“Outside of the cell block at Sing Sing the present prison plant is all
right,” Mr. Scott is reported to have said, “and with a new cell block
at Sing Sing and the 600 cell-capacity at the Great Meadows prison
completed to its contemplated 1,200-cell capacity, the State would have
a capacity of 1,200 cells each at Auburn, Dannemora, Great Meadows and
Sing Sing, or for 4,800 convicts, and the present prison population
is 4,500. So far the State has expended $400,000 at Bear Mountain
and Wingdale in the attempt to get a new prison, and to complete the
Wingdale project would cost $3,000,000 more.
“There are many features about the Wingdale site which make it too
costly and unsuitable for a prison. Transportation of convicts and
supplies would cost $50,000 a year more than at Sing Sing, and it would
cost $250,000 more than anticipated for a water supply and sewerage and
grading. A portion of the Wingdale site is swampy, also.”
* * * * *
_New York Lockups._--There are now in the state of New York, according
to the Commission on Prisons of New York, about 500 police stations and
town and village lockups. During the past two years practically every
one of them has been visited by an inspector from this department. The
commission has been endeavoring to remedy some of the recognized evils
quite prevalent in their management, and to insist upon more adequate
provision for housing police prisoners and for more sanitary conditions
in these local jails.
It has been insisting that there should be a more complete segregation
of women from men than that now provided in some cases. Another evil
which has received attention and criticism has been the common practice
of commingling police prisoners with tramps or lodgers and the failure
to segregate boys and adults.
Prisoners held in these lockups have been arrested simply on suspicion
and have not had any hearing, and are entitled to decent and humane
treatment. With many of them are common drunks, others are of a more
reputable class and should not be locked up in crowded unsanitary
quarters with tramps and hoboes of the worst kind. The commission has
been insisting that these evils be minimized, and that if localities
desire to have a lodging place for tramps it should be entirely
separate from the quarters where prisoners are confined who are charged
with offenses but who will be later allowed opportunity for defense
before a court.
Through the persistent efforts of the commission great improvements
have been made in these respects in very many of the towns, villages
and smaller cities of the state, and the commission believes in its
duty to prosecute this work still further until the evils heretofore
arising from the improper housing and unwise coming of these various
classes of people shall be eliminated.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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