“When they first come from the prison they are not very strong. None of them is allowed to do more than ten hours work a day, less in winter. After a few weeks they show a great change in appearance and in strength, and statistics show that with the better food and the fresh air they increase in weight, on an average, fifteen pounds. Last year in the penitentiary in a population of twelve hundred there were twenty-five deaths, and of those nineteen died from tuberculosis. Most of the prisoners are negroes, and tuberculosis is the most deadly disease among them. During the same period in a road force of seven hundred and eighty there was not a death.
“But another thing is important. You cannot reform men without healthy occupation. Crime comes chiefly from idleness, and inability to work from lack of training. This gives healthful work. Not a man has been found who, after trying it, would not prefer the outdoor work to remaining in the penitentiary. The common phrase is, “The road for me!” Under the old plan the State paid $150,000 a year to keep these men in idleness, and there was nothing to show for it. Now a smaller amount is used with the result of good roads.
“The roads cost on an average about $3,000 a mile. It costs about seventy cents a day for each man, to feed, guard, clothe, transport and recapture him; forty cents a day for feeding, guarding and transporting. At present there are four hundred and fifty men in the twelve camps, of whom more than half are jail men. The long-time convicts naturally become the best road builders, but the short-time men can do a great deal. In twelve months there were but eighteen escapes, and eleven of the fugitives were recaptured. Stone crushers, furnished by the county, are used, but all the work save running the engine is done by the convicts. Virginia furnishes abundance of stone. The men get it out of the quarry, ready for crushing, and after it is crushed pile it by the road ready for spreading. They also, of course, do the grading and surfacing.
“On Sundays the local preachers hold services in each camp and reading matter is provided, but there is no schooling. Whenever possible the road is cut off from public travel while the convicts are at work.
“The system of conditional pardon exists in Virginia. It is granted after they have served half their term if they are recommended by the board, but each man must have honest labor provided for him before he can thus be paroled. This still applies to these men. If they are sick or injured the county physician looks after them. This road-making experiment has been working eighteen months continuously because the climate is so mild the men can work outdoors all winter.”
Warden W. H. Moyer, of the Federal Prison, Atlanta, Ga., read a paper on the question, “Should Indiscriminate Visiting to Prisons and Prisoners Be Permitted?” The speaker distinguished between indiscriminate visits to prisons and to prisoners. He declared himself opposed to both. Visits to prisons are usually made only to satisfy a morbid curiosity, and often result in unjust criticism, destructive of public confidence. They should therefore be prohibited, excepting by those who are engaged in educational or charitable work. Visitors to prisoners are rarely prompted by morbid curiosity. With very rare exceptions such visitors are relatives. But only in specially meritorious cases should even these be admitted.
“To the young man of fine sensibilities a visit from his wife or mother would be deplorable. It may seem anomalous to speak of convicts with fine sensibilities, but the expression is perfectly proper and entirely applicable. There are such convicts, and that fact cannot be too well recognized.”
The speaker illustrated this view by relating the example of a young wife who at first decided to reside near the penitentiary in which her husband was confined, but who finally wisely decided to await his return to their distant home rather than to meet him in convict garb and amid a prison environment.
“Such instances are not isolated; there are many others of a similar nature which have occurred frequently in my experience, but, after all, they are at most exceptional, and merely establish what I have already stated, that a hard and fast rule absolutely prohibiting visits to prisoners is not now practicable, although such a rule would be justified in a very large proportion of actual cases.
“Answering, now, the question which is the subject of this paper, I submit my opinion that indiscriminate visits to the prison and the prisoners should not be permitted.”