To the Acting Committee, Pennsylvania Prison Society, Philadelphia, Pa.
Dear Friends:
In accordance with a resolution of the Acting Committee, adopted at a special meeting held 6th mo. 29, 1908, authorizing the Secretary to visit some prisons in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, I now present the following report:
Since that time I have visited the prisons in thirty-eight counties, including the State Reformatory at Huntingdon, and I am gratified to report that I have been received everywhere with courtesy, and have been enabled to maintain cordial relations with all prison officials whom I have met. Interviews at some length have been held with sheriffs, wardens, under-keepers, inspectors, and the fullest freedom has been granted to inspect the prisons and to speak with the prisoners. As a rule these officials appear to be discharging their duties as well as the equipment of the prisons allows and as faithfully as the conditions admit. Some of the caretakers seem to have a genuine interest for the best welfare of those over whom they have been placed.
I am under the impression that there has been improvement in recent years in the direction of securing a greater degree of cleanliness and better sanitation, and while much of this improvement is due to the various county officials, it must not be forgotten that along these lines the State Board of Charities has rendered important service.
In twenty-four of the prisons visited the prisoners have little or no labor to perform, although the sentence of the presiding judge may have been “to separate and solitary confinement at hard labor.” In no prison is the work arduous. The majority of prisoners welcome opportunities to work. Such occupation is refreshing, as it aids them in whiling away the tedium of their hours of restraint. I heard of no complaints arising from the necessity of laboring, but I did hear complaint arising from the scarcity of employment. In several places both officials and prisoners claim that they are hampered by the State regulations on the subject of prison labor.
“Separate and solitary confinement” is a portion of the sentence which is honored more in the breach than in the observance. It is almost impossible, considering the limited facilities of most of the prisons, to carry out this enactment. In some of the smaller prisons the prisoners are together during most of the day with entire freedom to engage in games, conversation and such exercise as their quarters will permit. At a few of the smaller jails the full freedom of the yard is allowed at all times of the day. It is a source of deep regret that in some prisons the juvenile criminals are confined in the same part of the prison with the older lawbreakers. Usually the boys who have been convicted are very soon sent to the State Reformatory at Huntingdon, but while awaiting trial, or while serving short sentences, they are held in county prisons where there are no arrangements for the segregation of the male prisoners. The women prisoners are usually entirely segregated, but in a few prisons they are confined in cells opening into the same corridors which the men use.
A complete prison ought to have several distinct departments: one for men, one for women, one for boys, one for vagrants and common drunkards, and probably a department for those who are for the first time held for trial. Few of the prisons of the State are so constructed as to admit of such segregation. It seems pitiful that hardened criminals should have such opportunity to corrupt the minds of the young or of those who have committed their first offense under peculiar circumstances of temptation. Those prisons which are constructed with the cells back to back, with door opening into a corridor toward the outside wall of the building, admit more readily of the separation of the various classes of criminals. This plan affords better facilities for light and cheerfulness, and commands some view of the courtyard. It does not give the individual prisoner the opportunity to get air directly from the outside. When such prisons are built, with an additional narrow corridor between the cells at the rear, this objection is in part obviated. At York a prison has recently been built on this general plan. Being three stories in height, it contains several separate subdivisions. The addition to the prison at Allentown, now in process of construction, will have accommodations for about one hundred prisoners, and the commissioners have adopted some of the distinctive features of the York prison.
Your Secretary made some inquiries as to the daily rations, and discovered quite a variety of bills of fare. In more than one half of these prisons there is a per diem allowance for the maintenance of the prisoners. This allowance varies in the prisons visited from fourteen cents to fifty cents. In the smaller prisons this allowance should of necessity be proportionately larger than in the prisons of the more populous counties; but there is a constant tendency, where this allowance is made, to take profit on the transaction, and it appears to be the understanding in some counties that the sheriff is to receive some of his compensation from this source. In one large prison, where there are about one hundred and thirty occupants, the daily ration consists of bread and coffee, the bread being served three times and the coffee twice. Soup is given three times during the week. The allowance for provisions at this prison is thirty cents a day. Those prisoners who have means are allowed to purchase additional supplies from tradesmen, and they can make arrangements to have meat, oysters, etc., especially cooked and served, if they will meet the additional expense. The privilege of purchasing little comforts and additional provisions is almost universal. It is a surprising fact that in one or two prisons it is possible for prisoners to procure, either by purchase or from their friends, a supply of intoxicating drinks. Generally the supply of food is ample and the quality fair. In two or three jails the food is sent from the sheriff’s table. On the whole I am inclined to the belief that the best diet conditions prevail where the authorities let contracts for supplies every three or six months. In prisons where the number of prisoners is fifty or more the daily cost of maintaining a prisoner is from ten cents to twelve cents. I noted in one small county, where a rather profuse bill of fare is served, that the cost was about thirty cents a day.
Vagrants, drunkards and railroad trespassers are often treated with considerable rigor. They may have bread and water for diet and a plank for a bed. In one prison a third offense of this kind is punished with confinement in a small, dark, unfurnished cell for thirty days on diet of bread and water. But in many of the smaller jails these distinctions of punishment are not observed.