Placing the cells in the center of the cell block makes it possible
to fill the outside wall with windows--in fact, a proportion of light
area which came to be established was that the outside wall should be
50 per cent glass. The radiation was placed between the windows, which
open like louvres, and with an exhaust fan in the top of the utility
corridor it was possible to draw the warm fresh air through the cell to
the roof, thereby obtaining very satisfactory results in heating and
ventilation.
[Illustration: STAIR HALL, ADMINISTRATION BUILDING]
While a good deal may be said for such a prison from the standpoint
of its mechanical heating and ventilation, from the standpoint of the
welfare of the prisoner hardly too much can be said against it. The
great disadvantages of the cage type of cell are the complete loss of
all privacy to the inmate, the inhuman and grotesque appearance which
it gives to his confinement, and the difficulty of providing really
adequate segregation and classification. Important prisons like the
Great Meadow Prison of New York State and the prison at Stillwater,
Minn., both of which are renowned for enlightened and efficient
administration, have this inside cell arrangement. These prisons,
however, were constructed when very little was known of the outside
cell construction, and many practical prison men were largely against
its adoption.
There is really no place in this country where it is possible to study
adequately the outside cell, long advocated by our more progressive
penologists, so that the author made a tour of Continental prisons
for the sole purpose of discovering wherein lay their advantage and
how they should be designed to make them suitable to this country and
climate.