The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 40, January 1901)Pennsylvania Prison Society
Religion
The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 40, January 1901)
Pennsylvania Prison Society
Charities -- Periodicals; Prisons -- Periodicals
Receives men from 18 to 35; if guilty of crime more than three times,
cannot be sent here. The training-school is very much like Elmira, N.
Y. After they become proficient in these schools, they pass into the
industrial department and are employed at various kinds of productive
labor. Sloyd system work is very prominent, forenoons spent in the
trades schools, and afternoons in the shops. Prisoners alternate, so
that both shops and industrial training-schools are in full operation
all of the day.
Products of the shops are furnished other State institutions. They
manufacture cotton and woolen goods (having a $35,000 plant of
machinery). All weaving is done by hand-looms, made in the institution.
There are over twenty industries and the institution uses all the money
it earns.
The average convict’s stay is fifteen months, yet it is possible he
may work out in a year, and he may be kept two years if convicted for
a felony. About half the prisoners remain full time for which they are
committed. They have 300 acres of land, and twenty acres are inside
the prison walls, 1022 cells; prisoners go out on good records made in
school and shop.
ILLINOIS REFORMATORY, PONTIAC.
Has 1,379 inmates between 12 and 21 years. Boys under 16 go to school
daily, over 16 years three-quarters of a day. Trades schools and
productive labor, contracted out certain sum per hour. Eighty-five per
cent. conduct themselves properly, and the authorities keep track of
them for a year after they leave. The average stay is 19 months, a few
go out in a year. First grade men eat in a dining-room, the rest in
their cells. Cost per capita, $120.
THE JUVENILE COURT OF CHICAGO.
Has been in operation over one year, and it has rescued 1,250 children,
three fourths of whom have been paroled and placed in charge of
probation officers. It is against the law of Illinois to imprison,
even in a police-station, any child under twelve years of age,
before, during or after trial. In case of necessity the child is to
be committed to some suitable institution. The purpose of the plan
is to give a boy another chance in his own home under the oversight
of a probation officer. The business of the officer is to establish
relations of friendship with the boy’s parents, and with the boy
himself, and to take pains to secure that the surroundings in which the
boy is growing up shall be such as to minister to a decent life. This
is another step in that probation system which has long succeeded so
well in Massachusetts and which ought to be established in every State
in the country. One interesting fact in connection with the workings of
the Juvenile Court, is, that the Judge and the probation officers have
learned that it is practically hopeless to expect satisfactory results
where a boy is a confirmed cigarette-smoker.
SLOYD WORK.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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