Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1915-06-01
NEW WoMEN,s REFoRMAToRY TO
BE MADE As uNPRlsoNLIkE
AS POSSIBLE.
MANY STATE WARDS WHO e
CAN BE TRANSFERRED
Some 81 lnsbriatss and Insane Patients
Eligible to Tranfer-certain Glasses
Of Girls From MiteheIlviIie Industrial
School Also to Be Transferrsd-No
Buildings to Be Erected This Year.
Special to Times Republican.

Special to Times Republican.
Des Moines, June 1.-Only prelimi-
nary plans have as yet been made for
any Of the improvements on the farm
for the new women's reformatory for
Iowa. The board of control will some
time this summer decide on the loca-
ton and purchase the farm, but prob
ably there will be no improving for
another season. The intention Is to
erect modest two story brick dormi-
tory for the women, the same to con-
tain the administrative offices and din
ing room; then to have work room
In a separate building. Aside from
this very little will be needed to start
with. The farm probably will not be
adjacent to any city Of size.
The notion which some Of the legis-
lators had that the only women to be
sent there are the thirty or more at
the reformatory at Anamosa is err
roneous. Some Of the women at the
Mitchellville school can be properly
transferred there, also some who are
in the hospital at Mount Pleasant, in
the department for female inebriates
or drug victims. and possibly some
who are at Glenwood. An institution
of similar character in New York has
over five hundred inmates.
At this institution at Bedford, n. ",
a great deal Of outdoor work is fur
nished the women-gardening and
farming, dairying and even use of con-
crete In laying walks and making walls.
The women there prefer the outdoor
occupations to those in shops. 1t is not
probable that great amount of out
door work will be given the women in
Iowa, tho gardening and fruit packing
will be tried. The farm will therefore
have to be of best soil.
To Remove Prison Suggestions.
There will have to be few cells at
the institution, but in the main there
will be the same absence Of anything
to suggest a prison that is found at
Mitchellville and Eldora. Warden Nc
Claughry states that in the female de-
partment at Anamosa he has had to-,
in few instances, send women to the
solitary cells and keep them on bread
and water, simply because there was
nothing else provided and their re-
bellious spirits had to be curbed. He
says that there will be found in
women's reformatory some women who
are as determined crooks as will be
found among the men, and they will
have to be dealt with the same as male
crooks.
1t is the view Of Superintendent
Apologize, of the hospital at Mount
Pleasant, that provision should be
made at this reformatory for all the in
mates of the inebriacy department OF
that hospital and that no more should
60 to any insane hospital. The in
sane people object very much to hav-
ing the dope victims associate with
them.
Mrs. Sickles' Views.
Regarding the general need Of this
new reformatory, Mrs. Lucy Sickies,
head of the Industrial school for girls,
says:
What Iowa needs for women law
breakers Of the more mature type is
an institution that will receive the
thirty-six women at Anamosa, about
twenty more white girls from among
those who need stronger discipline ana
more complete separation than Is at
forded in the Industrial school. and all
the colored girls from the Mitchell
VILE institution. Still another class
should be received there-those who
are confined in Jail sentences for GER
tain crimes or misdemeanors. There
are also doubtless a number of wom-
en- who would receive sentence to a
we'll organized house Of correction, but
the courts know there is now none such
and no Jail in the state fit for their
reception. Probably five times the
number Of women would be under
minor sentences from the courts if
suitable place was provided for their
detention. Many of the women who
are sent to Jail under short term SEN
fences become FOUNDERS Terms in jail
of from sixty to ninety days accomplish
little in reforming or helping women
to lead useful lives. This system also
involves large cost in courts and
jails: and the Jail is no place for a
woman II she is to have help it must
be in an organized institution with
employment, training and discipline in
order that the disolute and disorderly
woman as well as the criminal may be
benefited by the Incarceration and So
ciety be benefited by her removal from
its midst This Industrial reforma-
tory should not be q prison in all that
the word has meant in times past.
Even a new title might be chosen, that
IF Women's Refugees, to indicate the
new purposes which the highest
thought Of today on prison methods