We rejoice that our Government so clearly sets forth the evils of a military authority, the spirit of which is so manifestly opposed to the genius of our free institutions.
On behalf of the Editorial Committee,
J. F. OHL,
FLORENCE BAYARD KANE,
ALBERT H. VOTAW.
PRISON EXPERIENCES.
Within the last few years the general public has been informed of the real life of the convict by intelligent observers who have suffered a few days of incarceration in order to gain an insight into the actual effects of imprisonment. The accounts were interesting and instructive, but we now have another opportunity to acquire knowledge of prison conditions from some intelligent and conscientious persons who have been imprisoned without resorting to a fake process in order to have such experience. We refer to a class of offenders who from religious scruples and in some cases for other reasons have disobeyed the military requirements. We hold no brief for these offenders, but the observations of some of these persons are a decided contribution to the science of penology. Making due allowance for hasty conclusions arrived at from a brief period of incarceration, and also after insufficient opportunity to grasp the subject in its entirety, nevertheless, the facts related, and the arguments and deductions derived from their experiences should appeal to all who have interest in the reformation of criminals.
Rev. Evan Thomas, a young man of deep religious conviction, and of a keen sense of injustice, has recently published in The Survey some details of prison life in the Federal Prison at Leavenworth, Kansas.
We quote some portions of his article.
“The burden of prison life as I experienced it, however, was not the physical hardships but the unspeakable moral filth and vice to which one is constantly exposed. I could not have believed many of the things I heard and witnessed at Fort Leavenworth had they been reported to me before going there. No sexual vice or moral depravity is too low for some of the men confined there. The Disciplinary Barracks have been called the ‘cess pool for the dregs of the army.’ But many a fine young soldier whose only offense was to overstay his leave or be the helpless victim of the antiquated military law in this country, has found his way among the ‘dregs’ of the army; and as for the others, the great majority are the products of our reform schools, orphan asylums and jails. These men are indiscriminately grouped together in the prison. It is true that there are two so-called honor wings for prisoners in the Disciplinary Barracks, but I was never able to discover just what was necessary to be assigned to these wings. The information generally given me by other prisoners was that it was necessary to do ‘some hand-shaking’ first. As a matter of fact, as nearly as I was able to learn, the power lay very largely in the hands of a group of prisoners, who through clever politics and the holding of certain important jobs in the executive office and elsewhere, were able to control things to a large extent. I was told that even in these honor wings moral conditions were bad, but in the other wings where men were indiscriminately alloted, it often happened that diseased men were assigned to the same cells with others who had to share the same toilet facilities. The sixth wing, composed of eight tiers of open cells, each of which contains three double-decked cots and six occupants, is known as the ‘mad-house’ by the prisoners. Any thoughtful reading, writing or study in this wing is next to impossible. Before going into solitary confinement as a protect against the severe treatment accorded to such conscientious objectors as refused to work, I spent one day in this wing and the thought of ‘solitary’ lost much of its dread for me.
“It is certainly possible for the man of wide interests or strong character to live in such surroundings without any great degree of moral harm to himself, but for the young, the weak, the very immature, such conditions are nothing short of ruinous. The conversation is confined largely to sex, ‘booze’ and the personal daring of the prisoners. No crime is too terrible and no feat too desperate for most of these men in their talk. The menace of this sort of thing to those whose interests are almost entirely within the prison walls is the most insidious and destructive thing imaginable. Yet no real effort is made by the authorities to group the prisoners so that at least some of the men could be spared a great deal of temptation. Much more serious is the fact that the prison life itself is not calculated to give a man any interests but those of the basest sort. Self-government is practically unknown at Fort Leavenworth except in the honor wings, where I believe the occupants are allowed to elect their own orderlies.
“At the Disciplinary Barracks there is a department of psychiatry which takes a very careful record of every prisoner’s history and this record is faithfully verified by the authorities through letters and other means of information. But once this record is completed and on the files, apparently everything has been done that is required. So far as I was able to observe, at least, no really constructive efforts were made to relieve the conditions in the wings which I have spoken of, where a man of refined sensibilities is often quartered in the same double-decked bunk with a degenerate or a moral pervert.