The Delinquent (Vol. IV, No. 1), January, 1914

by Various

Marked difference of opinion as to the cause of this fiscal situation exists. Obviously, the debt is due in part to the operating losses, and both the debt and the losses were in part caused by lack of operating capital.

A part of the debt represents outlay for improvements and equipment necessary to provide housing and employment for the convicts withdrawn from the hiring-out system. A part of it, as already suggested, represents lack of operating capital.

When a large proportion of the convict population was hired out, the men who hired the convicts furnished the land, mules, implements and houses. When the State withdrew the convicts from hire, it had to provide all of these things.

When the convicts were hired out, their wages were paid to the State monthly, regardless of the profits or losses of the contractors. This income furnished an operating capital for the prison system as a whole. It was a substantial income: the State received $31 a month for each first-class convict, making a large profit after it had paid for food and clothing and for guarding. When the convicts were withdrawn from hire, this steady and dependable income stopped. Expenditures continued steadily throughout the year; the bulk of the receipts came at the end of the crop year, and, of course, the income was as uncertain as is the weather and the crops.

Thus, much of the indebtedness is explained. However, the wisdom of the commissioners in abolishing the contract system almost three years before they were required by law to do so has been questioned. It has been asserted that if they had permitted the contracts to continue during the three years, receiving the income therefrom, they would have been prepared to enter upon a complete State account system with much better chance for it to succeed. It should be noted, however, for what it may be worth, that some of the contractors said they did not want to keep the convicts under the conditions as to hours of labor, etc. imposed by the act of 1910.

In considering losses from operation of the prison system, it is readily seen that expenses were increased by requirements of the new law. The investigating committee says that $379,791.73 was thus added to the expense account during the first two years. These requirements were:

1. That 10 cents a day should be paid to each convict who had earned a diminution of sentence by good behavior. The commissioners advocated a repeal or modification of this provision. It is almost generally admitted that the provision in its present form is not only too sweeping, but also that it fails of its purpose. It has had little, if any, effect in the way of encouraging good conduct. Evidently, however, this negative result is due not so much to the fact that the per diem was paid as it is to the fact that the per diem has not been paid. After the system became involved in debt, and the $310,000 appropriation above mentioned was exhausted, no further payment of per diem was made, except as convicts were discharged.

2. That convicts should be paid for overtime. The comment upon the per diem item applies to this all the way through. Most of the overtime has gone to cooks, waiters and flunkers. Suspension of per diem and overtime payments has caused much dissatisfaction among the convicts.

3. That certain new offices should be created, teachers be provided, and that the salaries of guards should be increased.

4. That better provision should be made for female convicts.

5. That all new convicts should be brought to Huntsville prison before being assigned to other parts of the system. The commissioners recommended the repeal of this provision, because, they said, medical examination could be made at the farms as well as at Huntsville. They never seemed to understand the purposes of the requirement, which was, briefly, to assign the convicts to proper industries, to prevent sending to outside work men who were likely to attempt escape or to foment mutiny, and to secure to all prisoners some training in prison discipline. This purpose being misunderstood, prisoners are sent to the farms on the next train leaving after their arrival at Huntsville prison.

6. That discharged convicts should be furnished a railroad ticket to any point in the State, instead, as formerly, to the place where convicted. The commissioners recommended the repeal of this provision.

7. That the State should bear the expense of sending the corpses of convicts to their kinspeople upon request. Repeal of this also was recommended.

There were two other matters upon which the commissioners were not in agreement. The first was the requirement of the law that convicts should not be worked more than ten hours a day, this limit to include the time spent going to and from work. The second was the abolition of whipping. This latter was not required by the law, but was enforced by executive order.

Commissioners Tittle and Brahan attributed the losses from operation largely to the fact that the convict population upon the whole was not performing a reasonable amount of labor, as was indicated by the falling off in acreage cultivated. This condition they ascribed largely to the statutory limitation upon the hours of labor, and, further, to the fact that the most effective means of punishment (whipping) had been interdicted by executive order. The farm managers and sergeants, and, in fact, very nearly every officer of the system, supported them in these views.