Prison building has been for the most part suspended during the past
seven years. State prisons have been under construction at Bellefonte,
Pennsylvania; Sing Sing, New York; Statesville, near Joliet, Illinois;
and Montgomery, Alabama. Westchester County, New York, has built and
Detroit, Michigan, has begun a prison for short term misdemeanants.
New York City and the District of Columbia have partially completed
reformatories for young men. New reformatories for women have been
established in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maine,
Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
Wisconsin. Most of them have adopted cottage plans similar to those of
industrial schools for delinquent girls. All of them are in process of
development. Most of them have erected from one to three new buildings
and are making use of old farmhouses as temporary cottages.
Comparatively few new county jails have been built. Probably the most
notable one built in the past seven years is the Hamilton County
Jail in Cincinnati, which is reported as a modern and model jail,
located in the top of the Court House, like the jails in Philadelphia,
Minneapolis, Oakland, California, and Raleigh, North Carolina. Plans
for a new county jail system at Chicago for Cook County are being
worked out by a local committee which has retained Dr. George W.
Kirchwey, of New York, as expert adviser.
From the newer prisons, a selection of noteworthy plans and
illustrations is presented herewith. They have been selected with
special reference to unusual or improved features, such as modern cell
houses, clinical laboratories, improved lighting, and sanitation.
The plans selected include state prisons in New York and Alabama and
tentative plans for a state prison and a state reformatory; plans for
single buildings at two reformatories for women; plans for cottages at
two reformatories for boys, and tentative plans for a metropolitan jail
designed by the writer with special reference to the needs of Chicago.
It was desired to include the plans of the projected prisons of
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, but it was found impracticable.
Elaborate plans were made and published some years ago for a new Ohio
Penitentiary, but building has not commenced and it is understood
that the plans will be abandoned or greatly modified. The new state
penitentiary at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, which is to supersede both
the Eastern and Western Penitentiaries and to provide for 4,000 to
5,000 prisoners on a farm of over 5,000 acres, was begun ten years ago;
but its development was hindered by the war, and thus far temporary
provision has been made for about 500 prisoners. Construction is
now proceeding rapidly. The ultimate plans are still in process of
development.
The state of Illinois is erecting a great penitentiary, designed by
Zimmerman, Saxe and Zimmerman, Architects, about six miles from the
old prison site. It is intended to accommodate about 2,000 prisoners.
Two cell buildings have been erected, each containing 248 cells. The
cells are 6½ feet wide, 10 feet 8 inches long and 8 feet high, and are
intended to house but one prisoner.
The cell houses are circular, resembling a gas tank with a conical
roof. They are a practical execution of the “Panopticon” proposed by
Jeremy Bentham in the year 1787, a plan of which will be found in
Punishment and Reformation, by Dr. Frederick Howard Wines, page 144.
The interior wall of each cell is of glass and a central tower enables
the guard to keep every prisoner under observation every moment,
day and night. Each cell is well lighted by an exterior window. An
elaborate system of ventilation was installed, but on a recent visit
the writer discovered that the cell houses ventilate themselves through
the outer windows and the skylight, and the fans were not in use. It is
doubtful whether a system of perpetual espionage will find favor with
prison administrators, but the experiment is an interesting one.
Special efforts were made to obtain the plans of the new Illinois
Penitentiary for this publication, but were unsuccessful.