Parole in Michigan.—During the fiscal year ending December 31, 1913, the State pardon board paroled 647 prisoners, having investigated a total of 1,424 cases. The average length of parole was 10.8 months, the average number on parole during the year was 619 and the number of prisoners violating their paroles was 199, the percentage of violation being 15.9 per cent.
Forty-three meetings were held by the board, four being at Marquette, 12 at Jackson, 12 at Detroit and three at Lansing.
The paroled prisoners earned a total of $287,796.65, while the total expenses of the board were $4,370.30.
There is some opposition to the present system of a pardon board, the members of which receive $7 per day and expenses when acting. No member is paid for more than 200 days of any one year, however.
The Jacksonville Correctional Farm.—Police Justice Stein, of Detroit, has recently brought this description of the Jacksonville (Fla.) city prison farm:
“The farm consists of 640 acres, a mile square, and lies about seven miles outside the city of Jacksonville,” he said. “The property was purchased by the city two years ago. Several hundred acres were then covered with timber. Much of it was high and dry and clear of timber, while the remainder of the land was submerged. The land was purchased at a low price. Since the city bought it the water has been drained off into the St. Johns’ river, and this portion of the farm is now as fertile as any land in Florida.
“An ordinary wire fence, about five feet high, is the only enclosure about the farm. There are four buildings on the land, all of wood. One is for the women who are sent to the farm, and one for the attendants, consisting of a warden, a cook, a physician and several guards and helpers. The other two are used by the prisoners. The buildings for the prisoners are equipped with shower baths.
“The prisoners are taught to work on the farm. They raise all the vegetables used on the farm, and the sole cost to the city of operating the farm is for meat and clothes which averages about seven cents a day for each prisoner. The prisoners do not wear striped clothes, but overalls and ordinary jumpers. Neither is a ball and chain fastened to them when they go to work. During the last two years but one prisoner has escaped or tried to escape, and he came back of his own volition two days later.