The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-08-20
COUNTY JAIL HAS FEWER PRISONERS THAN EVER BEFORE Various Causes for Presence of no Yesterday Against
 800 in Former Days QUICK TRIALS ARE
 A LARGE FACTOR Prohibition Has Also Apparently Had Much to Do With
 Decreasing the Number
 of Arrests
By ROBERT MEssER

There are fewer prisoners on the aver age day in the county jail now than there have ever been before. The Jali has been standing for about 20 years' ever since Birmingham ranked as small country town. but the aVerase number of residents is smaller than IL ever has been. The number of prison CTS in jail at present IS about llo, ana has been as low as 60. During the old days, this number was far greater or ten as many as 400 or 500 being in at one time.
 The chief cause of this great decrease l., numbers is the, more speedy trial that men get now Under the old regime, whenever a man was lodged In Jaii' ne had to wait until his case had been set by docket, and have his trial at regular session of the courts. The prac- tice of giving quicker trials was instl- : tuted by Hugo Black while he was county solicitor. MT. Black made fre- ouent inspections of the jails, and If there were any who were willing to plead guilty, their cases would be heard at once.
 UNDER OLD SYSTEM The courts adjourn about the first or June. and any prisoners put in after adiournment under the old system had to wait for the fall term which did not begin until October. If they were un- able to make bond, and many of them were not able, they had to stay in jail all the long summer months. Near the beginning of the court terms the crowded conditions of the jails would become dreadful Besides the insanitary conditions and the hardships visited on the prisoners, the jails were made much less safe and deliveries were more easy and frequent.
 It has become the custom to hold spe- cial sessions of the courts during the summer to try the cases of prisoners in 1ail, and such a session was recently held that resulted in the freeing or many prisoners that were awaiting trial A session of the grand jury is also held every three months now, and this tends to hasten the action of justice.
 CONSOLIDATED COURTS WORK
 Another cause that has contributed to the lessening of the number of prison CTS is the consolidated system of courts that was put Tn Dy the ldSt leSlSidluTS. Under this system, five judges can sit on the bench at one time, while under the old laws, only one judge could hear criminal cases. Formerly, if the docket proved to be too heavy for the judge to finish during the session of the court the cases that were not tried were post poned until the next session, and often a man that was afterwards declared innocent was kept in jail for many months before he could get hearing. With the five judges all sitting at one time, there is never any trouble in try ing all the cases and no one is kept in jail waiting for a trial.
 Still another cause of the present con dition is the prohibition law, which tends to decrease the number of men in jail by decreasing the number arrested. Since July 1, especially, when the bone dry law went into effect. the numbers that have been arrested have decreased very materially The old bloody Satur- days and Sundays, when any number of men might be arrested, have passed Recently 4S hours passed without single man being put in jail a record which will be hard to beat. The Southside jail has closed down altogether lately be- cause there were not enough prisoners to warrant its being kept open. The passing of the prohibition laws has dim