AMERICAN PRISONS
By MARGERY FRY
While each State looks after the majority of crimes, Interstate offences (such as stealing a car and crossing with it into another State), and offences committed on Federal territory (post-offices and national parks, for example) are breaches of Federal laws. Offences against its income-tax laws (as Al Capone found to his cost), against excise regulations (and illicit stills die hard particularly in the south) against the Defence Acts (as many young prostitutes, as well as conscientious objectors, are learning), will also land you in the Federal Courts. Thence you may be sent to a Federal prison, or parked out in one of the Boo odd. State or county prisons ap- proved for this purpose by the Federal inspectors. The fact that these inspectors do not approve of a further 2,284 institutions for such a purpose throws clear light on the variety of standards still existing, and on the enormous number of places of imprisonnient scattered over the States. Even these figures take no account of unnumbered town and city gaols or lock-ups. Though these are intended for short detention only, they may house people for weeks or months, and cannot be disregarded. The state of affairs in Michigan, where, since July, 1937, a new pnd active Department of Correction has been at work, is said to be fairly typicaL When it began its survey it discovered that " up to this time no systematic inspection had been made of these village and city institutions, no one knew how many there were or very much about them, as to their conditions, or administration as a whole." The 211 local gaols which have finally been discovered will now be subject to a salutary process of in- spection, though the local sheriffs' control, with its system of party spoils in the way of appointments, will probably not yet be swept away.
In Michigan, again, we. find the Department of Correction re- porting that in January, 5939, " there was very little information available about the county gaols" of the State. The information since gathered is not reassuring. The. county gaols of Michigan
number 83. Their provisions for offenders are stigmatised as " woefully unintelligent." " The twin evils of lack of segregation and idleness constitute an individual and social menace of the first magnitude." In the town gaols, and some of the county gaols in the States, it is usual to herd the inmates together, like animals in cages, sometimes called tanks or bull-pens. Sometimes they are brought out to eat, sometimes theic food is passed in through the bars. Too often the primitive washing and sanitary arrangements are located in the cages. A sort of uncivilised housekeeping goes on in them. Clothes may be seen drying in the twilight darkness of these dens, which rarely have direct light or ventilation. Black and white, male and female, are often the only categories of classi- fication. Old and young, diseased and healthy, must make shift together. Even where separate cells for one or (usually) more persons are provided, they are enclosed in a fence of bars within which the inmates can circulate. Work is rarely provided. Occupa- tion is represented by a tattered Saturday Evening Post, or a pack of grimy cards. In many of these places, often run on the fee- system, by which the Sheriff receives a fixed sum per Inmate per day, and makes what he can out of it, the officials in charge have neither training nor security of tenure. Medical service is inade- quate or non-existent.* Even young children, where remand homes are lacking, may be found in such places.
If such are the extremest evils of decentralised administration (evils which could have been matched in our own country before the General Prisons Act of 1877 transferred the control of all prisons to the Secretary of State), there is a brighter side to the picture. Diversity of control does also allow for a wide range of experiment, of which the best results are calculated to shatter any complacency on the part of the British visitor. The modem idea that the making of a good citizen rather than the punishment of a criminal should be the aim of a prison sentence is finding its outward expression in numbers of new buildings. Just as with us the ideas of preventing escape and crushing individuality found visible form in the prisons of nineteenth century England, which now cramp and almost kill the humaner principles of today, so the really magnificent buildings of the best American prisons do embody a new conception of the penal problem. This is true only of the best. In the States buildings are " torn down " and put up with breath-taking lightheartedness, and some States have launched out into costly institutions whose steel bars would melt doWn into a whole navy. Too often the greatly improved cells, furnished with good beds, washing apparatus and earphones for radio, are separated by a grille and a wide passage from the windows of the block. Too often the cell doors are a mere gate of bars, giving no possibility of privacy.
But even in such buildings there is much to build up self- respect. Marvellous kitchens, shining with chromium plate, equipped with every kind of machinery, huge dining-halls, where the food is served on the cafeteria system. And what food! It is almost cruel to mention it in war-time England. "The girls have been eating strawberries till they're popping out of their eyes," said an official. Prison farms supply prison canneries, where every kind of fruit and vegetable is stored against the winter. Seven Jamdred dozen eggs were going for one meal in a prison I visited—but the inmates numbered some 5,003. One woman's-prison farm was feeling pinched ; so many girls bad been sent in for sex offences in defence areas that the inmates could no longer receive their full daily quart of milk. Perhaps even by American standards of living these commissariats are rather needlessly lavish. But compared with British prison diet, with its preponderance of starch, its complete absence of fruit and its minimum allowance of fresh, or vitamin- bearing, foods, they have the merit of making a deliberate attempt to send the prisoner out into the world a fitter man than he came in.
This attempt is continued in the prison hospitals, some of which are marvellously well equipped, and staffed by bands of specialists who are prepared to carry on research as well as to give treatment. In one Federal hospital, housing some 1,3oo men, there is a staff of three full-time physicians, two nurses, a psychologist, and two
* See Social Work Year-Book, 1941, of Michigan Department of Cor- rection Report, 1939-4o.
enlists, as well as attendants. Quite elaborate dental treatment, including the provision of plates, is frequent. Special attention is given to such conditions as obesity, which may need careful dieting.
The value of the psychological and mental treatments which can be given in prison conditions is difficult to assess—but at least the space and the staff are to be found.in many U.S. prisons, and some
extremely interesting results are being obtained. A New York enquiry of 20 years ago estimated that 77 per cent. of the prisoners
in the State institutions outside the city were " psychopathological individuals of well-recognised types." Even if this would today be an overstatement, it is clear that along lines of individual study and treatment lies the best hope for combating the terrible frequency of crime in the States, and from their eager pursuit of knowledge in this direction other countries will have much to gain. Perhaps the weakest point in the more up-to-date prisons is apt to be in the provision of work. In one well-known place I was shown splendid workshops, which could employ goo men out of a population of nore than four times that number. The rest were " employed on maintenance," which looked very much like loafing about and watch- ing each other play games. On the other hand, some prisons resemble busy multiple factories: a frequent occupation is the casting of number-plates for motor-cars, and now large quantities of munitions are being prison - made. Education plays a great part in some institutions of the better kind. In New York State an official goes round the prisons to select yonng men of good ptitude who have never had an educational chance. The building to which they are sent at Wallkill, with its Gothic arches and orridors in moulded artificial stone, its class-rooms and its grand brary, is like an Oxford college seen in a distorting mirror. But is an outstanding and heroic attempt to redress for hundreds of oung men the inequalities of society before it is quite too late. It is in the best women's prisons that the new ideas find their ighest expression. In them work and training go smoothly hand in and, though even here the provision of enough industrial work may a problem. But it is not only by work, by self-respect, by moral nd religious teaching, that the best American prisons seek to remake omanhood. Another theory is at work, the idea that happiness has tself a beneficent effect upon people whose lot has often been a ordid and sad one. .And as you see the girls and women going bout their beautiful " campuses " with 'almost the gait, the chatter nd the laughter of free people, it dawns upon you that this theory ay be true.
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