[1] Read by W. H. Whittaker, Superintendent of the (Occoquan) District of Columbia Workhouse, at National Conference of Charities and Correction, Memphis, May, 1914.
A PRISON OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
By O. F. Lewis
General Secretary of the Prison Association of New York
[Reprinted from The Independent of May 18, 1914.]
The three-car train came out of the Canadian woods from the south and stopped by the stationless road. Twenty-five young fellows jumped down, formed in twos, and, led by an older man, and followed by two older men, walked up the road over the concrete bridge to the prison buildings. They were prisoners, convicted of crimes and serving time. That morning they had left the Central Prison of Toronto—left the forbidding old building, with its bolts, its gloom, its cells and corridors; and now, but a few hours later, they were hastening without shackles, without armed guards, without prison garb, toward the latest Canadian prison, the Central Prison Farm of Guelph.
This means a new era, this method of treating prisoners—an overturning of the old traditions of prison government, a serious break with the past, an almost scornful disregard of the cherished traditions of bars and cells, tortures and punishments. It means an amazing change in the attitude of society toward the prisoner, and a startling change in the feeling of the prisoner toward society.
You have read in recent months about the mutinies at Sing Sing in New York State; how the prisoners have been for almost a century forced into atrociously small cells, with insufficient light and air. You have read how prisoners have been doubled-up, two in a cell, because of the congestion of population. You have learned that prisoners have had to stay in their cells some fourteen hours out of the twenty-four; that these cells are carriers of tuberculosis and venereal disease. And many other terrible things you have read.
In the light of that story, hear this tale of a prison farm.
When I alighted from an earlier train I looked for Warden Gilmour in vain. In the road stood a man in civilian’s clothes. “I’m Sergeant Grant,” said he, “and the warden was to come on this train. He’ll come later, though, with the draft.” We walked toward the prison. On the way we crossed an attractive concrete bridge. “All built by prisoners,” said the sergeant, “and we had hard work to find the bottom for some of the piers. We made this macadam road, also graded up the approaches to the bridge, designed the balustrades, and even hydrated the lime that went into the concrete, after having quarried it from the limestone quarries up there.”
Approaching the prison I looked for the wall and found none. Not a thing apparently, to prevent the men from running away. I asked the sergeant how many escapes they had. “About one and a half per cent. of the population. We’ve lost from three to five this year. Fact is there’s nothing in the way of guns to prevent the men from breaking away any time. There isn’t a guard here that carries a revolver. The warden says: ‘We haven’t taken away the guns from the guards, because we haven’t ever given them guns!’ As a matter of fact, I carry a revolver,” said the sergeant, “but I’ve never used it in eighteen years. But I feel more comfortable with it.” Which made me smile, because it was an example of an age-long tradition dying hard.
The dinner whistle blew at 11:45. Here I saw what in the old-line prison would be the unbelievable. From all parts of the farm came the men in to dinner. It was the reverse of the usual factory procession. Here the crowd poured into the door of a factory building temporarily used as a dining-room and kitchen. There was absolute order. The garb was not unlike that of the average farmer’s helper. Even the customary vizored cap of many prisons was absent, and the old straw hat had taken its place. On the tables, for dinner, were meat and vegetables, tapioca, soup and milk—a liberal amount.