline that will appeal to them with beneficial results to the community.

In my estimation, it is highly important in an institution of this kind to be prepared to give the best of medical or surgical treatment to those of the inmates who need it. We have a medical department well equipped with all the facilities of a first-class hospital. The regular staff of that department consists of four physicians and two trained nurses who live on the grounds, besides specialists who visit the institution at regular intervals. In addition to this we have a staff of consulting surgeons and physicians, each of whom visit the department at least once a week. No better attention is given patients in any hospital than our inmates receive. From fifty to seventy-five major operations are performed each month by as competent surgeons as there are in the city. The results obtained in this department have been most gratifying, and tend to prove that if permanent progress is to be made in the matter of the management of penal institutions, much assistance must come from a well regulated medical department, where the mental condition of the inmates is considered as well as the physical.