=On his return from a two-months’ trip to Europe, where he visited some
two-score prisons and correctional institutions, O. F. Lewis, general
secretary of the Prison Association of New York, has raised the issue
in New York City of the “doubling-up” of prisoners in cells. In an open
letter, published in interview form in several city papers, Mr. Lewis
says:=
“I have just returned from a two months’ visit to about forty prisons
in Belgium, Holland, Germany, England, and Scotland. In not a single
cell of the thousands which I saw did I see two inmates imprisoned. One
might say that the first principle of all in administering correctional
institutions in Europe and in Great Britain is that prisoners shall
never be ‘doubled up.’
“As for the situation in New York city on the night of September 10,
at the Jefferson Market district prison, in four cells two men were
sleeping, though only one cot was in each cell. In two instances the
men were sleeping, one at the head and one at the foot of the cot; in
two other instances, one of the men was sleeping on the floor. The
‘doubling up’ was occasioned by a lack of cell space for the male
prisoners. On the ground floor there is for male prisoners a pen with
bare boards, not separated off into bunks, where men sleep or try to
sleep overnight.
“In the night court for men on East Fifty-seventh street the prison
connected with the court was so crowded at 11.30 on that night that
in several cells five and six men were confined, so closely as to
forbid any of the men lying down unless on the floor. In one large
room sixteen peddlers, fined $2, were awaiting midnight to pay $1 then
remaining of their fine. The night keeper at the district prison stated
that the prison is frequently grievously overcrowded, that ‘doubling
up’ of three or four persons is common, and that on such nights as last
night it is necessary to pack prisoners into the various cells and
await the close of court, when the distribution can take place with
some alleviation, but with a continuance of the ‘doubling up’ system.
“At the Criminal Courts building there are so-called prison pens in
which persons not yet convicted are held often for hours pending their
appearance in some one of the parts of the Court of General Sessions.
Particularly on Fridays one of these pens, smaller than the cattle car
of a freight train is packed with from fifty to seventy-five persons,
mainly young men. No more improper or wretched preparation for a court
trial could, it seems to me, be imagined than this pen. Fortunately our
foreign visitors to the International Prison Congress last fall were
not shown this pen. Grand juries and the Prison Association have since
the first of the year frequently called the attention of the borough
president to this condition, yet it remains unchanged. ‘Doubling up’ is
of frequent occurrence in the Tombs. English law expressly provides
that such ‘doubling up’ shall never take place.
“We cast around for explanations of crime waves, increasing tendency to
criminality, and a growing disregard by young men in New York City of
the principles of law and order. I fail to see how any young man going
through the experience now daily undergone by hundreds of our young men
can emerge from New York City’s prisons without a vindictive attitude
of mind toward the city which maltreats him thus.
“The remedy is more money--more money for more cells and more prisons.
For some years a new workhouse has been contemplated. It is as
necessary to have an up-to-date workhouse as an up-to-date police
force. If we are to have a night court for men, to save the innocent
from overnight imprisonment, we must have a night prison which will not
condemn the guilty to intolerable conditions of imprisonment. If we
expect to reform our young criminals, we must provide a cell for each
prisoner. And if the city is really concerned with the reduction of
crime, its Board of Estimate and Apportionment must clearly recognize
that it costs money to reduce crime, and that one of its first
principles of useful imprisonment is separate confinement.”