Men and women are sent to prison to work. The sentence is generally
so many years in state prison at hard labor. It is right and proper
that they should work and should be made to work faithfully. It is
not supposed that they receive a sentence to enter a paradise for so
many years. In the different prisons the work is quite different.
There are prisons where the prisoners are required to spend almost
their entire time of working hours from 600 to 800 feet under ground
digging coal. At some places the veins of coal are so shallow that the
prisoners are compelled to lie down and stretch themselves out or be in
a half-way sitting posture while at their work. Such prisoners often
contract colds, rheumatism, and other diseases which rapidly shorten
their lives. In other prisons they are taken out in gangs to work on
the public highways and crush stone. However, some prisons furnish the
prisoners work within the prison walls. Much of this labor is let out
to contractors who have a business of making clothing, harness, whips,
brooms, etc. In such cases the contractors pay the state a small amount
each day for the labor of the prisoners. Many complaints have been
made, and many of them justly, because of the unfair requirements and
treatment of the prisoners. This should be more carefully looked after
by the prison inspectors of the state, and we are glad to know that in
many places it is receiving attention.
The time for working ranges from ten to fourteen hours per day. In the
United States prison at Leavenworth, Kans. they rise at six o’clock,
and when the men are ready to go to their work, three hundred of them
march two miles and one-half to their work, a hundred more go two miles
in another direction to work on a farm, while others are otherwise
occupied till six o’clock in the evening. As a general thing, if the
prisoner is careful to obey the rules and work well, he is not likely
to have much trouble with the officials. However, in some prisons very
few escape extra punishments of some kind.