The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-01
PRISON DIRECTORS REPORT
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 years, Of the 52 four are women. In
 few if, in sooth, in many other penal
 institutions may so large ratio of life
 convicts be found as at Wetherstield.
 The mental strain and unrelieVed op-
 pressiveness incident to improsonment
 for life inevitably tend to insanity in a
 person of morbid temperament, and the
 fact is neither abnormal nor surprising
 that of the melancholy company of life
 convicts nine, representing q third or
 the total insanity at the institution, are
 victims of intellectual derangement.
 Some of them, however, displayed pre-
 monitory symptoms of insanity at the time of their commitment.
 The scheme of enlargements and inn
 provements which was authorized by
 the general assembly, and which has
 been under execution for two years. is substantially completed, Prominent features of the expansion equipment included an additional cell block Tor men, a new department for women, a convict dining room, new kitchen and bakery, a centrally located boiler house, a refrigerating and cold storage plant, and extended shop room. A needed strip of land adjoining the prison
 grounds on the east has been bought. Confldentally it is believed that in it's arrangement and equipment the physi- cal plant of the institution is now sur passed by that of no old-line prison III the country. No further expenditures for enlargements will be needed untli the felon population of the state has undergone considerable incearse.
 The policy of supplying motives for sustained good conduct and of making 1t worth while for prisoner to cultl- vate the qualities that make for good citizenship is fostered, and the assump- tion that in the long run the most ef- fective way of dealing with reform able criminal is to help him help him. self. and to throw corrective and sus- | taining influences around him Is, With in the limits of feasibility, regarded as working principle. The grading sys- tenn, under which a convicts standing and privileges are determined by his prison department, is an effective aid to discipline, and upon large majority of the prisoners it exercises tonic in fuence. The night school, at which the elementary branches are taught three evenings a week to inmates who are either illiterate or who are unfamiliar with the English tongue, has been con- tinued with excellent results, and in 1t not less than fifteen nationalities nave been represented at one time. The publication of the Monthly Record, which is conducted under the general
 supervision of the chaplain and most of whose contents are contributed by
 convicts, is an appreciated privilege and an intellectual stimulus An addition of about 1,200 volumes has recently been made to the library, and books are is sued twice a week. The circulation during the year was 25,040 volumes, The recent legislature sanctioned an important revision Of the good time" law, which will become operative July
 1, 1902. Under the present statute, by which convict may, by perpendicular behavior, earn illumination of his sen- tence to the extent of five days Tor each calendar month of his actual con- | finement in prison. it is not easy to compute the exact amount of commit l tation which he may earn during given term of imprisonment. The re- vised system, which reduced computa- ton to the lowest terms of simplicity and which broadens the scope of the | good time'' policy, provides that by prompt and cheerful obedience to the
 rules a prisoner may abridge his inn
 prisonment' to the extent of sixty days
 for each year, and pro rata for part
 of a year. of sentence which is for
 more than one year and not more than
 five years and nienty days for the sixth
 and each subsequent year, and pro rata
 for part of a year" The provision
 by which the amount of possible good
 time is in a measure, graded In accord
 ance with the length of the sentence
 introduces a principle which, though
 new in Connecticut, appears to be jus
 titied by the logic of experience in va
 rious states and which appeals to sound sense.
 l The health of the prisoners during | the year was excellent. Although ten
 deaths occurred against seven for the
 previous year, a majority of the cases