They took the male prisoners to the farm and used them exclusively in the clearing of the land and preparing it for cultivation and in the erection of the necessary buildings, one-story frame buildings erected by the prisoners. To illustrate the economy of the work the administration building, which is 30 by 175 feet, cost in actual money two hundred dollars, the prisoners doing the work, sawing the lumber from the timber on the property.
The work proved a splendid moral and physical tonic to the men. The prison motto was made, “Reformation, not vindictive punishment.”
At first one guard had charge of six prisoners. Now one man has charge of twenty prisoners and directs them in their work.
The prisoners do not wear chains and are not bound at night. There are no bars at the windows and two men take care of 225 male prisoners at night and one woman cares for sixty female prisoners.
During the first year there passed through the prison farm three thousand men. There were but sixty attempts to escape—just two per cent. Twenty of these attempts were successful, or less than one per cent. of the total number of men confined.
The punishment for the unruly is solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water and this form of discipline has only been found necessary for an average of five cases each month, with an average prison population of 550 men, or less than one per cent. From July 1 to September 8 there had been but four women punished. This shows that the methods in use, the farm work and country quiet, and the ennobling influence of honest toil in the open, have accomplished wonders in the handling of the prisoners.
Then the farm method of handling prisoners is splendid economy. It is estimated that to complete the rock-crushing and brick-manufacturing plant, to finish grading the grounds and building the roads and the erection of additional barns and other outbuildings and to pay the ordinary expenses of the prison for the year the cost will be $120,000, which is thirty thousand dollars less than it cost the District to support the prisoners during the last year under the old jail system.
Within three years, the superintendent, Mr. Whittaker, estimates that the farm will be self-supporting, and it may be reasonably expected, the superintendent thinks, that the farm will clear from twenty to thirty thousand dollars a year after paying all the expenses of maintaining the prisoners.
It is found that the new system has caused a decrease in prison population. Many of the prisoners reform, while the class which has no liking for honest toil and has heretofore taken a season in the district jail in search of rest and refreshment which they could not otherwise obtain are fighting shy of the district police courts. It seems now that, at the present rate of decrease, the population of the prison-farm the second year will be some nineteen hundred less than during the first year.
The superintendent, Mr. Whittaker, endeavors to impress upon the men that it is better in every way to work as free men and earn wages than to be sent to the farm and be compelled to work without wages. Three of the best and most useful employees of the farm are men who were once confined thereon as prisoners.