(3) A similar examination of the Glen Mills Schools—the Girls’ Department, Sleighton Farms, at Darlington, and the Boys’ Department at Glen Mills;
(4) A similar examination of the Philadelphia House of Correction and of the County Convict Prison at Holmesburg, Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia, the Allegheny County Workhouse at Hoboken and many other county institutions;
(5) A study of the constitution, organization and functions of the State Board of Public Charities, and specifically of those of its Committee on Lunacy;
(6) A study of the powers and activities of the Prison Labor Commission instituted under the Act of June 1, 1918;
(7) A careful survey of the entire history of the penal system of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from the colonial period down to the present time, based on the historical research of Professor Harry E. Barnes of Clark University, Massachusetts;
(8) An investigation of significant correctional institutions in several other States, notably in New York, New Jersey and Ohio.
To supplement and enlarge the range of these inquiries and studies, the Commission was permitted to avail itself of the results of previous investigations conducted by two of its members; on the Employment and Compensation of Prisoners in Pennsylvania, by Professor Louis N. Robinson, as Secretary of the Penal Commission of 1913-1915, and on the county jails and workhouses, made periodically from 1914 to 1918 by Albert H. Votaw, as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
The Commission desires to express its sense of deep obligation to the officials and inspectors of prisons in this Commonwealth for the courtesy and hospitality extended to its members in the course of their investigations. It also acknowledges its indebtedness to the Secretary and members of the Board of Public Charities and to the Secretary of the Public Charities Association for their helpful co-operation.
The Commission has heretofore submitted to the Governor two preliminary reports, one a Special Emergency Report on Prison Labor, bearing date September 1, 1918, and a special report on the State Industrial Home for Women, under date of September 15, 1918, both of which are hereto appended.
While both these reports were called out by war emergencies, the former by the dearth of labor power to man the war industries of the Commonwealth, the latter by the need of providing a place for the detention and treatment of the large number of dissolute women convicted of offenses against Federal and State laws enacted for the protection of the soldiers in the training camps—the Commission believes that they are still pertinent and that the recommendations which they contain should form a part of any constructive scheme for the improvement of the penal system of the Commonwealth.