It is a very busy place, the convict plying his trade industriously, not to be sold or serve some useful purpose, but only to give him practice and skill; when completed it is destroyed, then done over again. The disposition to excel in skill and excellence has a tendency to make them better men. Almost every visitor is impressed with the conviction, that labor here so exquisitely performed, should be applied to some useful purpose and the articles sold.
The carefully prepared system of grading is admirable. A prisoner when he enters is placed in the second grade; he may work up to the highest grade, shorten his term, secure his liberty by good conduct, and proficiency in trades and school work. The lowest grade is cared for much like the prisoners in the penitentiary, the middle grade fare better, have a table-cloth and other privileges, the highest grade have better food and clothing, privileges to converse, and order their food and pay for it out of their own funds. The system seems to rest on three ideas—1st, indeterminate sentence. 2nd, parole provisions of the law. 3rd, the trades and marking system. Gross cost per capita in 1899, $153.85.
MASSACHUSETTS STATE REFORMATORY, CONCORD.
Receives men from 18 to 35; if guilty of crime more than three times, cannot be sent here. The training-school is very much like Elmira, N. Y. After they become proficient in these schools, they pass into the industrial department and are employed at various kinds of productive labor. Sloyd system work is very prominent, forenoons spent in the trades schools, and afternoons in the shops. Prisoners alternate, so that both shops and industrial training-schools are in full operation all of the day.
Products of the shops are furnished other State institutions. They manufacture cotton and woolen goods (having a $35,000 plant of machinery). All weaving is done by hand-looms, made in the institution. There are over twenty industries and the institution uses all the money it earns.
The average convict’s stay is fifteen months, yet it is possible he may work out in a year, and he may be kept two years if convicted for a felony. About half the prisoners remain full time for which they are committed. They have 300 acres of land, and twenty acres are inside the prison walls, 1022 cells; prisoners go out on good records made in school and shop.
ILLINOIS REFORMATORY, PONTIAC.
Has 1,379 inmates between 12 and 21 years. Boys under 16 go to school daily, over 16 years three-quarters of a day. Trades schools and productive labor, contracted out certain sum per hour. Eighty-five per cent. conduct themselves properly, and the authorities keep track of them for a year after they leave. The average stay is 19 months, a few go out in a year. First grade men eat in a dining-room, the rest in their cells. Cost per capita, $120.
THE JUVENILE COURT OF CHICAGO.
Has been in operation over one year, and it has rescued 1,250 children, three fourths of whom have been paroled and placed in charge of probation officers. It is against the law of Illinois to imprison, even in a police-station, any child under twelve years of age, before, during or after trial. In case of necessity the child is to be committed to some suitable institution. The purpose of the plan is to give a boy another chance in his own home under the oversight of a probation officer. The business of the officer is to establish relations of friendship with the boy’s parents, and with the boy himself, and to take pains to secure that the surroundings in which the boy is growing up shall be such as to minister to a decent life. This is another step in that probation system which has long succeeded so well in Massachusetts and which ought to be established in every State in the country. One interesting fact in connection with the workings of the Juvenile Court, is, that the Judge and the probation officers have learned that it is practically hopeless to expect satisfactory results where a boy is a confirmed cigarette-smoker.