The wider extension of the system of probation will save thousands of men from a prison experience, thereby protecting the taxpayer and reclaiming the individual himself, the latter occurring in between 75 and 85 per cent. of the cases. This saving to taxpayers is most evident to-day, for were the two recorders of Wayne county to bring to court and sentence those who now enjoy a probationary relation to their courts, there would not be empty cells enough in our State penal institutions to receive them. It is much better to build up homes than to erect more prisons.
Undoubtedly the physician, the surgeon, the alienist and the psychologist will serve as greater factors to relieve our crime problem than in the past. It is well known that a nervous condition occasioned by affections of the eyes, nose and ears has played a large part in the delinquency of boys and girls, of young men and young women. The splendid results achieved in Chicago and in Rahway, N. J., as well as in other localities, have already warranted a great deal more of investigation and effort along the same lines.
The prison of the future will be located miles away from the city, upon a tract of sufficient acreage to insure outdoor employment for a large number of men during the larger portion of the year. Work under such conditions will not only be more lucrative for the State, but, better still, the means of building up physically and mentally, as well as morally, these wards of the commonwealth.
The warden of our prison at Jackson already is planning to divide some of the acreage into small tracts to be “gardened” by “trusties”; a record being kept of the cost of care and seeding of these little farms, as well as the value of the products thereof, thus encouraging a healthy rivalry among those responsible for these sections of the prison farm. How much this will accrue to the benefit of the men will be best understood by those who have worked among paroled or discharged prisoners.
The prevailing style of prison architecture will be superseded by one which will admit of the greatest possible amount of sunlight and circulating air in the cells. Most cellhouses are constructed with the corridors running along the outer walls of the building, while the cells are arranged in the center, end to end, a thick wall separating them. In the effort to reduce the possibility of escapes, the health of the inmates has not always been properly considered.
The United States can well afford to turn backward for improvement in cell construction. In Richmond, Va., to-day stands a building erected from plans drawn by Thomas Jefferson in the year 1797. This cellhouse, still in use, and esteemed by the inmates as better than the steel cell-block of very recent construction, is erected in the form of a horseshoe. There are three stories of cells, and each cell has a window opening upon the prison yard, while the doors of the cell swing out toward a large court within the circle of the horseshoe, and a covered veranda traverses the entire length of the cellhouse. The cots are not near the floor, but about on a line with the lower sash of the cell-window, some four or five feet from the floor, insuring to bedding, cell and inmate the greatest possible modicum of sunshine and air.
In the prison of the future each man will be paid a certain sum for the performance of his work, whether his task be remunerative or what is termed state work. From this wage he will pay for his food, clothing and such other necessities or luxuries as he may obtain from the inmates’ co-operative store. He will thus be accorded greater latitude in the selection of the aforesaid raiment and food. Hence even by these humble means, the prisoner’s power of initiative will be somewhat retained against the day when he shall again fare forth to take his place among the world’s free men.
In this prison of the coming day discipline will be largely maintained, not by fear of force, but rather by the self-interest and personal pride of the men confined. Punishment will more and more take the form of deprivation of privileges, which latter will be greatly increased because the better spirit and attitude of the men will be such as to warrant the greatest possible privileges.
Wardens, under-officials and guards will be recruited from individuals who have a positive social vision, and who will look upon their position not as a “job,” but as an opportunity for service to humanity. Already the day has dawned when men are being placed at the head of these institutions, not because they are politicians with a “pull,” but rather because they are capable business men and broad-minded humanitarians with a heart. Men are to arise who will feel as much “called” to labor among the prison “shut-ins” as do now those who are set aside to serve as ministers of charity or uplift workers.
These changes, and even greater ones, will be strongly manifest in the prison of the future, for the day will yet dawn when bastilles will be no more in demand among the sons of men.