In the Continental prison the chief difficulty with the outside cell
is found in its ventilation. In England the windows are intentionally
made loose fitting so that they cannot lie entirely closed. Where it
is possible to close the windows tightly, insufficient ventilation
invariably results during cold weather because the great majority of
prisoners seem to shun fresh air and invariably keep their windows shut.
[Illustration: VIEW OF MESS HALL FROM CORRIDOR]
Two methods are in use abroad for ventilating the outside cell, but
neither is adequate. The English way is to build in the front wall of
the cell a panel of special bricks which are made with diagonal or
curved openings which will let the air through, but which will not
permit the prisoner to see through. This arrangement is intended to
ventilate the cell into the central corridor; but the central corridor
is usually quite as much in need of ventilation as the cell itself.
In the majority of English prisons the cell blocks are four tiers
high, the cells being on the outside walls reached by galleries with
the central corridor running clear through from main floor to roof.
This is always bad, as such interior spaces can only be lighted and
ventilated through the roof; and while overhead lighting is always
questionable, overhead ventilation is still more so. This condition is
made worse as the cell block increases in length, and some of them, as
at Pentonville, I think, are 175 feet long. This method of reaching the
cells from galleries came about as a means of facilitating supervision,
for the guard standing on the main floor has a view of all the inmates
as they come out of their cells. As a matter of fact, the top galleries
have very little supervision owing to their distance from the guard’s
station. Better supervision is had and better discipline maintained
when the cell floors run through, for then a guard may always be on the
same floor with the prisoner. This arrangement also makes for better
classification and greater quiet throughout the cell block.
[Illustration: CELL BLOCK CORRIDOR]
On the Continent, and in some of the older English prisons, the cells
are ventilated by ducts or flues built in the walls, each cell with
its separate flue, the registers of which are sometimes controlled
by the guard from the corridor, but usually by the prisoner from the
cell. The results of this method of ventilation, however, did not seem
satisfactory to the author on the chilly February days when he was in
Holland and Germany, for without exception he found the cell windows
shut, in spite of the prison rules requiring that the prisoner shall
always keep his window open.
Apart from this one point of ventilation, to the mind of the most
casual visitor there can be no question that there is a great advantage
in the privacy afforded by the outside cell. The doors are closed and
the discipline and quiet of the prison are perfect. There are no cat
calls through the night, nor is there the intolerable argument and
vile language which are continually bandied back and forth in many
American prisons, and particularly in our miserable county jails. This
one thing, the lack of privacy, if there were no other, should condemn
the inside cell system for all time. There is nothing in the suggestion
frequently made that the outside cell is another name for solitary
confinement, except where such a system is intentionally carried out,
as formerly was the practice.
[Illustration: TYPICAL CELL]
As our modern prisons are administered, the men are fed in a general
mess hall and not in the cell, and with the work on the farm and in
the shops, and in the freedom which is now permitted in the recreation
periods, there is not the slightest reason to feel that the inmate has
anything to endure in the outside cell at all comparable to solitary
confinement.
In New York State the regulations of the State Commission of Prisons
are very precise on one point, and that is that each cell must have
a toilet and a wash-basin. At Westchester vertical shafts were
constructed between each pair of cells to contain all the plumbing
pipes for those fixtures. The basins are designed so that the prisoner
may drink from the flow of water, which is from the outside of the
bowl rather than the wall side, thereby doing away with the necessity
of a cup. The closet is suspended, fastened to the wall and not the
floor, and equipped with a vent connected to galvanized pipes and ducts
which are controlled by an exhaust fan, there being one fan for each
cell block. This is a simple and effective way of providing against
the prisoner’s habit of closing his window in the winter. The toilet
has been placed behind the wall of the utility duct and is screened in
that position. In the usual type of the inside cell block the closet is
placed squarely in front of the door, with no screen whatever, and no
effort seems to have been made to give it any privacy.