The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-12-24
OUT OF The MINES
The Penitentiary Directors Are
Planning Reforms.
7. G. BaIIinger Talks of the
Proposed Changes.
SEPARATE ENCLOSURE
Wants the Desperate Criminals
Especially Guarded.
Coal Mine Not Regarded as a
Safe Place.

The members of the board of directors
of the state. penitentiary will ask the
legislature to provide an enclosure, sur
rounded by high wall, containing
number of cells, in which it is the pur-
pose Of the board to place the more des-
perate conVicts.
1t is also the purpose of the board to
ask for authority to establish a prison
rockpile which will be within the en-
closure mentioned, and the desperadoes
who are now in the coal mines viii be
put on top Of the ground at hard labor
on the stone pile
As it is the purpose of the advocates
of good roads to ask for a law permit
ting the convicts to be worked on public
roads, the stone pile would be an advan-
tageOuS arran ngement from which bro
ken rock for macadanizing could be OBJ
tanned at small expense. The state has
the rock and the labor, consequently the
principal expense would be the shipment
of the broken stone.
T. C. Ballinger a member OF the board
of directors, in Topeka Sunday explain
ed the plan which the board has in
mind. Mr. Ballinger said:
The desperate cOnvicts are now work
ed in the coal mines, which in the opin-
ion of the public. is the safest in the
world for them, when as a matter Of
fact it is the easiest place from which
the convictS might escape.
There are IA guards for 300 prisoners
in the coal mines, but the guards carry
no guns If they did it would be possi-
BILE a any time for that number of con-
victs to overpower the guards, obtain
possession Of the weapons and be pre-
pared to make a fight when they reach
ed the top of the ground on their way to
liberty.
There is less discipline in the coal
mines. too continued Mr.. Ballinger.
THE prisoners are permitted to talk
ho On
impossibility to enforce rule to the
contrary. because some of them work
several hundred feet from the guards.
AS a matter of fact the coal mine is
the snap job at the prison. The pris-
oners talk and visit among themselves
while working, while those outside are
not permitted to talk to each other.
1.-The Safe-keeping of the desperate men
in the prison can not be accomplished
successfully in the coal mines. The only
way in which this difficulty can be over
come, in the opinion of the directors, is
to establish a new plan of dealing with
them.
1.-THE board has considered the matter
very carefully, and we have decided
that the best and safest thing to do is
to put these men where they can be
guarded more successfully and in such
a place as the rules of the prison may
be enforced.
1T has been the custom of the man
agement of the prison to deal kindly
with this class of criminals, but we find
that the better we treat them the worse
they get
t4Those who are kept in the coal mines
have a better time and come less within
the disciplinary measures than any
other class of prisoners. While it is re-
garded as the hard labor proposition,
it is not so by any means.
AN enclosure, safe and sure, cells and
a stone pile in the opinion of the man
agement, win dc more to bring about
order among the desperate men than the
coal mine. We hope to obtain 1cgisla-
ton of this character at the coming
session