Evening star., 1924-07-06
FEDERAL PRISONS CROWDED
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN

Government agencies required to en-
force prohibition, the anti-narcotic
law and other federal statutes face
a strange problem. There is. almost
literally, no place to send federal
prisoners.
The three federal prisons for men.
at Atlanta, Leavenworth and Mcneil
Island, are overcrowded. Represent
ative Israel Foster of the House ju-
dietary committee. says that in many
cases there are four men in cells in
tended for two, and that young men
convicted of first offenses are put into
cells with tuberculosis sufferers, dope
addicts, venereal disease victims and
hardened criminal types.
Assistant Attorney General J. w.
Grim told the judiciary committee:
The conditions. If allowed to con-
tinue as they are, in year or two
will be absolutely immoral. You can
not crowd men together as we have
situation, not only with respect to
life, but to morals as we'll"
So far as the woman prisoners are
concerned. the situation is even more
remarkab BILE, because there is now abb
solutely no place for the government
breaking federal statutes except to a
county or city Jail. The government
has always pursued the policy OF
boa riding out it's woman prisoners in
state prisons, reformatories. and in
dustrial homes, and in the past there
were so few of these women that
the practice was fairly satisfactory.
At first the rates charged ranged
from 40 cents to 90 cents a day. ac-
cording to the expenses of the prison.
But rates increased until $3.50 is the
price now demanded for each woman
at some institutions. Furthermore,
that their cells were SO full that they
could not help the government out at
any price. So that now the Depart
ment of Justice has no list of suitable
accommodations for woman prisoners
at all.
The prison housing situation is the
more serious in that the government
is being urged on all sides to prose-
cute peddlers of drugs and liquor and
to show the country that it can en-
use of taking suspects and obtaining
convictions if there is no provision
for intelligent care of prisoners?
Criminal Business Grows.
The criminal business of the United
States has increased 500 per cent in
ten years, due to the broad federal
statutes authorizing the government
to enforce prohibition, the espionage
act, the income tax act; anti-narcotic
Twenty years ago the people who
broke federal statutes were mainly
safe crackers, mail bandits, and
counterfeiters. They were criminal
Today, federal lawbreakers include
many young men and many women.
The average federal prisoner today is
between twenty and twenty-five years
Of age, and he or she is first Offend
er who might be reclaimed to become
This retaining of prisoners cannot
be done, however, without suitable
institutions. Judges of the courts
have been troubled by the condition
Judges within the past three months
have told me that they did not in
tend to sentence young fellows nine
teen, twenty and twenty-one years
federal government provided decent
place for them"
Terms of first offenders are being
suspended by a number Of judges or
with warnings. Women and men who
trafYic in drugs and liquor know this
and the knowledge tends to give them
confidence that they can defy the law
without paying the penalty.
Congress was aroused to the ur-
gency of the matter just before 1t ad-
iourned. and it did enact a law estab-
fishing an industrial home for fed
eral Woman prisoners. The law pro-
yides that a committee Is to select a
site for the institution, but it pro-
yides no funds. Congress must pass
an appropriation BILL and then the
work of constructing or remodeling
buildings must be done before the
government will have its own institu-
tfon for the ever-increasing horde of
woman prisoners. How rapidly the
number OF these woman offenders is
increasing. even though judges are
loath to sentence them to unsuitable
institutions, can be seen from the
firures for the past three years.. 1872
women in 1921, 247 in 1922. and 563
The women's Industrial home is to
be-a sort of reformatory where the
inmates will do some kind Of work
and learn to be respectfully self-sup-
porting. The work done will prob
ably be along the line of farming
raising chickens, growing fruit, or
dairying. It Is the plan OF Congress
to provide hospital equipment at the
home, where drug victims, tubercu-
losis patients, and venereal disease
cases can be treated. In state and
local institutions whore the govern
ment boards its woman prisoners,
such cases may or may not get treaty
noant and IL the prisoners serve their