In order to obviate this condition of affairs, the General Assembly in 1917 passed an Act (No. 337, P. L. 1917), vesting in the officers in charge of county prisons the privilege of allowing the prisoners to work on county and poorhouse farms. Although only twenty-seven counties have taken advantage of this Act, its results have been very beneficial. The workers have improved in health, strength and morale, and the produce of their labor has been of material help in the up-keep of the institutions. Unfortunately, the operation of this Act terminates with the close of the war.
A more comprehensive Act was proposed by the Penal Commission of 1913-1915, which recommended the establishment of six industrial farms to be controlled by the State, to which all persons convicted of crime or misdemeanor, and now committed to county institutions, should hereafter be sent. This admirable measure was, however, amended in such a way as to leave the initiative in the creation of such farms and the control thereof to the County Commissioners of the nine groups of counties into which the State was divided for the purpose (No. 399, P. L. 1917). This legislation has fallen flat, not one of the industrial districts having carried the scheme into effect.
Your Commission submits that there is no remedy for the condition of affairs above described other than the complete assumption by the State of the custody and care of the offenders, whether felons or misdemeanants, who are now committed to the county institutions.
Farming for prisoners, as our investigations in other States have clearly shown, has passed beyond the experimental stage. The State of Massachusetts, some years ago, established a penal farm for misdemeanants at Bridgewater. A large tract of ground was purchased, consisting largely of swamp and abandoned land, which, by the use of fertilizers and by drainage, has been brought to a high degree of cultivation. This enterprise has been so signally successful that it is now proposed to move the State Prison at Charlestown to this same farm at Bridgewater.
Perhaps the most successful experiment of the kind has been made in Indiana, where the State has taken over the custody of misdemeanants on the plan which was recommended by the Pennsylvania Penal Commission of 1913-1915, a recommendation which is renewed in this report. The Superintendent of the Indiana State Farm makes the following report:—
“The farm had an average daily population, in 1918, of four hundred and sixty-two prisoners. All institution buildings and outbuildings, the sewer system, power plant, heating and water systems, land reclaiming, farming and gardening, has been done with the labor of misdemeanants at a surprisingly low cost for guards. The Indiana State Farm is allowed fifty-five cents per man per day for its entire maintenance, while the same man in jail, at the present time, will cost more than one dollar per day for the gross maintenance. The fifty-five cents per man per day pays the entire pay roll, subsistence, fuel, light, heat, medical services, clothing, transportation, field and garden seeds, fertilizers, common labor, tools and all other items of maintenance....
“The effect that the Indiana State Farm has had on the jail system of the State is indicated by the following figures: In the year 1914 there were 18,130 commitments to county jails, in 1915, 14,644, and in 1916, 9,896. The doors of the State Farm were opened April 12, 1915, and the full effect of the State Farm was not noticeable until the close of the year 1916. The moral effect of the institution on the misdemeanant class was one very important factor in reducing the jail commitments.”
During the year ending September 30, 1918, this penal farm was two-thirds self-supporting, and it is confidently expected that the institution will soon be entirely self-supporting.
New York City has established a reformatory farm of 630 acres at New Hampton, N. Y., to which boys and men from sixteen to thirty years of age are committed. They have no bars, no wall, no restraining thing, except supervision. They have no cell for punishment. From the farm they secure most of their provisions. In handling 2000 prisoners, they have lost only five. The health of the inmates is greatly improved. It is estimated that 45 per cent. of the prisoners there were addicted to the drug habit. Most of them were sent away restored. What they needed was to be built up by fresh air, good food and exercise, and to be employed in wholesome work. In fact, they have been taught the dignity of labor—a thing to which most of them had hitherto been strangers.
But we need not go beyond the limits of our own State to prove the benefit and success of farming for misdemeanants. The administration of the Allegheny County Workhouse illustrates the economy of providing employment for prisoners on an industrial farm. Here the average daily number of inmates in 1918 was 722. The daily average cost of each inmate was 81 cents, but after deducting the earnings of the inmates, the net cost was only 32 cents. This means that the inmates earned 49 cents a day toward their own maintenance. Their bookkeeping indicates merely the cost of raising the crops. If the institution had charged itself with the produce used by it at the prevailing market price, the net cost would have been much less. The farm has 670 acres, of which 560 acres are farmed and used as pasture. The inmates are continually coming and going. Many of them are committed for ten days or less, and a large part are sentenced for 30 days, while comparatively few of them remain longer than one year. This shows that a great deal of efficient work can be secured, even from those who serve for short terms.
A similarly striking result has been attained in Delaware County under the law of 1911, empowering the judges of the Courts of Common Pleas to release on parole convicts confined in county jails or workhouses under the supervision of designated probation officers. Acting under this law, the President Judge of that county has during the year 1918 paroled a number of inmates of the county jail to work on farm lands rented for the purpose with the remarkable result that only two of the men so paroled made their escape (both being afterwards retaken) and that nearly $14,000 worth of crops were sold for cash in addition to the vegetables used and stored in the prison. The net profit is estimated at $7,000.