“We also have a 450 acre farm for the juvenile prisoners,” he continued, “and this too, is proving a great success. It is located twenty-three miles from the city and the large farm is ten miles from Cleveland. All boys under sixteen years are sent to the juvenile farm.
“Our large farm,” said Mr. Cooley, “cost us $330,000 ten years ago. We have recently been offered $1,000,000 for it, but of course refused to consider the offer. We have hundreds of heads of fine cattle, hogs and horses and raise everything in the way of farm products. The profits possible on a farm of this kind are not to be realized by people who have had no experience with the system.
“We also do away with the problem of labor. We have the men on hand with nothing to do with them but let them work. We do not compete with labor, either. The men enjoy the work and nine times out of ten leave the farm better morally and physically than they came to it. Such is not the case with the man who spends a week or six weeks in the stagnant atmosphere of a city jail.”
422 Convicts to be “Turned Loose.”—The New York World, of April 5th, prints a special dispatch from Louisville, Kentucky.
“Kentucky is facing the problem of caring for 422 convicts, to be liberated at approximately the same time and for whom no provision has been made. The prospect is viewed with varying sensations in different parts of the State. In cities and towns there is alarm, but on the farms and plantations, where help is scarce, no fears are felt, and in fact the liberated criminals will be made welcome for the labor they can perform.
“This condition is brought about by the new indeterminate sentence law which is now operative in Kentucky and which does away with the old law by which the jury trying a case fixed the term of years for which a person should be confined, in the same verdict declaring him guilty. As it is now, the jury merely passes upon a prisoner’s guilt or innocence, and if he is found guilty his prison term is automatically fixed by the law covering the offense with which he is charged. These sentences, of course, range from a specified minimum number of years to a maximum. And it has been the rule heretofore for the Prison Board with whom the power of parole rests, to allow the prisoners their freedom largely upon the character of their crime and their conduct while in prison.
“But in the John De Moss case (recently decided by the Court of Appeals), it is held that if a prisoner has completed his minimum sentence and shows a clear record in the prison he must be issued a parole then. Another feature is that he must be able to show that he has some legitimate occupation waiting for him when he is set at liberty again. This parole, of course, does not free the prisoner absolutely. A string is held on him, and should he ever transgress again he may be brought back and made to complete his original sentence.
“Naturally, the convicts are delighted. Of the 422 convicts to get their liberty 232 will go from the penitentiary at Frankfort and 190 from the Eddyville prison.
“One of the requirements with which a prisoner must conform before he can be paroled even under the new order is that he must have a job awaiting him. This has caused the 422 prisoners who are to be released to cast about for a landing place. Among them are individuals of all classes, some very expert in certain lines, but the most of them are ordinary laborers, this being especially true of the negroes, who are in the majority. Right here is where the release of the prisoners promises to be a good thing for the State at large. For several years the question of farm labor has grown to be more and more a matter of serious nature. The negroes prefer to live in the towns or to work on the public works, where they can be together in crowds. Often the farmers are sorely tried in their efforts to get labor at rush seasons and are forced to pay exorbitant prices.