The Review, Vol. 1, No. 12, December, 1911

by Various

How many of our prison officials will hold up their hands in holy horror at such unconventional conduct on the part of the warden?

Slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime is forbidden in the United States by the thirteenth amendment to the constitution. It is by this amendment that the state has any right in the labor of convicts. That right, I think, should only exist when the convict labors for the state or its institutions. Where the state through its courts has no power, as punishment for crime, to sentence a convict to labor for private persons, it should have no right to do so directly by contracts with private persons providing for the labor or the product of the labor of the convicts.

Under the plan organized labor favors, the convicts are always under the control of the state and its authorized officials. They may be shifted from one form of work to another as the needs of the state or the health and training of the convicts require.

Every convict who has no trade and is capable of learning one should be taught one most suitable for him. Not in a haphazard, spasmodic way, but in a way that will make him an efficient, intelligent mechanic, retaining skill, and able to follow the trade when he is released. In the arrangement of employment for the prisoners the state should endeavor to supply itself with everything necessary in its various institutions. Convicts should be employed as nearly as possible at the work they are accustomed to, especially if they are skilled mechanics, in order that they should not lose their skill. A large proportion of the convicts are men accustomed to outdoor life, either on farms or other outdoor labor; many of them are convicted of crimes in no way violent or due to vicious or violent dispositions.

To confine men of this kind in cells and compel them to work in shops is to endanger their health, break them down physically, and return them to society not only morally sick, but also physically and mentally sick.

The death rate from tuberculosis is much higher in prisons than outside. In some prisons the conditions are such that a sentence of five years or more means almost invariably another case of tuberculosis and death.

The danger to the public from the clothing and other products made by these tuberculosis infected convicts is so great that if the public only knew the facts, prompt remedial legislation would be forced. The states are spending millions of dollars annually to eliminate or reduce the great “white plague,” yet at the same time they are maintaining also at public expense some of the worst causes. These convicts are returned to society about every five years, and the product of their labor is in every state in the Union. Is it not better and cheaper to prevent tuberculosis by wiping out one of its most prolific causes than to let it continue to spread pain, misery and death, among our people who have committed no crime?

As large an amount of outdoor work as possible should be provided. A large farm should be operated, on which not only necessary foodstuffs be raised, but a flour mill for the grinding of flour and all other necessary plants for the turning of the different raw products into the finished articles needed in the various institutions. The making of roads is needed in almost every state, and is an ideal occupation for convicts. After providing for the needs of the state and state institutions the surplus labor could be used in this way. Only those convicts should be put to work on the roads who have been convicted of minor offenses, and can be trusted without ball and chain and armed guards. In this day of speedy communications by telegraph, telephone and wireless, the old restraints are very much less needed.

At the present time none of the prisons of the country are self-supporting. All of these penal institutions are a burden on taxpayers of this country. All free workmen are taxpayers of the state, either directly or indirectly. It is unfair that any one part of the taxpayers should be discriminated against by the state. Concentrating the labor of prisoners in an institution into a few trades forces the free labor in those trades to enter into competition with the state. The selling of convict labor products on the open market in competition with free labor, at any price, throws free taxpayers, into ruthless competition with the state. Using convict labor to furnish the needs of the state and state institutions not only removes the state from the market for free labor, but also permits free manufacturers to meet each other in fair, free competition. They are then all equal as to labor costs, no products of slave labor being thrown at any price on the open market.

Organized labor asks no special privileges in this matter, but wants simply that each free laborer be treated the same as every other free man; that he pay only his just share of the tax necessary to the maintenance of the state and its penal institutions; that he be subjected to only his fair share of the competition incident to the manufacture of any product within the penal institutions; that a system of employment be inaugurated and maintained in the penal institutions of the country that will educate and reform the convicts; that the products of all convict labor should be used entirely by the state and institutions of the state, where the convict is incarcerated; that the labor of the convicts should be so diversified that the burden will fall as equally as possible on all free labor within the state; that the exploitation of convicts or their labor or the products of their labor for the benefit of individuals be not permitted in any form; that a rate of compensation be allowed for the product of convicts based upon the labor costs outside prisons, and that, after deducting from the earnings of the convicts the cost of maintenance and other proper and necessary costs, the balance should be used either for the dependent family of the convict, the reimbursement of those who have been injured or suffered through the crime, of the convict, or kept for the use of the convict and given to him when he is released; that when a convict is discharged or paroled, a place be provided for his care until he is able to secure employment in the line he has been taught, and means provided to secure him employment.