The star-independent. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1904-1917, 1914-11-16
CRIMINALS MADE WORSE
BY STATE PRISON. he SAYS
Secretary to Investigating Commission
Declares They Are Social Curses
Warden McKenty Given Credit but
Institution Condemned

DARBY, Pa, Nov. 16.-That the
system governing the Eastern peniten
tiary in Philadelphia and in every other
prison in Pennsylvania is radically
wrong, and calls aloud for reform. was
declared yesterday afternoon by Dr.
Lewis N. Robinson, of Swarthmore Col.
lege, at the Darby Friends Meeting
House, IN lecture under the direction
OF the Phllanthropic committee OF the
concord meeting. DR.. Robinson is secre.
tary of the Commission to Investigate
Prison Reform, which will make its re.
port at the next meeting of the Leeis.
lature.
There are 5000 prisoners kept IN
ldieness all the year around in Penn
sylvanla prisons. said DR.. Robinson
rnis enforced idleness not only means
the ruination of the man, morally
physically and mentally, but it makes
him worse than ne was when he flrs1
entered the institution. Not only does
phe community have to keep him. but
only too often it has to keep his wife
and children. This severance of the
family tie and the family responsibility
whch every good man feels. even
though he has committed q crime, has a
most serious after-effect, that once a
man is cut off from providing for his
FAMILY for certain time he seldom
ever takes up that responsibility
again. -
DIR. Robinson traced the history. of
prisons IN this country, explained the
prison, contract system. which aroused
the antagOnism of the labor unions be
cause the prison made goods undersold
goods made outside, which led to the
enactment Of law in 1897, which ds
now in force, limiting to 35 per cent
the number of prison inmates who can
work. Despite this law, only II or IA
counties out of the 67 counties in this
state report that the prisoners work.
DR.. Robinson advocated system that
would permit of all the prisoners being
employed, where the articles made
would not be thrown upon the open
market, but instead, be bought up by
the State for the use of its wards.
DIR. Robinson paid high eulogy to
Warden Robert j. McKenty, and de,
clared that he was doing the best he
could for his prisoners under the sys.
ITEM in vogue. Sometimes am afraid
that, because of the newspaper stories
concerning Warden lMcKenty S method
OF treating the prisoners, the impression
has gone out that the Eastern peniten.
tiary is model institution, which is
not true. Conditions there are verv bad
AS many as four prisoners are in one
cell.
The commission will recommend that
a farm he purchased where some of the
inmates of the Eastern penitentiary can
be sent to work. and what they produce
be sent to the other prison.
DIR. Robinson told of a model prison
in Virginia, twenty miles from Wash.
ington, big clearing in the wilderness
where the men have erected all the
buildings, and who make bricks, quarry
stone and which supports itself. There
are no cells, jailers and everybody seems
contented.
The speaker advocated doing away
with the small jails and concentrating
the prisoners, where they could be made
self-supporting by their labor. where
they could earn a small amount for thei1
families and where confinement would
improve, rather than harm them.