Litchfield enquirer., 1875-06-10
JasI Reform.

4 few months since the management of our county jail became a prominent ques- sion before the people of -thisaeonnty in connection with the election of sheriff. We stated very fully and frankly our req sons for iavoring change of acministra- ton, but the popular verdict was against us: and it is no more than fair that we should give the present incumbent. now just entering on three years tern, reason able time to himselfinaugurate the reforms the intelligent of all parties see to be need cd.
 While. therefore, this is no longero a personal matter, the general question of fail management and working ofprisoners is likely to be pressed before the present legislatupe, as an abstract of the report of a special commission on the subject, to be found on our first page wilb. sufficiently indicate. The marrow of the whole matter is to be found in the following paragraph:
 In point of economy, the present jail system is enormously expensive, and IS be- coming more and more so every year. with the rapid increase of ~crime. But the want of economy is not its greatest defect. ldleness not only engenders evil propen- sities and fosters vicious desires, but 1t positively incapacltates for labor, and the prisoner is made happier and better man by labor, while at the same time contrib uting to his support.
 The committee recognize the peculiar evil of the system that divides jail manage ment between sherifs who have the ap- appointing of jailers and the control of jaiIs. .and boards of county commissioners, who fix iailers' salaries, audit their &C., counts. and prescribe the rules of the jail without any power of removal in case those rules are not complied with. Such a divided authority can scarcely work we'll at best. and it is often complicated with partisan politics by the differing political views of sheriffs and county commission CTS.
 Besides the manifest evils of divided authority, we have the further and still more serious difficulty of finding any suit. able forms of labor for body of prisoners sentenced for short terms and constantly varying in number and capacity. The plan reported by the committee strikes us as, on the whole, tbe best yet proposed. The larger the number of prisoners and the more complete aRd varied the appliances for the employment of their labor, the more profitable it can undoubtedly be made. AcOunty jail. averaging hardly half dozen able bodied prisoners in its cells. cannot afford either the machinery, or the competent supervision, that would be necessary foremploying those prisoners at any profitable indoor labor; but state institution, wherein could be assembled all the criminals and sturdy vagrants who need of al things to be set at steady la- bor, might have both the machinery and the skilled supervision that could make their labor substantial source of reve. nue.
 Of the mead of some sharp dealing with the tramp nuisance there can be no req sonable doubt. But few weeks since an outrageous attack was made by one of these brutes upon married. woman in BaFkhamsted, and, last week, another tramp outraged girl of twelve at Thom- aston. Such enormities as these, coming in addition to theis burning of buildings, their thefts of property, and their contin- ned frauds on the charity of the public, call for immediate and complete reme- dy.