Last summer about forty per cent of the Colorado convicts were
put to work outside their prison walls. A thousand were employed
exclusively in road-building. The cost for each prisoner
employed was thirty-six cents a day and the counties where the
roads were built paid this amount, less the amount the State
would have to pay to maintain them in the prison. The day’s
work was eight hours, and for each month’s service there was a
substantial subtraction from the term of imprisonment. No chains
were attached, no stripes were worn and there was no armed guard
to patrol the work camps; yet less than one-half of one per cent
of those thus employed were lost by escapes.
The success of the method may be due largely to the tact and
judgment of the warden. The road work is said to be the desire
of every prisoner, but he must earn the privilege by good
conduct. The warden personally has a talk with each prisoner
before assigning him to this service and receives his pledge
that he will be true and faithful to his trust. “The best effect
of this,” he says, “is that every man who goes from prison to
road work and keeps his word with me, has taken a long step
toward reformation.”
This seems to be one of the best solutions of the two problems,
how to get good roads and employ the inmates of our penal
institutions in healthful labor, under conditions that appeal
to their manliness and better nature. Of course, this method
must be discriminatingly applied, but the proof that it is
workable is a valuable contribution to penology.--Boston
_Transcript_.
(578)