And the time came, in 1913, when the wave of revolution in prison
methods struck the penitentiary which formed the background of the lives
pictured within these pages. Back of all my friendships with these men
had loomed the prison under the old methods, casting its dark shadow
across their lives. Many of them died within the walls; others came out
only to die in charity hospitals, or to take up the battle of life with
enfeebled health and enfeebled powers of resistance and endurance.
Almost as one man they had protected me from the realization of what
they endured in the punishment cells--from what the physical conditions
of prison life really were; but I knew far more than they thought I
did--as much as I could endure to know--and in our interviews we
understood that it was useless to discuss evils which I was powerless to
help; and then, too, I always tried to make those interviews oases in
the desert of their lives. But across my own heart also the shadow of
the prison lay all those years. Into the bright melody of a June
morning the sudden thought of the prison would crash with cruel discord;
at times everything most bright and beautiful would but the more sharply
accent the tragedy of prison life. Deep below the surface of my thought
there was always the consciousness of the prison; but, on the other
hand, this abiding consciousness made the ordinary trials and annoyances
inseparable from human life seem of little moment, passing clouds across
the sunlight of a more fortunate existence; and I was thankful that from
my own happy hours I could glean some ray of brightness to pour into
lives utterly desolate. So absolutely did I enter into the prison life
that even to-day it forms one of the most vivid chapters of my personal
experience. Accordingly, my point of view of the change in the prison
situation cannot be altogether that of the outsider. _I know_ what this
change means to the men within the walls; for in feeling, I too have
been a prisoner.
A little paper lies before me, the first number of a new monthly
publication from behind the bars of the prison I know so well. In its
pages is mirrored a new dispensation--the new dispensation sweeping with
irresistible force from State to State. Too deep for words was the
thankfulness that filled my heart as I tried to realize that at last the
day had come when _prisoners were recognized as men_, and that this
blessed change had come to my own State. I knew it was on the way; I
knew that things were working in the right direction; I had even talked
with the new warden about some of these very changes; but here it was in
black and white, over the signatures of the warden, his deputy, two
chaplains, the prison doctor, and several representatives of the
prisoners themselves: all bearing witness to the new order of things; to
the facts already accomplished and to plans for the betterment of
existing conditions. Of the fifteen hundred convicts fifty have been for
several months employed on State roads under the supervision of two
unarmed guards. The fifty men were honor men and none have broken faith.
Two hundred more honor men will be sent out in the same way during the
summer of 1914. Another three hundred will work on the prison farm of
one thousand acres, erecting farm buildings and raising garden and farm
products for the prison and the stock, and gaining health for themselves
in a life practically free during working hours.
To the men inside the prison walls the routine of daily life is wholly
altered. No longer do they eat in silence with downcast eyes; the table
is a meeting-place of human beings where talk flows naturally. No longer
is life one dull round from prison cell to shop, where talk and
movements of relaxation are forbidden; and back in silent march to
prison cell, with never a breath of fresh air except on the march to and
from the shops. This monotony is now broken by a recreation hour in the
open air every day, given in turn to companies of the men taken from the
workshops in which exchange of remarks is now allowed. In pleasant
weather this recreation is taken in games or other diversions involving
exercise. "Everything goes but fighting" is the liberal permission, and
recreation in cold weather takes the form of marching.
From October to May, for five hours in the day, six days in the week,
school is in session in four separate rooms, the highest classes
covering the eighth grade of our public schools. Any prisoner may absent
himself from work one hour a day if desiring to attend the school, and
can pursue his studies in his cell evenings. Competent teachers are
found among the prisoners, and no guard is present during instruction
hours. Arrangements are now on foot for educational correspondence
connected with the State university.
The time given to recreation and to education has not lessened the
output of the shops; on the contrary, the new spirit pervading the
prison has so energized the men, so awakened their ambition, that more
and better work is done in the shops than before. The grade of
"industrial efficiency" recently introduced serves as a further
incentive to skill and industry and will secure special recommendation
for efficiency when the men are free to take their own places in the
world.
Nor is this all; for each prisoner as far as is practicable is assigned
work for which he is individually fitted. Men educated as physicians are
transferred from the shops to the staff of hospital assistants; honor
men qualified for positions where paid attendants have hitherto been
employed are transferred to these positions, thus reducing expenses.
Honor men having mechanical faculty are permitted during the evenings in
their cells to make articles, the sale of which gives them a little
money independently earned. Also in some of the prison shops the workers
are allowed a share in the profits. It is the warden's aim to utilize as
far as possible individual talent among his wards, to give every man
every possible chance to earn an honest living on his release; to make
the prison, as he puts it, "a school of citizenship." To every cell is
furnished a copy of the Constitution of the United States and of the
State in which the prison is located, with the laws affecting criminals.
Further instructions relating to American citizenship are given, and are
especially valuable to foreigners.
But helpful as are all these changes in method, the real heart of the
change, the vital transforming quality is in the personal relation of
the warden to his wards. In conferences held in the prison chapel the
warden makes known his views and aims, speaking freely of prison
matters, endeavoring to inspire the men with high ideals of conduct and
to secure their intelligent and hearty co-operation for their present
and their future. Here it is also that the men are free to make known
their prison troubles, sure of the warden's sympathetic consideration of
means of adjustment. Heart and soul the warden is devoted to his work,
never losing sight of his ultimate aim of restoring to society
law-abiding citizens, but also feeling the daily need of these prisoners
for encouragement and for warm human sympathy.
Mr. Fielding-Hall, after many years of practical experience with
criminals, reached the conclusion that humanity and compassion are
essential requisites in all attempts "to cure the disease of crime," and
the curative power of sympathy is old as the hills; it began with the
mother who first kissed the place to make it well; and from that day to
this the limit to the power of sympathy has never been compassed, when
sympathy is not allowed to evaporate as an emotion, but, hardened into a
motive, becomes a lever to raise the fallen.
It is largely owing to the sympathy of the present warden that light and
air have come into the moral and mental atmosphere of this prison. In
the natures of the men qualities hitherto dormant and undiscovered have
come to the surface and are in the ascendant, aroused by the warden's
appeal to their manhood; and the warden's enthusiasm is the spark that
has touched the spirit of the subordinate officials and has fused into
unison the whole administration. And the warden is fortunate in the
combination of men working with him. His deputy, the disciplinarian of
the place, served for twenty-five years on the police force of Chicago,
a position directly antagonized to crime and yet affording exceptional
opportunity for the study of criminals. True to his colors as a
protector of society, he now feels that society is best protected
through the reclamation of those who have broken its laws; he believes
that the true disciplinarian is not the one who punishes most severely
but the one who trains his charges to join hands with him in the
maintenance of law and order within their little community; and he has
already reduced the punishment record for violation of rules to scarcely
more than one-tenth of former averages; and the shackling of men in the
punishment cells is abolished.
The prison physician is an up-to-date man, fully in accord with the
views of the warden, and with admirable hospital equipment where
excellent surgical work is done when required. The two chaplains have a
missionary field of the highest opportunities, where a sympathetic
friendship for the prisoner during six days in the week becomes the
highway to their hearts on the seventh.
The faces of the prisoners bear witness to the life-giving influences at
work among them; the downcast apathy has given place to an expression
of cheerful interest, and the prison pallor to a healthful color. And
the old prison buildings--the living tomb of hundreds of men--are
themselves now doomed. On the adjacent farm the prisoners will
eventually build new quarters, either one modern prison into which God's
sunlight and the free air of heaven will have access, or, better still,
a prison village, a community in detached buildings, after the plan
which has proven so satisfactory in other State institutions.
And what of the women sent to prison in this State? For fifteen years
and more they have been housed in a separate institution. This has never
been a place of degradation. Every inmate has a light, well-ventilated,
outside room, supplied with simple furnishings and toilet conveniences;
white spreads cover the beds, and the home touch is evident in the
photographs and fancy-work so dear to the heart of woman. The prisoners
in their dress of blue-and-white check are neat and trim in appearance
as maids from Holland. They number but sixty-five, and conversation is
allowed.
The women have a recreation playground for open-air exercise and an
assembly-room for evening entertainments. They are given industrial
training and elementary education; and though the discipline is firm the
life is kept normal as possible; and wilful violation of rules seldom
occurs. The present superintendent is a woman of exceptional
qualifications for the position--a woman of quick, responsive
sympathies, and wide experience, with fine executive ability. A
_thorough_ course in domestic science is fitting the women for domestic
service or future home-making, and some of them are skilled in fine
needle-work and embroidery.
The lines in the old picture of prison life so deeply etched into my
consciousness are already fading; for while I know that in too many
States the awakening has not come, and the fate of the prisoner is still
a blot on our civilization, _the light has broken and the way is clear_.
Not only in my own State but to every State in the Union the death-knell
of the old penitentiary, with its noisome cells and dark dungeons, has
struck. The bloodless revolution of the reform movement is irresistible
simply because it is in line with human progress.
Not until the present generation of criminals has passed away can
adequate results of the widespreading change in prison management be
expected; for a large percentage of our convicts to-day are the product
of crime-breeding jails, reformatories, and prisons. The "incorrigibles"
are all men who have been subjected to demoralizing and brutalizing
influences. In the blood-curdling outbreaks of gunmen and train-holdups
society is but reaping the harvest of evils it has allowed. Not until
police stations, jails, workhouses, reformatories, and prisons _are all
radically changed_ can any fair estimate be made of the value of the
recent humane methods.