The Kansas University Quarterly : $b Vol. I, No. 4, April 1893 — John Shaqi
The Kansas University Quarterly : $b Vol. I, No. 4, April 1893Various
History
The Kansas University Quarterly : $b Vol. I, No. 4, April 1893
Various
Natural history -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
prisoner is not doing well at a certain occupation, he is transferred
to some other occupation. He has much the same treatment everywhere.
Care is taken to adapt the prisoner to the labor that best suits his
condition. When these goods are finished they pass out on the market
in competition with other goods of the state and neighboring states.
This, as has been stated, cannot be avoided unless the solitary system
is adopted and with it an exclusion of machinery. The minimum price
for contract laborers is forty-five cents per day, and as a matter of
business, as those contracts are let to the highest bidder and as labor
is plentiful outside of the prison, there can be very little difference
in the effect of this contracting for prison labor and the injury of
union labor outside as respects the cheapness with which goods can
be thrown upon the market. However, it seems to me that it would be
better to have all prisoners and all manufacturing under the direction
of the prison, and that raw material should be purchased to supply the
machinery placed there for the purpose of manufacturing the goods and
then the goods should be furnished to state institutions where they
need them and the surplus be thrown upon the market at the usual price.
This would keep all the prisoners employed and would also give them
instructions by way of learning and drill in completing the finished
product, which is an education in itself. Then wherein it is necessary
and possible, part of the time should be employed in obtaining a fair
theoretical as well as industrial education. In this way the management
of the prisoners in their graded condition would be more directly under
the control of the warden and, instead of being treated as a gang at
work in the shop and elsewhere, an individual consideration of every
prisoner would be reached in discipline, manual labor and intelligent
training.
It is not the purpose of penal institutions to humble or degrade
humanity. There is no object in it and moreover it has a tendency to
breed crime. Men who are sufficiently evil and reckless to commit
flagrant crimes are not benefited by a punishment that degrades them
or tends to rob them of the appearance of manhood. For this reason
the striped suits worn by prisoners should be abandoned and suits
which will classify persons within the walls, be adopted. If it be
said that it is more difficult to apprehend those who escape if the
traditional striped clothes are abandoned, let it be said this is of no
importance; if the Bertillon or French system of registry be adopted,
as represented in the following tables, there will be little chance of
escape.
[Illustration: BERTILLON OR FRENCH SYSTEM OF PRISON MEASUREMENT AND
REGISTRY.]
[Illustration]
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