The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1907-10-17
FREE SCHOOL
OF CRIME.
Countrywide Investigation Reveal
Brutal and Inhuman Con-
ditions in Jails.

'"The following satanic recipe for
manufacturing crime is literally
and Systematically followed in this
country Force a man into idleness
and give him thieves and degener-
ates for companions" That is
what our Jail architects and county
commissioners are doing according
to the report presented at the re-
cent Chicago meeting of the Ma
tional Prison association. Profess
sor Charles r. Henderson of the
University of Chicago is chairman
OF the Investigating committee and
for six months past has been con-
Quoting the national investigation.
This committee sent out question
list to well known persons in all
the states of the Union.
The facts that the committee
have gathered from investigating
practically every state in the Union
reveal conditions in county jails
that rival Dickens descriptions in
Little Dorrit and the Pickwick
Papers.
The very structure of the typical
Jail is wrong. From ocean to
ocean one uniform plan has been
slavishly copied from bad models
IA cell or cage of cells surrounded
by Il corridor. Into this corridor
empty the foul breath and often
the foul language from each cell.
No man builds Il pigpe or hen
coop on such monStrous plan,
much less 4 residence. The jailor's
residence adjoining always admits
sunshine and air directly into each
sleeping and living room.
The jailS are generally secure,
well adapted to keep wild beasts
in and their accomplices from help
ing them from the outside; and if
that were the chief purpose ofsuch
establishments they would be good
enough.
The modern barn or chicken
house has an outside court for
daily exercise; but seldom does the
report vary the monotonouS phrase
"prisoners walk in.the corridors -
Every healthy and moral man
works at some useful occupation;
but in the jailS unproductive. de
filing idleneSs is the rule. If a
man is eager to do something to
retain his mental balance. the
chance is denied him, even if he
is innocent. The usual pastime is
card playing, and thousands of
years of the nations time have
been wasted on this form of rccre-
alton, which is only little better
than insanity. Outside the iail
the toilers labor to feed this horde
of do-nothingS.
The typical Jail is a school of
animalism. Not infrequently sick
men, witnesses, men arrested by
error, are compelled to live in hear
ing of moral lepers. 1t is not a
dainty crowd which peoples
the county prisons. Classification
is a delusion: the best European
.iails give each person Il cell. No
innocent lad is shut in with felons:
no foul woman is permitted to CON
verse, even through bars, with
those who are not yet depraved.
Our jails are built on the theory
shat all inmates are bad and too
evil to be injured. This plan has
been excused on the ground that
it is necessary for the safe keeping
of prisoners. This is absurd:
European jails of the newer pattern
are entirely secure.
The ancient fee system of paw
ing the sheriff dies hard because
the people do not know its evils
and a selfish interest keeps it alive.
The public has not been instructed
by politicians that when a sheriff
Is paid forty cents a day for feed
ing prisoners that he is tempted to
give nine cents worth of food and
put thlrty-one cents in his savings
account, or i'll the party corruption
fund,