Has the problem been solved? Are prisoners everywhere earning their maintenance? Has any one system proved satisfactory? Is there general consensus of opinion that the prisoner shall not be utilized for private gain? Is there no demoralizing idleness in so-called model prisons? Is there no high tension labor in so-called model prisons?
No, prison labor has not reached a satisfactory solution when we can still cite a recent article of Dr. A. J. McKelway in Volume II. of “Correction and Prevention” regarding prison labor in the South: “The leasing of convicts whether to corporations or individuals, is a system that has been abolished by some of the southern states, but which still prevails in some of the states, accompanied as it always has been with indefensible abuses (p. 72). I make bold to affirm that such abuses as were found to exist in Georgia will be found to exist in a greater or less degree in every state where the leasing system still prevails.”
We learn that in Alabama even the wardens and the guards are employed by the contractors. We find that in Ohio in connection with the discontinuance of contract labor and the development of the State use system the state penitentiary was plunged into the most deplorable idleness. We find in Pennsylvania an archaic legal compulsion to utilize only hand power machinery, and but thirty-five per cent of the prisoners at any one time. We find under the present status of the state use system in New York that the State prisoners earn only about one-fourth of the cost of their maintenance, and a nominal sum of not more than 2c. a day, which earnings can be radically reduced by fines. We find loud protests in Rhode Island because the State lets the services of able bodied prisoners to contractors at 30c. a day, and we find in Maryland under the contract system a penitentiary which is said to have returned to the State treasury in 1910 a surplus of thirty-five thousand dollars from the earnings of prisoners, while the over time work earned for the prisoners themselves $41,928. We find the Detroit House of Correction on the State account system earning a profit in 11 years of $368,000, paying its prisoners from ten to twenty-five cents a day wages, and planning to distribute to the families of prisoners, through the city poor master, $15,000 during the year 1911 in addition to the surplus which it expects to turn over to the city. We find the Minnesota State prison under the State account system making the following report for the last ten years:
| Total earnings | $2,210,880 |
| Total expenses | 1,199,248 |
| Excess of earnings | $1,011,632 |
The binder twine plan in the ten years has made a profit of $1,653,290, of which $352,553 was paid to the support fund for convict labor. Quoting again from Dr. McKelway, we learn that in Texas the convicts are worked on the leasing, contract, public account and public works system. “But a legislative investigating committee has recently discovered horrible abuses in all these systems. A number of convicts were found who had been literally beaten to death during the last year (1909) and the prisoners seemed to dread the prison farm as much as work within the prison wall, if not more.”
We find Warden Gilmour of the Toronto Central prison stating that on the prison farm of that institution the inmates work cheerfully and without guards. And so, ladies and gentlemen, your Committee on Lawbreakers respectfully suggests that the general subject of prison labor, in its various phases, be made the chief subject of this committee at the next national conference. Prison labor is not simply an administrative problem; it is an industrial problem and a health problem, and concerns vitally the training and efficiency of scores of thousands who, leaving prison, are potential subjects for charity of a public or private nature. It is a vital problem for the national conference of charities and correction as well as for the American prison association. The problem of the proper utilization of prisoners is a fundamental problem in every American state.
The fact that a separate organization, the National Committee on Prison Labor, has been established to study the prison labor problem, and the further fact that the newspaper and magazine press has manifested much interest in the field which this committee occupies, are evidences of the extent and importance of the field.
Frank L. Randall, General Superintendent of the Minnesota State Reformatory and a member of the Committee on Lawbreakers, makes the following suggestion:
“If the recommendation of the Committee on Lawbreakers be adopted to make the subject of prison labor a feature of the next conference the leaders of organized labor should be invited to participate. We should ask the labor representatives, if they urge the state use plan, to concede to the prisons the field, so far as the products are paid for with public funds.”
The Treatment of Defective Delinquents. There are undoubtedly thousands of feeble-minded persons in correctional institutions. In recent annual reports, of Elmira Reformatory, it has been stated that about 35% of its inmates are mentally defective. The presence of the feeble-minded is a detriment to many plans that have been adopted for the instruction and training of prisoners. The complete exclusion from the ordinary prison of persons afflicted with tuberculosis has improved the healthfulness of those prisons and has also supplied a better and more hopeful means of treatment for the unfortunate sufferers. The same treatment—segregation—should be applied to all those to whom special treatment would be a benefit, or whose ailments are of such a nature as to endanger the welfare of others. Dr. Henry E. Goddard of Vineland estimates that 25% of delinquents are mentally defective. “All mental defectives would be delinquents,” he states, “in the very nature of the case, did not some one exercise some care over them. The mentally defective must be cared for as we care for irresponsibles.” Mr. Ernest K. Coulter, for many years clerk of the Children’s Court of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City, states his belief that the most important step to be taken by the state in its slow abandonment of antiquated methods of dealing with child offenders and victims of bad environment and neglect must be the establishment of institutions for the special treatment of the mental defectives of this class. In the great state of New York, there is no special custodial institution to which the criminal feeble-minded can be committed and transferred. So important is this matter, that it has been made the subject of one of the section meetings of this Committee on Lawbreakers.