The experience we have had in this cell house has shown that the objections raised by some to a style of construction that would permit the prisoners sitting in cells facing each other across a center corridor is not justified. We have had no difficulty whatever because of this. The discipline maintained has been of a higher order than in the old-style cell houses and has been obtained with comparative ease. It is the intention of the management of this institution to prevail upon the city authorities to grant an appropriation for a series of cell houses built on the center corridor plan to take the place of the old-style ones.
Society nowadays expects more of the management of penal institutions than merely to keep its inmates safely. Some inmates may be lacking only in moral or religious training; with others it may be of the utmost importance that they receive medical or surgical attention; and again, educational advantages often prove to be just the needed inspiration to the unfortunate. Proper physical or mental development is nowadays acknowledged to be the panacea for the delinquent youth, and to some extent the adult. The consideration of these facts will tend to inspire the inmates with at least a wholesome respect for the law, and I believe that a more helpful discipline can be maintained among the inmates when they can be satisfied that something is being done for their benefit and enlightenment. This has been proved to be true in the handling of the delinquent youth in our modern institutions who are no longer looked upon as or called criminals, but young men who can be developed into good citizenship, by first determining their needs and then finding ways and means of supplying them.
In my opinion what has been done for the youth can also be accomplished in a large measure with the adult, especially in a corrective institution such as this. The discipline in a corrective institution must necessarily be exacting but at the same time it should be permeated with that degree of kindness that would inspire the prisoner to his best efforts with the feeling that not only the right but the beneficial thing is being done for him. The law commits to our keeping the undisciplined, the unsocialized and the lawless, who have perhaps never realized the importance of self-control. The discipline maintained among this class by creating only a fear of punishment will in most cases fail to bring about results that are beneficial; such discipline does not prove to be correctional, but on the contrary has the tendency to encourage the practice of deception, for often they have no other incentive when violating the rules than to show that they can avoid detection. It seems to me that discipline to be corrective should be instructive and educational; instructive to a degree that would satisfy the prisoner that the law is not revengeful, but that in restraining him from his liberty it wants to point out to him his weaknesses and to assist him in overcoming them; and educational to a degree that would teach him to formulate rules to govern himself so that he might become a useful member of society. Then he will be more apt to consider the rules made to govern his conduct while in prison as really for his good, and he will co-operate with them to such an extent, at least, that he does not resort to deception. If a prisoner can be taught the lesson of self-control he is better prepared to adapt himself to the outside world and to good citizenship. If all inmates are not susceptible to this form of discipline, a sufficiently large percent respond, and when the great number of first offenders in an institution of this kind is considered, it is well worth an extra effort to maintain a discipline that will appeal to them with beneficial results to the community.
In my estimation, it is highly important in an institution of this kind to be prepared to give the best of medical or surgical treatment to those of the inmates who need it. We have a medical department well equipped with all the facilities of a first-class hospital. The regular staff of that department consists of four physicians and two trained nurses who live on the grounds, besides specialists who visit the institution at regular intervals. In addition to this we have a staff of consulting surgeons and physicians, each of whom visit the department at least once a week. No better attention is given patients in any hospital than our inmates receive. From fifty to seventy-five major operations are performed each month by as competent surgeons as there are in the city. The results obtained in this department have been most gratifying, and tend to prove that if permanent progress is to be made in the matter of the management of penal institutions, much assistance must come from a well regulated medical department, where the mental condition of the inmates is considered as well as the physical.
THE AMERICAN JAIL PROBLEM
Frederick H. Wines, Secretary Illinois State Board of Administration.
[If the discussion which has followed the meeting of the International Prison Congress in Washington last October has brought anything clearly to the surface, it is that the county jail system of this country has succeeded in turning upon itself the spot-light of Europe. Why should we not take advantage of this borrowed illumination to become familiar with our own problem?—Editor.]
The following extracts give the gist of an interesting study of our jail system which was read before the last Maryland State conference of charities, and recently published in The Institution Quarterly of the Board of Administration of Illinois.
“So much has been said, and so well said, regarding the folly and iniquity of the county jail system in the United States, that it seems like a waste of breath to discuss it further.... No fault can be found with any one jail, that may not be found with scores or hundreds of others. There are jails that are too large, and jails that are too small; insecure jails, unsanitary jails, jails without light, jails without heat, jails without ventilation, filthy jails, jails that are not properly governed, palatial jails, and jails that are not fit for occupation as stables or pigstyes. I suppose that I have personally inspected nearly or quite one-fourth of all the jails in this country, and my attention has been drawn to every form of defect and disgrace by which a county prison can he disfigured.... But in what forum is the case to be tried? Who is to exercise the necessary jurisdiction? Where is the jury charged with the duty of rendering a verdict? Who will select the jurors? and when? and where?...
“It is not difficult, where the conditions in some county jail are shown to be shameful and intolerable, to arouse local sentiment in favor of some measure of improvement. If it is overcrowded, build an addition. If it is filthy, inaugurate a general house-cleaning. If it is unsafe, make it stronger. If it is unsanitary, it is easy to supply artificial light and heat, or to put in sewerage, water and modern plumbing. With these and other changes, it will do. If not, or if the sheriff needs a fine official residence, and the town wants a handsome public building and profitable contracts for its erection, then it may be possible to bring about the construction of a new prison.