_By_ LEWIS F. PILCHER, _New York State Architect_
(Reprinted by permission from the _American Architect_
of January 28, 1920)
Commercial efficiency is determined by the use of the by-products of
manufacture. Prisoners are by-products of society.
The modern enterprise that used to discard as waste the by-products
of its plant now aims to reduce its overhead and better its system
by returning to the community in usable form that which in past
times had been considered as lost and unavailable material. Is it
not true that the criminal has been for the most part considered in
the past as an irreclaimable waste of society, his progress toward a
better life inhibited by being held in the strait-jacket of strictly
materialistic institutional management and maintenance? As in the case
of manufacturing concerns so in the modern penal system, its success
will be determined by the economic use, and measured, not by the
development of model prisoners enchained securely behind bastioned
walls, but by returning to society decent citizens.
In the past the achievement of positive human results has been
seemingly impossible to obtain. The chief reason for this failure
was due to the inevitable clash between institutional and political
interests that always arose and rendered abortive the many attempts
that have been made to treat successfully the complex questions of
crime and punishment.