BLOOD PLASMA for our soldiers, sailors and marines, enough money eked out of miserably microscopic earnings for bonds to buy three giant bombers, war production of weapons, supplies and food on a large scale, now come from convicts in state prisons, reformatories and prison farms.
Without exaggeration, three things can be said of this: first, it is one of the most substantial accomplishments in the history of America. Second, it offers one of the greatest opportunities for the future of America. But third, if these prison gains are not solidified and sustained, it may lead, with the outbreak of peace, to one of the most tragic failures of our civilization.
This is the story of how prisoners of our society, deprived of their liberty by conviction of crime, are making patient and heroic efforts for the liberty of mankind from within prison walls. And they are doing this in a society that is either largely hostile to them or oblivious to their existence.
This article is mainly concerned with state prisons and is based on my experience over the last year and a half in the Prison Industries Branch of the War Production Board. The enormous advance for our state prisons has received the support of all groups—labor, political, business and agricultural. But it must be borne in mind that this opportunity came only because of the war. Also, it came despite hundreds of restrictive state laws and several federal laws which—for the time being—have been suspended only. If they go back into effect, the prisons will be deeper dungeons of stupid brutality than ever before.
After Pearl Harbor, gigantic quantities of goods, weapons and food were needed and there could be no limit to the goals of production. Since practically every state prison was low in industrial production and all of them capable of some diversified production, with no objection by labor or capital, and the military market in need of everything, the state prisons got the contracts and went to work. These prisons met the specifications and sold at decent, reasonable prices.
In the last war, nothing was done by the state prisons (except one tiny shoe-repair contract by New Jersey). Now every state prison in the Union produces war materials. For a period of approximately a year, the figure has reached $14,000,000. This production is all the more remarkable because it has been achieved by prisoners working longer hours—some up to 72 hours per week, with night shifts, and all voluntarily, with new production-line methods difficult to establish. In all this, there has been but one definite incentive—patriotism. This $14,000,000 production is war work, and is in addition to the $21,000,000 of goods for state use annually produced in prisons.
Some of the articles produced industrially are: navy shirts (3,200,000); British boiler suits; blankets (complete process from shearing sheep to weaving and dyeing.); osnaburg for camouflage; all types of bunks and furniture; assault boats; tool boxes and chests; trunk bodies; submarine fuse boxes; submarine nets; bomb noses; bomb racks and many other military supplies.
The prison farms of America produced goods to a value of $23,908,000 in 1942, an increase of about $5,500,000 over the previous year; meat production rose from 9,000,000 pounds to 18,000,000. Over 5,000,000 gallons of fruit and vegetables were produced. The year 1943 will show great gains over 1942.
My belief is that agricultural and meat products can be brought up to $100,000,000 production per annum with some relatively inexpensive increase in acreage, plus scientific management. All this can be used without harm to labor or capital, and with benefit to all taxpayers. More, it will bring sufficient and varied diet to inmates, with consequently better morale and health.
Now let's look at the military record. Ninety percent of all prisoners have relatives in the service. As a result, from the beginning they clamored to get into uniform themselves. The traditional attitude of many against the induction into the armed services of a man with a court or prison record was overcome by the Secretary of War's request for an amendment to the Selective Service Act.
A procedure was set up by the War Department and the Selective Service System to screen out types of prisoners unfit for service, such as the sex pervert, the drug addict, the chronic alcoholic and the habitual offender. Special Selective Service Boards have been set up in all prisons, federal and state, and now, worthwhile, acceptable inmates are going into military service, although not enough of them. I predict that those accepted will make as good soldiers as their brothers on the outside: so far, the records bear me out.
The prisoners also actually clamor to give their blood for our combat troops, and insist on giving as much as the Red Cross will take. I know of one state prison of 2,000 inmates, located in a county with a population of 400,000, where the prisoners have given more blood than the nearly half-million free, well fed Americans on the outside. And they did so voluntarily.
The Prison Industries Branch of the War Production Board consulted the state wardens about prisoners helping in bond drives—but we were worried because men only get from five to fifteen cents per day, and in many prisons, absolutely nothing. We figured that the maximum of bonds that prisoners could buy out of their mosquito-like earnings, would be $250,000 or enough for one big bomber.
The amount jumped to $400,000 in the first week. Within three weeks; it reached $800,000; at the end the drive it totaled $968,000—enough for three extra big bombers. Federal prisoners were rightfully angry at not being included in the "Buy a Bomber" drive; had they been, with their much greater earning capacity, the amount might have been tripled.
Numerous prisoners have volunteered to act as "guinea pigs" in the cause of science. Many have been made seriously ill. One has actually died acting in this sacrifice for science—for which, being pronounced well dead, he received a pardon couched in the most extravagant terms of praise. Other prisoners have covered manpower shortages of various kinds by working on railroads, farms and forests; thousands have done so on their honor, without being under lock-up or guard; there have been no escapes or attempts to escape.
All of these prison gains represent great assets for society. In the past quarter-century most prisons were an outright financial drain on the people and constantly turned out prisoners whom they had curdled into permanent criminals, further to plague society. Now prisons are on the road to self-support, which adds up to self-respect and means that prisoners will be released better men than when they went in. These gains must not be lost when the war ends.
Morally, a prisoner, like any other human being, is entitled to work. Indeed, he is sentenced to "hard labor." He is also entitled to good food, a clean bed, recreation and medical attention. Since he must work, it should be productive and educative labor, and not of the humiliating type which breeds only hate, and then vomits him out penniless and friendless onto the concrete sidewalk of society to renew his criminal career. While in prison he should have the opportunity of regaining or maintaining his health, which, in a great majority of cases, is defective at the time of admission.
Of course, prison labor should not be "contracted out" as in the old days, to the detriment of free labor; there should be no "dumping" of products; and labor should generally be guaranteed against all of the old abuses of the past. But certainly no segment of our society should object to products being used for state needs; for sale and trade to other states, the government and Lend-Lease or relief.
It must always be remembered that around 98 percent of all prisoners return to society.
And now it's time that we think in terms of a concrete program to preserve the gains made during war, and to go forward in the future. I offer ten points for a post-war plan for prisons:
I. All of us must realize that prisons and prison life have a direct effect on the whole of society, morally, physically, economically, socially, politically and financially.
2. Get the "politicians" in on this. Nothing can be accomplished unless the public officials and lawmakers are included. The smug-mugs might as well realize this.
3. Establish the merit system for employees, and not necessarily a hide-bound civil service to freeze-in stupid incompetents or persons not suited to prison-work careers. This will require informed public opinion.
4. Train prison officers. This must be done just as in the FBI, the army and the navy and as in all intelligent systems of public service. Obviously, training schools must be established.
5. Try to keep people out of prison. This is better than bellowing prosecutors' and hard-boiled judges' ignoring humanity and trying to "make records" on the letter of the law. It will necessitate a pre-trial examination to see if a defendant might be adjusted to society by probation. All this requires an informed community to back up thoughtful judges and prosecuting attorneys, well trained psychiatrists and common-sense social workers.
6. Study criminal-trial procedures. See that codes don't jam a man into jail without sound reason for conviction. "Habitual criminal" laws based on technicalities and the mere number of convictions, such as the so-called Baumes laws, are flat failures. There are, of course, habitual criminals, perverts and others, who must be restrained permanently.
7. Keep up prison agricultural and industrial production and the chance to work. This, in order to make institutions pay-as-you-go and save the taxpayers' money. It is helpful in the rehabilitation of inmates. There should be diversified farming and industrial production, for state use first, with any surplus to be disposed of with adequate guarantees that it will not jeopardize the rights or position of free labor.
8. Pay wages to prisoners, however small. (Several states do not pay; the average payment is from 5 to 15 cents a day; federal prisons pay from 50 cents to $1.50, also overtime and double time.) "Wages should be paid so that the prisons will be part of our American system, and to keep up morale of the inmates. Families have been, and may be, kept together this way. Have the inmate save for the day he gets out, and as in Minnesota and a very few other states, have money allotted, as it is in the army, to his dependents.
9. Have different kinds of confinement; abolish stripes and the rule of "silence" altogether. Out of a thousand men, including murderers and robbers, only about a hundred need to be closely confined. There should be honor farms, cottages, prisons without walls, and various other types of confinement which have proved effective during the past quarter-century.
10. Help the men after they get out. At the very best, those who are discharged will be booted around enough. They will need help in meeting inevitable and cruel discouragements on the outside.
All of these points apply to all types of prison—federal, state and local. I have not emphasized the federal system because it needs much less help.
The political situation that exists in regard to the state prisons is particularly unfortunate. Unlike the federal system, many of the state systems are in politics, but have no strong political backing, as does the federal system. The state systems also get a larger proportion of criminals of the toughest type and have fewer facilities for their confinement. State systems are broken up not only into the 48 states, but into the 130 personalities of the various wardens. Salaries are low, and at present there are no training programs for supervisory personnel except in New Jersey.
States also have the further drawback of the restrictive laws. I keep emphasizing this because unless they are amended or repealed nothing can be accomplished. Therefore repeal agitation must begin now.
The remedy for state politics and restrictive laws is not merely to throw up our hands and speak somberly (and slightingly) of "the politicians," thus piously washing our hands of responsibility. Rather, we should get all public officials in on the plan. The truth is that a better prison system, nonpartisan in administration, is good politics.
As to our several thousand jails and lock-ups—grammar schools of crime—they are worse than any state prison or chain gang. As a local official for six years, I saw how brutalizing and degrading they were. An overwhelming majority of American jails are simply terrible; and to use inelegant, but quite correct words, jail reform lies like a dead buzzard over America. Go see for yourself—but see it all.
Fortunately, many states are coming to life on the prison problem. Governor Arnall of Georgia is really starting something fine; he has abolished stripes and chain gangs; he is giving every encouragement to developing a better system. Over the country, state wardens, governors, legislators, social workers and people generally are giving the matter some attention.
And we must prepare: When the global cauldron of death and war cracks, 25,000,000 war workers and 10,000,000 war veterans will spill out on America, as hundreds of millions will over the world. In America there will be, as all know, a period of confusion and readjustment, with resentments, restlessness and uncertainty. There will be criss-cross migrations, and the social problem of crime will be enormous. After all wars, jails and prisons refill and become overcrowded. The time to prevent such a tragedy is now.
Chambers of Commerce, labor unions, professors, everyone, now have post-war plans. All this is encouraging. But included in all these plans must be provision for an intelligent treatment of delinquency, whether adult or juvenile.
The gains prisons made during the war upgrade rather than degrade this country. We must prepare now, and make up our minds now, both liberal and conservatives, that after the war we will not fall back into the maudlin hatreds and mawkish meanness of the "Crime Wave" and Baumes Era of the twenties and thirties.
Maury Maverick, The New Republic, November 22, 1943
Without exaggeration, three things can be said of this: first, it is one of the most substantial accomplishments in the history of America. Second, it offers one of the greatest opportunities for the future of America. But third, if these prison gains are not solidified and sustained, it may lead, with the outbreak of peace, to one of the most tragic failures of our civilization.
This is the story of how prisoners of our society, deprived of their liberty by conviction of crime, are making patient and heroic efforts for the liberty of mankind from within prison walls. And they are doing this in a society that is either largely hostile to them or oblivious to their existence.
This article is mainly concerned with state prisons and is based on my experience over the last year and a half in the Prison Industries Branch of the War Production Board. The enormous advance for our state prisons has received the support of all groups—labor, political, business and agricultural. But it must be borne in mind that this opportunity came only because of the war. Also, it came despite hundreds of restrictive state laws and several federal laws which—for the time being—have been suspended only. If they go back into effect, the prisons will be deeper dungeons of stupid brutality than ever before.
After Pearl Harbor, gigantic quantities of goods, weapons and food were needed and there could be no limit to the goals of production. Since practically every state prison was low in industrial production and all of them capable of some diversified production, with no objection by labor or capital, and the military market in need of everything, the state prisons got the contracts and went to work. These prisons met the specifications and sold at decent, reasonable prices.
In the last war, nothing was done by the state prisons (except one tiny shoe-repair contract by New Jersey). Now every state prison in the Union produces war materials. For a period of approximately a year, the figure has reached $14,000,000. This production is all the more remarkable because it has been achieved by prisoners working longer hours—some up to 72 hours per week, with night shifts, and all voluntarily, with new production-line methods difficult to establish. In all this, there has been but one definite incentive—patriotism. This $14,000,000 production is war work, and is in addition to the $21,000,000 of goods for state use annually produced in prisons.
Some of the articles produced industrially are: navy shirts (3,200,000); British boiler suits; blankets (complete process from shearing sheep to weaving and dyeing.); osnaburg for camouflage; all types of bunks and furniture; assault boats; tool boxes and chests; trunk bodies; submarine fuse boxes; submarine nets; bomb noses; bomb racks and many other military supplies.
The prison farms of America produced goods to a value of $23,908,000 in 1942, an increase of about $5,500,000 over the previous year; meat production rose from 9,000,000 pounds to 18,000,000. Over 5,000,000 gallons of fruit and vegetables were produced. The year 1943 will show great gains over 1942.
My belief is that agricultural and meat products can be brought up to $100,000,000 production per annum with some relatively inexpensive increase in acreage, plus scientific management. All this can be used without harm to labor or capital, and with benefit to all taxpayers. More, it will bring sufficient and varied diet to inmates, with consequently better morale and health.
Now let's look at the military record. Ninety percent of all prisoners have relatives in the service. As a result, from the beginning they clamored to get into uniform themselves. The traditional attitude of many against the induction into the armed services of a man with a court or prison record was overcome by the Secretary of War's request for an amendment to the Selective Service Act.
A procedure was set up by the War Department and the Selective Service System to screen out types of prisoners unfit for service, such as the sex pervert, the drug addict, the chronic alcoholic and the habitual offender. Special Selective Service Boards have been set up in all prisons, federal and state, and now, worthwhile, acceptable inmates are going into military service, although not enough of them. I predict that those accepted will make as good soldiers as their brothers on the outside: so far, the records bear me out.
The prisoners also actually clamor to give their blood for our combat troops, and insist on giving as much as the Red Cross will take. I know of one state prison of 2,000 inmates, located in a county with a population of 400,000, where the prisoners have given more blood than the nearly half-million free, well fed Americans on the outside. And they did so voluntarily.
The Prison Industries Branch of the War Production Board consulted the state wardens about prisoners helping in bond drives—but we were worried because men only get from five to fifteen cents per day, and in many prisons, absolutely nothing. We figured that the maximum of bonds that prisoners could buy out of their mosquito-like earnings, would be $250,000 or enough for one big bomber.
The amount jumped to $400,000 in the first week. Within three weeks; it reached $800,000; at the end the drive it totaled $968,000—enough for three extra big bombers. Federal prisoners were rightfully angry at not being included in the "Buy a Bomber" drive; had they been, with their much greater earning capacity, the amount might have been tripled.
Numerous prisoners have volunteered to act as "guinea pigs" in the cause of science. Many have been made seriously ill. One has actually died acting in this sacrifice for science—for which, being pronounced well dead, he received a pardon couched in the most extravagant terms of praise. Other prisoners have covered manpower shortages of various kinds by working on railroads, farms and forests; thousands have done so on their honor, without being under lock-up or guard; there have been no escapes or attempts to escape.
All of these prison gains represent great assets for society. In the past quarter-century most prisons were an outright financial drain on the people and constantly turned out prisoners whom they had curdled into permanent criminals, further to plague society. Now prisons are on the road to self-support, which adds up to self-respect and means that prisoners will be released better men than when they went in. These gains must not be lost when the war ends.
Morally, a prisoner, like any other human being, is entitled to work. Indeed, he is sentenced to "hard labor." He is also entitled to good food, a clean bed, recreation and medical attention. Since he must work, it should be productive and educative labor, and not of the humiliating type which breeds only hate, and then vomits him out penniless and friendless onto the concrete sidewalk of society to renew his criminal career. While in prison he should have the opportunity of regaining or maintaining his health, which, in a great majority of cases, is defective at the time of admission.
Of course, prison labor should not be "contracted out" as in the old days, to the detriment of free labor; there should be no "dumping" of products; and labor should generally be guaranteed against all of the old abuses of the past. But certainly no segment of our society should object to products being used for state needs; for sale and trade to other states, the government and Lend-Lease or relief.
It must always be remembered that around 98 percent of all prisoners return to society.
And now it's time that we think in terms of a concrete program to preserve the gains made during war, and to go forward in the future. I offer ten points for a post-war plan for prisons:
I. All of us must realize that prisons and prison life have a direct effect on the whole of society, morally, physically, economically, socially, politically and financially.
2. Get the "politicians" in on this. Nothing can be accomplished unless the public officials and lawmakers are included. The smug-mugs might as well realize this.
3. Establish the merit system for employees, and not necessarily a hide-bound civil service to freeze-in stupid incompetents or persons not suited to prison-work careers. This will require informed public opinion.
4. Train prison officers. This must be done just as in the FBI, the army and the navy and as in all intelligent systems of public service. Obviously, training schools must be established.
5. Try to keep people out of prison. This is better than bellowing prosecutors' and hard-boiled judges' ignoring humanity and trying to "make records" on the letter of the law. It will necessitate a pre-trial examination to see if a defendant might be adjusted to society by probation. All this requires an informed community to back up thoughtful judges and prosecuting attorneys, well trained psychiatrists and common-sense social workers.
6. Study criminal-trial procedures. See that codes don't jam a man into jail without sound reason for conviction. "Habitual criminal" laws based on technicalities and the mere number of convictions, such as the so-called Baumes laws, are flat failures. There are, of course, habitual criminals, perverts and others, who must be restrained permanently.
7. Keep up prison agricultural and industrial production and the chance to work. This, in order to make institutions pay-as-you-go and save the taxpayers' money. It is helpful in the rehabilitation of inmates. There should be diversified farming and industrial production, for state use first, with any surplus to be disposed of with adequate guarantees that it will not jeopardize the rights or position of free labor.
8. Pay wages to prisoners, however small. (Several states do not pay; the average payment is from 5 to 15 cents a day; federal prisons pay from 50 cents to $1.50, also overtime and double time.) "Wages should be paid so that the prisons will be part of our American system, and to keep up morale of the inmates. Families have been, and may be, kept together this way. Have the inmate save for the day he gets out, and as in Minnesota and a very few other states, have money allotted, as it is in the army, to his dependents.
9. Have different kinds of confinement; abolish stripes and the rule of "silence" altogether. Out of a thousand men, including murderers and robbers, only about a hundred need to be closely confined. There should be honor farms, cottages, prisons without walls, and various other types of confinement which have proved effective during the past quarter-century.
10. Help the men after they get out. At the very best, those who are discharged will be booted around enough. They will need help in meeting inevitable and cruel discouragements on the outside.
All of these points apply to all types of prison—federal, state and local. I have not emphasized the federal system because it needs much less help.
The political situation that exists in regard to the state prisons is particularly unfortunate. Unlike the federal system, many of the state systems are in politics, but have no strong political backing, as does the federal system. The state systems also get a larger proportion of criminals of the toughest type and have fewer facilities for their confinement. State systems are broken up not only into the 48 states, but into the 130 personalities of the various wardens. Salaries are low, and at present there are no training programs for supervisory personnel except in New Jersey.
States also have the further drawback of the restrictive laws. I keep emphasizing this because unless they are amended or repealed nothing can be accomplished. Therefore repeal agitation must begin now.
The remedy for state politics and restrictive laws is not merely to throw up our hands and speak somberly (and slightingly) of "the politicians," thus piously washing our hands of responsibility. Rather, we should get all public officials in on the plan. The truth is that a better prison system, nonpartisan in administration, is good politics.
As to our several thousand jails and lock-ups—grammar schools of crime—they are worse than any state prison or chain gang. As a local official for six years, I saw how brutalizing and degrading they were. An overwhelming majority of American jails are simply terrible; and to use inelegant, but quite correct words, jail reform lies like a dead buzzard over America. Go see for yourself—but see it all.
Fortunately, many states are coming to life on the prison problem. Governor Arnall of Georgia is really starting something fine; he has abolished stripes and chain gangs; he is giving every encouragement to developing a better system. Over the country, state wardens, governors, legislators, social workers and people generally are giving the matter some attention.
And we must prepare: When the global cauldron of death and war cracks, 25,000,000 war workers and 10,000,000 war veterans will spill out on America, as hundreds of millions will over the world. In America there will be, as all know, a period of confusion and readjustment, with resentments, restlessness and uncertainty. There will be criss-cross migrations, and the social problem of crime will be enormous. After all wars, jails and prisons refill and become overcrowded. The time to prevent such a tragedy is now.
Chambers of Commerce, labor unions, professors, everyone, now have post-war plans. All this is encouraging. But included in all these plans must be provision for an intelligent treatment of delinquency, whether adult or juvenile.
The gains prisons made during the war upgrade rather than degrade this country. We must prepare now, and make up our minds now, both liberal and conservatives, that after the war we will not fall back into the maudlin hatreds and mawkish meanness of the "Crime Wave" and Baumes Era of the twenties and thirties.
Maury Maverick, The New Republic, November 22, 1943
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