Upon the recommendation of the boards of trustees of the Indiana state prison and the state reformatory the governor may order transferred from these institutions to the farms such prisoners as in the opinion of the board would be benefited thereby. The prisoners at the proposed institutions shall be employed at work in or about the building and farm. For the purpose of equipping the farm appropriations shall be made by the legislature. It is estimated the appropriation will require $200 a year for each prisoner.
A Women’s Prison for Ohio?—Members of the Ohio joint legislative committee appointed to recommend what the state should do about building a women’s prison, have decided to recommend that a joint reformatory and prison for women be built under a management separate from the penitentiary. The board of managers of the penitentiary will be asked to abandon the project of erecting the woman’s prison near the institution for men.
Probation in Connecticut.—The Connecticut Prison Association shows that the number of cases placed on probation during the year ended September 30, 1910, was as follows: Men, 1,613; women, 126; boys, 809; girls, 49. Those who observed their terms of probation and were released were: Men, 1,077; women, 117; boys, 677; girls, 43. Those who violated the conditions and were rearrested were: Men, 214; women, 12; boys, 52; girls, 7; while 92 men, 7 women, 17 boys and 4 girls escaped from the jurisdiction of the court. There were remaining on probation at the close of the fiscal year 858 men, 59 women, 325 boys and 26 girls, while the cases of 326 men, 18 women, 90 boys and 50 girls were investigated and settled out of court.
The amount of probationers’ wages collected and expended for their families was $26,919.75. The amount of fines and costs collected from them amounted to $10,791.44.
President Thorpe of the Massachusetts Prison Association, in support of his recommendation of state control of all penal institutions, which he suggested had been smiled upon taxation, and a governor or two, said that criminals violate the welfare of the state, not of the county, and that about the only opposition to his project comes from county commissioners. He called it wasteful for counties to build new prisons, where they house both serious and petty criminals, and suggested that the state should erect one in the country for classified lighter offenders.
Following the wide publication of an article from the pen of Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, K. C. B., dealing with prison conditions in this country, a statement condemning American prisons and prison systems was attributed to him. In a recent letter to Amos W. Butler, Secretary of the Indiana State Board of Charities, Mr. Ruggles-Brise, who attended the International Prison Congress at Washington, and who is chairman of the prison commission of England, stated that his criticism referred only to the jail system in this country.