During the evening and after the days’ work is done and on Sundays the men are taken to a large building known as the Rest Hall and Library, where they are permitted to talk, play checkers, read the daily newspapers, which are bought for them by the management, and they have access to a library of over 4,000 volumes. On summer evenings and on Sundays the inmates are permitted to take the benches out into the yard where it is possible to enjoy more freedom and have an abundance of fresh air.
In one of the buildings referred to there is a shower bath and arrangements where the inmates make their toilets. In this building 125 men can be taken care of at one time. We have no wash basins, but have a faucet for each man, which makes it more sanitary, and the men are also furnished with individual towels and soap.
The fact that prisoners are sent to us for short sentences (the time now being from 15 days to three years, our average sentence being 35 days) makes it very necessary and important that the sanitary conditions should be closely looked after, as from 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. of the prisoners sent us, when received, have vermin on their persons. This however is looked after so closely that though we handle from five to six thousand people a year we are absolutely free from vermin in all of the 30 buildings.
In working prisoners we give them, from 15 to 20 men, to an officer. His part is to direct this number in a humane and intelligent manner, and to have them understand it is our purpose to be helpful. With such methods we have very little trouble so far as discipline is concerned.
Work on this 1150 acres of land consists of building roads, constructing buildings, farming, making brick, crushing stone, building and repairing wagons, painting and whitewashing the buildings, poultry raising, dairy, etc.
At the present time we are working 70 head of horses; these are all cared for by the inmates without an officer with them, and neither the farm or the buildings are enclosed by as much as a fence. We lose very few prisoners by escaping, less on an average than two per month. Our results show we get a fair day’s work from each of our able-bodied inmates.
In handling prisoners for the past sixteen years, starting with the old-time methods of having a 30 foot wall, cells, locks and bars, with stripes for clothing (and a prisoner when reported by an officer for failure to comply with some order was taken into a room, his clothing removed and lashed with a cat-o-nine tails by the officer who reported him) convinces me that the open-air method, with as few restrictions as possible so far as the inmates are concerned, will give us better results from the standpoint of discipline and reformation.
We handle the women prisoners from the City of Washington with the same system of buildings as are provided for the men. The female department is managed by women and the two institutions are some distance apart. The average population of the female department is about one hundred. The women do the laundry work and make the clothes for the population of the two institutions. In addition, a number of them work on the lawn and in the garden, and do the painting and other sanitary work about the buildings. The female department, like the male department, has neither cell, lock or bar; the buildings are one story with neither wall or fence around them. We have handled three thousand women in the past three and a half years and have only lost three by escaping.
We have very little sickness, and this we attribute to our method of work, sanitation, and to the construction of the buildings which give open-air treatment at all times with plenty of sunshine. Ninety-five per cent. of our inmates, both male and female, show decided improvement on their discharge both in their mental and physical condition.
The time is coming when the District of Columbia Workhouse will be self-supporting, if not more. When it is, I believe an appropriation should be provided whereby the dependent families of the inmates, whether they be sent to us because of non-support or for other violation of the statutes, should be paid a sum of money sufficient to provide in a comfortable manner for their support during the confinement of the offenders. If such a system were inaugurated, the financial benefit received by the family would only be a secondary consideration. The greatest benefit would be the lasting impression made on the individual while at the institution, developing in him industrial habits and self-confidence, which would help him to become a self-supporting citizen, capable of caring for his family after he is released. This certainly would be true in 60 per cent. of the cases we have, if there could be brought about a change in the penal code of the District of Columbia through having the inmates committed on an indeterminate sentence rather than on a fixed sentence such as is now being given.