On July 4th, at Great Meadow Prison, six hundred inmates were marched down to the prison ball field, one half mile from the prison, under the supervision of inmate officers. The regular prison guards were not used.
Miss Katherine B. Davis, commissioner of correction of New York City, has been having plenty of activity in the administration of the department. Several riots occurred at the Penitentiary in the early part of July, following effective methods of reducing the amount of “Dope” purveyed by the prisoners. More modern methods of conducting the city’s correctional institution and a certain antagonism to the new reform administration of the city’s correctional institutions, also played a part. The riots were successfully overcome, and Miss Davis was not only “on the job” but in the midst of it.
In Buffalo, N. Y., a new county jail is to be built for the detention of prisoners prior to or during trial. The Prison Association of New York is making a strong campaign for the erection of a thoroughly modern jail with outside cells, as contrasted with the old traditional type of inside cages, the prevalent American type of jail construction. In this campaign the Association is cooperating with a group of the Board of Supervisors of Erie county. Among those who have written long letters advocating the outside cell type of construction are Professor C. R. Henderson of the University of Chicago, Commissioner Katherine B. Davis of New York, Dr. Hasting H. Hart of the Russell Sage Foundation, Superintendent Frank Moore of the State Reformatory of New Jersey. Amos W. Butler of Indiana, and Drs. S. A. Knopf and G. M. Parker of New York City. The special committee recently appointed by the Board of Supervisors will visit institutions of both types of construction, among them the Prison Farm at Guelph.
Because of the absence of any work under the proposed State-use system which the prisoners could do, it was found necessary to continue for the present the contract system at the State Prison of New Jersey at Trenton, although by law all contracts should have expired on June 30th.
There is agitation in Baltimore for a State Workhouse similar to that of Occoquan, in the District of Columbia.