The Official State delegates of this Prison Society present at that Congress were, Mrs. Deborah C. Leeds, John J. Lytle, and Rev. R. Heber Barnes, whose report will be found further on.
The matter of a House of Detention, for our first-class cities, juvenile prisoners between 8 and 16 years, has made but little progress, and it still awaits consent to appropriate one of our unused school-houses for that purpose.
The inequality of sentences often come to the knowledge of the Acting or Visiting Committee, both at the Penitentiary and the County Prison; and we often wonder that our Judges do not adopt some uniform length of sentences, especially for first imprisonments for minor offences.
The Acting Committee of 50 of this Society, and who are official visitors to the Eastern Penitentiary and County Prison and annex, have been untiring in their efforts to reform those whom they have visited in their cells. The monthly reports show that members of the Visiting Committee have made the past year 731 visits to prisoners at the Eastern Penitentiary on 15,616 prisoners, and at the County Prison and Convict Dept. Holmesburg, 848 visits to 6,191 prisoners.
Our female members visit the female prisoners in both institutions. Kind-hearted willing souls are found among the subscribers of our Society, who are willing to freely give and have spent their time and money for the recovery of those who have stumbled and fallen. What we need most is a classification of prisoners, that all may be employed in some work, and a merit system. The nearest approach to a merit system now is a shortened term or commutation for good behavior, and every man receives his pardon from the Governor which restores him to citizenship.
Eastern Penitentiary Board of Inspectors have done wisely in the sanitary improvements of the institution the past year, under the direction of our esteemed warden, D. W. Bussinger. The place once so cold and cheerless, has been brightened up and made scrupulously clean, and the foul draughts of air are no more. The fronts of out-buildings have been rebuilt and present an appearance of firmness and stability. The cells are kept neat and clean, and the food is much better, being in a larger variety, and by careful economy, at no greater cost. When you reach a man’s stomach with good things, it seems to brighten up his countenance; every visitor realizes this. The men have daily exercise in the yard, for health; and an instrumental band has been formed of those in the bakery department, and allowed in the rotunda two evenings in a month to entertain the entire population of the institution; they have become very creditable performers.
Our Prison Agent, John J. Lytle, is at the Penitentiary nearly every day of the year, and in advance of a man’s going out, provides through this Society what the State does not, a new suit of clothing when needed, and procures a railroad ticket if he is to go to some distant home, and then when the man has a place to work (if a trade), he provides tools and a suitable boarding-place until the man is able to do for himself. After a time he may have fallen, or met with misfortune, and again he comes for help that he may again be placed in position where he can earn a support; in all these cases the prisoner is identified by his prison number, which no man ever forgets. In order to carry on this work for the discharged prisoners, the income from the funds of the Society is but a third of what is needed; and as the Legislature and Governors have failed the past six years to grant the Society the accustomed $3000 annually, we have been compelled to solicit donations from benevolent donors for the discharged prisoners of the Eastern Penitentiary. The aid given for the discharged prisoners of the County Prison, is from the income of the Society.
It seems hardly just that we be compelled to solicit for discharged prisoners of the Eastern Penitentiary from Philadelphians, when many of the convicts are sent there from most of the eastern counties.
Philadelphia County Prison, Moyamensing.—A recent personal inspection of every nook and corner of this old prison (erected 1835) revealed the fact, that under the present Board of Inspectors, with generous modern ideas for alterations and improvements, it might truly be called an up-to-date city prison; scrupulously clean and in order everywhere, inside and out. Our highly esteemed Superintendent, Robert C. Motherwell, Jr., shows his especial adaptation to the work; for during the past year 45,688 persons passed in and out under his eye, about 3,800 per month; of these the received were white males, 17,788; white females, 1,889; black males, 2,508; black females 653. Total, 22,835; of these 532 were boys under sixteen years old. Total discharged, 22,853. This large number of juveniles, caused the remark of a keeper, that if he had to choose between the care of 12 boys or 500 men, he would prefer the latter. These boys are never placed in a felon’s cell, but in a portion especially assigned them, and are always apart from the other older prisoners.
All the repairs or alterations are done by the convicts, and many are employed in the shops. There is now a first-class steam-heating arrangement, and electric plant with sufficient voltage for an electrocution-chair in place of the gallows, if the State so directed. In connection with this, is a Kenyun steam disinfectant apparatus (the latest and most approved device) for the renovation of clothing, mattresses, and bedding from vermin, microbes, and possible contagion; treating it by high pressure of steam then by vacuum.