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Work For Idle Convicts

Work For Idle Convicts image
Parent Issue
Day
17
Month
March
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Harper's Weekly in a recent issue, advocates what must surely come, sooner or later, the employment of convicts upon the wagon roads aud public highways. It says : "Crimináis are shut up in prisons, among other reasons, for the reformation of the crimináis themselves, and to give theni such training that they may live honestly when they get out. In the prisons of New York State it is just now failing of accomplishment in a painful and unusual degree. "The section of the new State Constitution which provides against the employment of convicts in manufactures which compete with the products of outside labor went into effect at the beginning of this year, and rnany convicts were thrown out of work. The predicament of these men is deplorable, and reports of their condition make distressing reading. Idleness is trying to any one, but for convicts in State prisons, many of them evil-minded and prone to all sorts of mental and moral distempers, nearly all of them cooped up in cells or within narrow limita, and given very little chance for physical exercise, it is lamentably demoralizing. The interdiction of convict labor has been tried before in this State, and its effects, which a thoughtful person could forecast, were familiar by actual experiment. The prison authorities and the legsilature had tvvo }years in which to prepare for the conditions which now obtains, but very little preparation was made. The wardens and the prison commission took thought, it is true, but the legislature neglected last year to pass the laws and make the appropriations necessary to carry out their plans. They have done what they could. It is permitted to manufacture goods for use in State institutions, and so far as machinery now in the prisons can be used for that purpose, it is in use. Handlooms have been set up at Auburn for making cloth, and some of the Sing Sing prisoners are making shoes by hand. " It behooves the legislatura to act quickly in doing its part, in passing laws and providing mone y to carry out such plans as have been devised for keeping these poor men busy. One of the likeliest schemes is to put them at roadmakleg. There is no competition in that. The state may employ convicts on its highways without interlering in the least with the gains of f ree labor, or exciting any reasonabJe opposition Erom the trades unions. But it cannot do it unless the legislature will vote money for the purposè, for to handle and guard convicts outside of prison walls is expensive. "Ten thousand persons in prisons, reforniatories, and other state and county institutions are affected by the change in the constitution. Of these the three thousand eonvicts are very much the worst off. It is their fault that they ave in prison, but that does not excuse the legislature f rom responsibility for their care. To neglect thom is cruel as well as foolish. Whatever their faults or crimes, so long as they behave properly in prison, tliev are entitled to such solace as they find in hard labor, and the state is bound lly, as well as by strong consideri of expediency, to see that they get it.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier