The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1913-09-09
- GEORGIA. PRISON COMMITS
ION HAS JUST ISSUED AN M
PORTANT ORDER
STRIPES FOR INCORRIGIBLES

,,,tes of Penitentiary Will Be Di-
,.ided Into Three Grades, and Uni
t,rmed Accordingly. Labor and /
confinement and Not Degradation.
Georgia will probably be the first
o,,,tb Atlantic state to abolish the
-..inad prison garb worn from time
.n,memorial by convicts in the state.
After an investigation lasting sew
uo1 months the prison commission
[o, decided to abolish stripes for all
cave incorrigibles or those who es-
o.na or attempt to do so.
T5e convicts will be divided into
.broa GRADES and a distinctive uni
s,rm used for each. The higher
Grade prisoners will wear brown, the
tn+armediate blue, and stripes will be
o,orn bv incorrigibles and those who
oscape or attempt to escape.
The order is Immediately effective
insofar as practicable, but where
oouDties have recently purchased
c,othing for convicts no change will
no made until the stripes are worn
out In promulgating the order the
nrison commission made the follow
ing statement:
What Commission Says.
For some months the prison COM
mission has had under Amusement
the question of amending the grade
ruIes' so as to more adequately put
into effect section 1928 of the crimi-
nal code of Georgia, which requires
the commission to establish rules
nrescribing the dress or other en-
Hem to distinguish the different
Grades of convicts in the penitenti-
arv and chaingangs of the state. 1t
has been felt that the rules should
be so made as to carry out what
the legislature evidently intended by
that section.
Confinement in the penitentiary
and chaingangs should be for a two
fold purpose First, to punish the
person guilty of crime and deter him
and others from committing crime
and thus afford protection to society
at large from those who need re-
straint. Second, while inficting this
punishment and carrying out the OBJ
iect Of the law, to work, if possible,
by the punishment inflicted, refor-
nation in the character of the Grim
inal
The punishment of a convict
should be inflicted by the labor per-
formed and the confinement, and not
by the garb he wears and the treat
ment he receives while in prison.
To confine a person at hard labor
inhicts the punishment prescribed by
law for crime, and when the addi-
tional disgrace of clothing him in his
own estimation as we'll as the esti-
nation of his fellows is put on him
you destroy the second object that
should be in view in combining a man
in prison. By putting him in stripes
you so degrade and humiliate him
as to make it almost hopeless
to effect any reformation in his char
acter
Has Had Good Effect.
In Investigating this question
with the assistance of the Prison Re-
form Association of Georgia it was
learned that all the prisons of the
United States except in the South
Atlantic and Gulf states have abol-
ished stripes for convicts except some
still use them to clothe the incorrl-
gbles Wherever the stripes have
been abolished the authorities 1nva-
riably assert that conditions among
the prisoners have improved and that
discipline is better and more easily
enforced. In Texas, one of the
Southern states that has abolished
stripes, Hon Benjamin Cabell, chair
man of the board of prison commits
siOners, in recent communication,
says that plain clothing has splen-
did effect upon negro convicts and
that the number of incorrigible ne
groes and Mexicans is less than .
per cent. Under the rule which has
Just been adopted by our board only
the incorrigible would be put in the
stripes. OF course this is not intend |