Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-07

plain wood-paneled doors, to which each
convict is given his own key; peni-
Tertiary without rows Of steel cages
opening galleries, without interior
cell blocks where prisoners are filed away at
night; q penitentiary where overcrowding and
the "herding" of numbered inmates things
OF the past and where instead each prisoner
10 treated an individual, studied classified"
given every chance to improve and shown the
way to freedom, and you will have a model
prison unlike any in the world today.
But such penitentiary is now actually being
built for the United States Government near
the town of Lewisburg in Central Pennsylvania.
It will be the new Federal penitentiary for the
northeastern section of the country the first
penal institution to be built in accordance with
new congressional policy calling for revolu-
tionary plan of prison construction and opera
ton. the first real step toward the solution of a
drastic prison problem.
The Lewisburg Penitentiary is being built to
put a stop to prison rioting once and for all.
But although turreted outer walls, medieval
in design, may give it the appearance of a
fortress heavily garrisoned, heavily guarded,
from which escape would be an impoSSibility.
these not the prime elements of It's security.
A new factor enters into the scheme at
Kewisburg. new system which Congress be-
heves will prove more effective than armed
guards and riot squads more certain than high
walls, steel doors and machine guns.
There will be rioting at Lewisburg. 1t Is
hoped, because there will be no cause for
rfoting. But more important than this, the
new penitentiary aims to give the prisoner q
greater chance to win his freedom and return
to society better man than when he left, and
plans to set q new standard Of penology for
other prisons to follow.
THE plan upon which the new Federal peni-
tentiary IS being built is designed to provide
for an individualized system Of discipline,
and treatment, by facilitating the proper class
fcation and segregation Of Federal prisoners
according to their character the nature of the
crime they have committed, their mental con-
dttion and other factors of consideration and
will put an end to the wholesale method OF
treatment now in common use.
1.-THE planners have not assumed that every
inmate is to be wild beast who must be placed
In a steel cage and removed entirely from any
contact with his fellows air and direct sun
light" reports the Bureau Of Prisons Of the
E)epaI tment of Justice They have concluded
rather that there are different kinds of prison.
erSs, just as there varying types of indi-
vidualS."
In a recent survey made at the New Jersey
State Prison by the National Prison Emergency
Committee in cooperation with the National
, Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor, four
separate classes into which prisoners may be
grouped developed. These are listed by
Col. Joseph D. Sears, who had charge Of the
survey, follows:
First the difficult class composed Of priS-
Gners who are recidivists, who have anti
social tendencies who are diagnosed as
psycopathics and constitutional detectives. Sec
ond, the better class made up Of normal pris-
onerS who are mentally and physically able to
he adjusted to society For the purpose Of GUS
tiody and training this class has been divided
into three groups: Prisoners who because OF
the type Of crime committed or the length of
sentence require close custody, but are suitable