The financial question in every prison in the land is an extremely important one. Funds for prisons are doled out grudgingly, and the demand for absolutely necessary purposes is always far greater than the supply.
A warden performs no more important function than when he sees that the funds of the institution are so used as to effect the highest possible results, and that all the forces of the prison are so energized and conserved as to permit, under ordinary conditions, a satisfactory and proper earning and economizing power. With the many demands made upon him for means for increasing the usefulness of his institution, a high order of financial aptitude is an absolutely necessary characteristic in a successful warden.
DISCIPLINE.
Discipline in a prison is its first requisite. Nothing can be accomplished until officers and convicts are under its sway and control.
The warden who would have control of those under him must himself at all times, be under self control.
The maxim "No one knows how to command who has not first learned how to obey," is a trite and a true one. The population of a prison is made up of a heterogeneous collection of people whose first instincts have been and are, not to obey.
To bring such people into habits of obedience and control requires the highest type of skill, tact and discretion. Punishments and reward must be so blended and combined as to effect the needful results with the least possible friction, and in the most humane and rational manner possible.
No warden can afford to delegate the matter of enforcing discipline entirely or partly, if at all, to another. His first duty to himself, that he may know actual conditions as they exist, is to preside over or assist in, the trial of offenders and to order discipline.
Individual treatment is a necessity in our dealings with delinquents, and a study of the many phases of delinquency is a prime requisite in a successful warden's repertoire.
Brainard F. Smith says: "Many a prisoner has been reformed—or, if not reformed, made a better prisoner—by punishment."