Chapter I: Part 1

LEWIS F. PILCHER, _Architect_]

Plans and Illustrations _of_
Prisons and Reformatories

_Collected by_
HASTINGS H. HART, LL.D.
_President of American Prison Association_

_Presented at_
_The_ FIFTY-SECOND CONGRESS
OF THE ASSOCIATION

DETROIT, OCTOBER, 1922

NEW YORK
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
1922

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION

WM. F. FELL CO. PRINTERS
PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Table of Contents

PAGE

INTRODUCTION. By Hastings H. Hart, LL.D. 7

A SKYSCRAPER JAIL. A Possible Solution of the Cook
County Jail Problem. By Hastings H. Hart 9

THE NEW SING SING PRISON. 16

The Clinic Building at the New Sing Sing Prison. By
Walter B. James, M.D. 16

Psychiatric Classification in Prison. By Lewis F.
Pilcher, New York State Architect 18

THE WINGDALE PRISON. By Lewis F. Pilcher, New York
State Architect 27

KILBY PRISON.

Preliminary Note. By Hastings H. Hart 30

Notes on the Design and Construction of Kilby Prison.
By Martin J. Lide, Engineer and Architect 31

PRISON FARMS FOR WOMEN. By Hastings H. Hart 38

State Farm for Women at Niantic, Connecticut 38

The Caroline Bayard Wittpenn Cottage at the New
Jersey State Reformatory for Women 42

PROPOSED PLANS FOR A STATE PRISON. By Alfred Hopkins,
Architect 45

PROPOSED PLAN FOR A REFORMATORY. By Alfred Hopkins,
Architect 46

WESTCHESTER COUNTY PENITENTIARY AND WORKHOUSE,
WHITE PLAINS, N. Y. By Alfred Hopkins, Architect 47

PROPOSED PLANS OF THE DETROIT HOUSE OF CORRECTION.
By Albert Kahn, Architect 55

RECEPTION COTTAGE AT THE HAWTHORNE SCHOOL (FOR
DELINQUENT BOYS). By Hastings H. Hart 59

ONE-STORY COTTAGE AT THE THORN HILL SCHOOL (FOR
DELINQUENT BOYS). By Hastings H. Hart 61

List of Illustrations

PAGE

CHAPEL OF NEW SING SING PRISON. _Frontispiece_

A SKYSCRAPER JAIL.
A Plan for a Metropolitan Jail 9
Administration Floor Plan 11
Typical Cell Floor Plan 13
Hospital and Clinics--Floor Plan 15

THE NEW SING SING PRISON, OSSINING, NEW YORK.
Psychiatric Building 17
Typical Detail of Construction of All Buildings 19
Outside Cell Building--North Elevation 20
Outside Cell Building--First Floor Plan 21
Detention Building--First Floor Plan 22
Detention Building--South Elevation 23
Mess Hall and Kitchen Building--Basement 24
Mess Hall and Kitchen Building--First Floor 25

WINGDALE PRISON, WINGDALE, NEW YORK.
General View 28

KILBY PRISON, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA.
Front Elevation 30
General Plan 32
Administration Building--Floor Plan 33
Cell Blocks--Floor Plan 35
Laundry, Bath and Detention Building--Floor Plans 36

CONNECTICUT STATE FARM FOR WOMEN, NIANTIC, CONNECTICUT.
Perspective of Reception Building 38
Reception Building--First Floor Plan 39
Reception Building--Second Floor Plan 40
Reception Building--Basement Plan 41

CAROLINE BAYARD WITTPENN MATERNITY COTTAGE, STATE
REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN, CLINTON, NEW JERSEY.
South Elevation 42
Maternity Cottage--First Floor Plan 43
Maternity Cottage--Second Floor Plan 44

PROPOSED STATE PRISON.
Photograph 45
Proposed State Prison--Plan 45

PROPOSED REFORMATORY PLAN. 46

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YORK, PENITENTIARY AND WORKHOUSE.
General View from Approach 47
Administration Building--Entrance Side 48
Administration Building--First and Second Floor Plans 49
Typical Floor Plans of Cell Blocks 50
Elevations of Corridor and Cell 51
Ground Plans of Corridors and Cells 51
Recreation Corridor 52
Stair Hall--Administration Building 53
View of Mess Hall from Corridor 53
Cell Block Corridor 54
Typical Cell 54

DETROIT HOUSE OF CORRECTION.
First Floor Plan 56
Second Floor Plan 57
Third Floor Plan 58

HAWTHORNE SCHOOL (FOR DELINQUENT BOYS), HAWTHORNE, N. Y.
Reception Cottage 59
Reception Cottage--First Floor Plan 60
Reception Cottage--Second Floor Plan 60

THORN HILL SCHOOL (FOR DELINQUENT BOYS), WARRENDALE,
PENNSYLVANIA.
One-story Cottage--Floor Plan 61
One-story Cottage. Photograph 62

Introduction

Prison building has been for the most part suspended during the past seven years. State prisons have been under construction at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania; Sing Sing, New York; Statesville, near Joliet, Illinois; and Montgomery, Alabama. Westchester County, New York, has built and Detroit, Michigan, has begun a prison for short term misdemeanants. New York City and the District of Columbia have partially completed reformatories for young men. New reformatories for women have been established in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Most of them have adopted cottage plans similar to those of industrial schools for delinquent girls. All of them are in process of development. Most of them have erected from one to three new buildings and are making use of old farmhouses as temporary cottages.

Comparatively few new county jails have been built. Probably the most notable one built in the past seven years is the Hamilton County Jail in Cincinnati, which is reported as a modern and model jail, located in the top of the Court House, like the jails in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Oakland, California, and Raleigh, North Carolina. Plans for a new county jail system at Chicago for Cook County are being worked out by a local committee which has retained Dr. George W. Kirchwey, of New York, as expert adviser.

From the newer prisons, a selection of noteworthy plans and illustrations is presented herewith. They have been selected with special reference to unusual or improved features, such as modern cell houses, clinical laboratories, improved lighting, and sanitation. The plans selected include state prisons in New York and Alabama and tentative plans for a state prison and a state reformatory; plans for single buildings at two reformatories for women; plans for cottages at two reformatories for boys, and tentative plans for a metropolitan jail designed by the writer with special reference to the needs of Chicago.

It was desired to include the plans of the projected prisons of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, but it was found impracticable. Elaborate plans were made and published some years ago for a new Ohio Penitentiary, but building has not commenced and it is understood that the plans will be abandoned or greatly modified. The new state penitentiary at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, which is to supersede both the Eastern and Western Penitentiaries and to provide for 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners on a farm of over 5,000 acres, was begun ten years ago; but its development was hindered by the war, and thus far temporary provision has been made for about 500 prisoners. Construction is now proceeding rapidly. The ultimate plans are still in process of development.

The state of Illinois is erecting a great penitentiary, designed by Zimmerman, Saxe and Zimmerman, Architects, about six miles from the old prison site. It is intended to accommodate about 2,000 prisoners. Two cell buildings have been erected, each containing 248 cells. The cells are 6½ feet wide, 10 feet 8 inches long and 8 feet high, and are intended to house but one prisoner.

The cell houses are circular, resembling a gas tank with a conical roof. They are a practical execution of the “Panopticon” proposed by Jeremy Bentham in the year 1787, a plan of which will be found in Punishment and Reformation, by Dr. Frederick Howard Wines, page 144. The interior wall of each cell is of glass and a central tower enables the guard to keep every prisoner under observation every moment, day and night. Each cell is well lighted by an exterior window. An elaborate system of ventilation was installed, but on a recent visit the writer discovered that the cell houses ventilate themselves through the outer windows and the skylight, and the fans were not in use. It is doubtful whether a system of perpetual espionage will find favor with prison administrators, but the experiment is an interesting one.

Special efforts were made to obtain the plans of the new Illinois Penitentiary for this publication, but were unsuccessful.

HASTINGS H. HART

A Skyscraper Jail

Proposed Design for a Metropolitan Jail

(A Possible Solution of the Cook County Jail Problem in Chicago)

_By_ HASTINGS H. HART, LL.D.

President of the American Prison Association

PLAN FOR A METROPOLITAN JAIL CONCEIVED BY HASTINGS H. HART, PRESIDENT AMERICAN PRISON ASSOCIATION

Designed by FRANCIS Y. JOANNES AND MAXWELL HYDE, _Architects_

The lower floor represents the Criminal Court Building, which may have any number of stories]

County jails are schools of crime, according to prison officials and jail inspectors. They are so constructed and conducted that the prisoners generally come out far worse than they went in.

No metropolitan city of the United States has yet succeeded in constructing a satisfactory jail for the detention of prisoners awaiting trial. The New York City “Tombs” is a gloomy pile, properly described by its name. The ancient Charles Street Jail of Boston has recently been reconstructed at a very large expense, but does not meet the needs of the present day.

The county jail ought to be the most reformatory institution in the land. It receives offenders at the beginning of their careers, before they have become hardened and confirmed criminals. More can be accomplished for the reformation of a young criminal in the first week of his imprisonment than by six months’ confinement in a state prison after he has become a confirmed law-breaker. This was demonstrated by John L. Whitman when he was jailer in the Cook County Jail, where, notwithstanding the most unfavorable conditions, he did wonders for the reclamation of wayward boys and young men.

The utter inadequacy of the Cook County Jail has long been realized by thoughtful people. The Chicago Community Trust, by request of the Board of County Commissioners, has made a Cook County Jail Survey and has organized a committee of representative Chicago citizens for the purpose of abolishing the old Cook County Jail and removing the scandal which has disgraced Cook County for more than fifty years.

AN OFFICIAL REPORT

In 1919, after the State Board of Public Charities had labored fifty years to reform the county jails, the State Department of Public Welfare made a study of the county jails of Illinois. This report contained the following statement:

“Illinois has 20 county jails which maybe classified as good;
19 as fair; 41 as very poor or bad; 21 as unfit for use. Except
for the high standard of cleanliness of the women’s department,
it is difficult to find any good points about the Cook County
Jail.... It is recognized as an insanitary, dark, overcrowded
institution that is a disgrace to Cook County.... They [the
prisoners] are locked in their cells from 11.30 in the morning
to 3.30 in the afternoon. There are two or three men in each
small cell (six by nine feet and eight feet high). It is
impossible to distribute the men according to their habits of
cleanliness or decency. Twenty hours out of each twenty-four
must be spent locked in the insanitary, dirty, crowded cell.
All meals are served to the men in their cells. The time for
exercise, 9.30-11.30 A. M. and 3.30-5.30 P. M., they stand
or walk around or sit down on the floor of the ‘bull pen’ or
‘exercise corridor.’ In the ‘old jail’ this ‘pen’ includes all
the floor space of the cell house not occupied by the cell
block. It is a big room swarming with men. In the departments
of the ‘new’ it is the corridor into which the cells open. The
cells are kept locked during the four exercise hours. There
are no seats or benches in the ‘bull pens.’ In all departments
the pens are crowded during the four ‘exercise’ hours.... Cook
County does not furnish jail clothes for prisoners. They have
access to laundry tubs once a week. Prisoners wash their own
clothes.... Those who do not [have changes of clothing] manage
the best way they can. They may wash their clothes, dry them,
and put them on again; they may also borrow from cell mates....
There are only 14 shower baths, exclusive of the receiving
ward, for all the men prisoners ... (population on the day of
inspection, 546).

“One part of the floor space on the dark side of main cell
house of the old jail is screened off for a hospital ward.
There are no windows in this hospital. The air comes from the
‘old jail.’ It is lighted always by electric light.... The
large airy hospital on the eighth floor of the ‘new jail’ is
used only for special cases.”

The Committee has retained as adviser with reference to the jail problem Dr. George W. Kirchwey, of New York, formerly Dean of Columbia University Law School, ex-warden of Sing Sing Prison, and a leading expert in penology. He finds all of the evils above mentioned and many others--especially that prisoners are inevitably degenerated in body and soul by the present conditions; that the Cook County Jail, like most county jails, instead of being a preventive, is a prolific source of crime; and that the county bears a heavy burden of expense in detaining prisoners who might better be at large, as is shown by the fact that in many cases, after several months’ detention in the county jail, the prisoner is released by order of the State’s Attorney, either because he is found to be innocent or for lack of sufficient evidence to convict. He finds also that many prisoners are held because they cannot give bail who might safely be at large pending trial, without damage to the community.

DEAN KIRCHWEY’S RECOMMENDATIONS

Dr. Kirchwey recommends that steps be taken to reduce the jail population: first, by prompt and thorough investigation immediately after arrest, in order to ascertain whether there is sufficient evidence to justify holding the prisoner; second, by so reorganizing the courts as to secure speedy trials and avoid the necessity for long detention; third, by releasing, on their own recognizance without bail, many prisoners who, having families or having regular employment, are not likely to run away.

Dr. Kirchwey regards the present jail site as entirely inadequate. He would prefer to remove the jail to some other part of the city where sufficient ground could be had to provide a suitable yard for outdoor exercise. The present site is only 600 feet square, and it contains both the jail and the Criminal Court Building.

The writer is in the fullest sympathy with the purposes of the Committee and with the principles advocated by Dr. Kirchwey. He agrees with Dr. Kirchwey that women, young prisoners, witnesses, and insane persons should be excluded from the county jail and provided for in separate detention houses. When this is done, however, there will still remain an indefinite number of men, which may be 200, 300, or at times even 500, who must be held in detention awaiting the action of the grand jury or the criminal courts. He believes that suitable provision may be made for these prisoners, in strict accordance with the principles advocated by Dr. Kirchwey, in the manner hereinafter suggested.

EVILS TO BE REMEDIED

The evils in the present Cook County Jail, as pointed out by Dean Kirchwey and his associate, Mr. Winthrop D. Lane, are as follows:

First, insufficient yard space for exercise and separation from the public. The county owns a piece of ground about 600 feet square on which are located the Criminal Court, the old jail, and the “new jail” (built some thirty years ago). To provide a suitable jail yard with room for exercise would require a space at least 1,200 feet square; and even with that space the jail yard must necessarily be dark and be deprived of the free circulation of air because of the proximity of high buildings.

Second, overcrowding, under conditions which make it practically impossible to enlarge the present plant, with the result of confining two or three men in each cell. The jail should be so situated as to permit of enlargement at any time without disturbing its general plan.

Third, lack of classification. It is generally agreed that prisoners ought to be divided into classes according to age, color, criminal experience, condition of health, especially with reference to communicable diseases, and disposition to attempt escape or inflict injury upon officers or other prisoners. Such classification is impossible in a jail of the ancient type which characterizes the present buildings.

Fourth, enforced association with the worst people to be found in the county. The prisoners are released from their cells four hours out of the twenty-four to relieve the bitterness of their confinement under present conditions and to obtain such exercise as they may by moving about in the crowded corridors.

Fifth, lack of employment. The constitutional provision that slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crime, shall not be permitted within the boundaries of the United States is universally construed to mean that unconvicted prisoners cannot be compelled to labor. But such prisoners may be _permitted_ to labor, to their own great benefit; and the jail should be so constructed as to make it possible to provide workshops where prisoners may labor voluntarily at simple employments with proper compensation. An admirable example of the possibility of such employment is found in the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City in the department for insane prisoners who formerly stagnated in the insane wards but who are now diligently, profitably, and happily employed in a variety of simple industries.

Sixth, lack of exercise and recreation. These unconvicted prisoners are not only entitled to humane and decent detention pending trial and conviction, but are entitled to be kept under such conditions as will not impair their health. Physical exercise is indispensable to good bodily health, and we have now come to recognize that wholesome recreation is equally indispensable to mental and spiritual health; and it is very desirable that both physical exercise and recreation shall be provided, as far as practicable, outdoors.

Seventh, lack of clinical and hospital provision. The majority of the inmates of our jails are in need of medical, surgical, dental, or psychiatric treatment. In many cases their unsocial tendencies are due, in greater or less degree, to these conditions. It is necessary to treat those who come in with communicable diseases in order to protect the other prisoners and to protect the public after their discharge. It is necessary also (a necessity which is being recognized increasingly by judges and legislators) to enlist the psychologist and psychiatrist, both for the study and treatment of such prisoners, in order that they may be so dealt with as to conserve the public interests.

WHY NOT A SKYSCRAPER?

While agreeing fully with Dr. Kirchwey that separate and distinct provision entirely apart from the county jail must be made for the younger men, for women, insane prisoners, and witnesses; and that it is desirable to locate the central jail for the older male prisoners on a larger tract of ground in a less congested district: if, however, it should be decided for economic reasons, or for the convenience of proximity to the Criminal Court, that it is necessary to build the new jail and Criminal Court on the present site, the plan set forth in the accompanying illustrations is proposed by the writer as a possible solution of the problem.

It must be borne in mind that the prisoner awaiting trial in the county jail is on a different footing from the convicted prisoner. The law provides that every person shall be deemed innocent until he is proved guilty, and it is universally recognized that the person awaiting trial is entitled to humane treatment. He is entitled to decent living conditions and as little hardship as is consistent with his safe-keeping. The theory of the law is that the prisoner is not to be punished until he is proved to be guilty. It has been the practice in this country to use the county jails as places of confinement for sentenced prisoners convicted of minor offenses, and in most of the county jails these two classes of prisoners mingle freely together. Not only that, but insane prisoners and witnesses, accused of no crime, are often kept in the jails, where they come in contact with other prisoners.

The prevailing type of building in Chicago for offices, for light manufacturing, for residences, is the skyscraper. Its adaptability for public purposes is exemplified in the City Hall and Court House Building. In New York City this type of building is being used successfully in the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, 10 stories high, closely resembling an ordinary office building. A roof garden, reached by elevators, provides playgrounds which are used by the pupils in sections at different hours. The possibility is suggested of adapting this plan of building to the Criminal Court and County Jail.

Let the Criminal Court Building be 400 feet square, with interior lighting courts, or in the form of a cross, with a frontage of 200 feet on each of the four sides. Let the Court House contain as many stories as may be needed: four, five, or six, as the case may be.

Let the County Jail start from the roof of the Court House in the form of a cross, of which the arms will be 90 by 40 feet, with a central rotunda on each floor about 60 feet square.

Assuming that the Criminal Court Building will be four stories high (in the drawing a typical building of one story is given in order to indicate the relations of the court building and the jail), the jail proper, will begin on the fifth floor. On this floor will be the jailer’s offices and residence, the kitchen, officers’ dining room, officers’ lodging rooms, etc. The street elevators and the street stairways will terminate on the fifth floor and will be connected by a grated and guarded passageway with the jail elevator and stairway, which will start from the fifth floor, in order to prevent escapes. If prisoners were to “hold up” the prison elevator, they could get no further than the fifth floor.

The “typical floor plan” indicates the arrangement of the cells. Each floor will be separate and distinct and will contain 100 cells, each 7 by 10 feet and 10 feet high, to accommodate one prisoner. The cells will be placed on the outside wall, with windows 4 by 4 feet, providing abundant light and air. There will be four distinct sections on each floor, containing 25 cells each. There will be as many floors as may be necessary to provide for the highest estimated number of prisoners. The drawings contemplate six cell floors which would accommodate 600 prisoners, with additional accommodation for 56 prisoners in the hospital.

The building will be planned with a view to erecting additional stories whenever required, without change of the administrative departments.

The arrangement of the building will be such that the cell windows will be about 350 feet distant from the windows of the buildings on the street opposite. These cell windows can be set at any desired distance from the floor and the lower sash may be fixed in place and supplied with ribbed glass.

SECURITY

The lower cells can be used for prisoners who are not likely to attempt to escape, and the upper ones for those who are recognized as dangerous criminals who are likely to escape. There will be a distance of six feet from the top of one window to the bottom of the next above, and the windows will be so constructed as to give the least possible opportunity for a foothold. The height of the building will be so great as to make escape by means of ropes practically impossible. The outer walls will be illuminated at night and four night guards on the roof of the Criminal Court Building can keep the entire exterior of the jail in view. The short cell wings will be easily supervised from the central rotundas, and the jail elevator will permit of prompt re-enforcement of the guards on the several floors in case of necessity.

The sixth floor will be devoted to the clinics and the hospital. There will be provision for medical, surgical, dental, psychologic, and psychiatric clinics with two wards, 32 by 90 feet, for 22 beds each, and a third wing containing 12 single rooms in order to permit of isolating contagious and infectious cases.

EMPLOYMENT AND RECREATION

The ninth floor (the fifth floor of the jail proper) will contain an auditorium to accommodate 600 men; four school-rooms, instead of the one school-room in the present Cook County Jail; and four small shops where prisoners who desire to work may be permitted to do so and to receive their earnings for themselves or their families; these shops to be organized on a plan similar to that of the occupational therapy shop in the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City. This floor will be 14 feet high instead of 10 feet, in order to give head room for the auditorium. The auditorium will be located in the middle of the building, in order to minimize the stair climbing of prisoners going to that floor.

A roof garden will give opportunity for outdoor exercise. It will contain four sections, each 32 by 90 feet, which will give opportunity for indoor baseball, handball, tennis, walking, and so forth. The rotunda in the central space will give opportunity for invalids to get the benefit of fresh air. The prisoners will be divided into sections for exercise on the roof, coming up in squads of 50 or more. The roof garden will be enclosed in a strong netting, to obviate danger of suicides or attempted escapes.

The separation of each floor will simplify the problem of heating and ventilation, which will be as simple as that of any office building. The division of each floor into four distinct compartments will permit of classification in as many groups of 25 as may be desired. If there are six floors, there will be 27 possible groups.

PRESENT DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME

The plans here submitted will overcome all of the “evils” above enumerated as far as it is practicable on so small a piece of ground as the present site. First, it will provide separation from the public, and the roof garden will give opportunity for fresh air and outdoor exercise. The space will be small, but will be conveniently arranged and can be equipped with outdoor gymnastic apparatus. Second, it will do away with overcrowding by providing 600 individual cells, with provision for adding new cells at any time without modifying the general plan of the building. Third, it will provide abundant classification; there can be 30 separate classes if desired. Fourth, the evils of promiscuous association can be prevented by assembling prisoners in small groups, under supervision, on the roof garden and in the shops and school-rooms. Fifth, the evils of enforced idleness will be obviated by providing shops where prisoners can be employed at simple but remunerative tasks. Sixth, wholesome recreation and schools will be provided in place of unwholesome association and idle brooding. Seventh, the clinics and the hospital will prevent the jail from becoming a breeding-place for disease.

Under these conditions the jail will become what it ought to be, a humane place of detention for persons awaiting trial, bearing in mind that such prisoners are presumed to be innocent in the eyes of the law until the courts find them guilty and determine the question of their subsequent treatment.

The New Sing Sing Prison

The Clinic Building at the New Sing Sing Prison

_By_ WALTER B. JAMES, M.D.

(Reprinted by permission from the _American Architect_
of January 28, 1920)

It is many years since men began to realize that their diseases were not the result of a divine purpose, and so they have attempted, first, to understand their origin, through study and analysis, and then from these to discover means of prevention and cure. As a result of these efforts, the prolongation of human life has more than doubled, and the disease and suffering rate has markedly diminished and is still diminishing.

To-day, resignation and patient submission in the presence of disease of the body are no longer virtues. Mental disease has only more recently been looked at from this same viewpoint, and gratifying headway is being made in this direction. The world is just beginning to realize that misbehavior or anti-social behavior presents to society a problem somewhat similar to that of physical and mental disease.

I do not mean that misbehavior is necessarily the result of or associated with disease, either physical or mental, although this is often the case, but that it presents an analogous problem to society, and that it should be attacked in the same manner, that is, through scientific analysis and classification, the discovery of causes, probably very complex, and the application of remedies, probably chiefly preventive, and based upon these causes. Only in this way can it be hoped to turn this costly waste product of social life into a useful by-product.

A NEW POLICY

When the “Sage Prison Bill” became a law, providing for the demolition of the old Sing Sing cell block and the erection there of a new study, classification and distributing prison, and creating the “State Commission on New Prisons,” New York State committed itself to a new and more intelligent policy toward its offenders and toward the whole problem of misbehavior. The new commission, commanded to carry out the above and other provisions, soon found itself confronted by problems that belonged essentially to modern medical science, and it turned to the “National Committee for Mental Hygiene” for counsel, and an advisory medical committee was formed. About a year before this, realizing the need of a more thorough psychiatric study of criminals along the lines that had been followed so well by Dr. Healy at the Juvenile Detention Home in Chicago, the National Committee had placed Dr. Bernard Glueck in Sing Sing Prison, with the consent and sympathy of the Department of Prisons, to carry out a complete mental analysis of all new admissions.

LEWIS F. PILCHER, _New York State Architect_]

The results of Dr. Glueck’s studies have been published in full in “Mental Hygiene” and elsewhere, and form a valuable foundation for the scientific handling of the mental side of prisoners.

The commission and the state were fortunate in having Mr. Pilcher, the New York State Architect, to translate these ideals into actual construction, and the completion of an important part of the plans, including the Clinic Building, and, most of all, the final assigning of the contract for the erection, insured the carrying out of this interesting and important project.

THE CLINIC BUILDING

Mr. Pilcher has thrown himself into the undertaking with singular diligence and intelligence, and has entered thoroughly into the spirit of modern scientific treatment and research.

The newest and most original feature of the prison is the Clinic Building, in which the study and classification of the prisoners is to take place, and in which, as well, the general medical and surgical work of the institution will be carried on. It provides for the complete physical and mental examination of every inmate. It contains the hospital wards, dispensary, operating rooms and laboratories and X-ray plant, and indeed, it corresponds on a small scale to the hospital of any community, but differs from this in that it assumes that the whole population of the community may be abnormal, and therefore requires that every member of it shall at some time pass through the clinic for purposes of study and analysis. For this reason, the psychiatric or mental division of the clinic is relatively more accentuated.

It requires courage to attack such a problem as this, an attack that may carry us into troublesome social fields. It seems to be a fact, however, that no other method gives promise of relieving society of any considerable part of this burden of suffering and cost. We must not expect ever to be entirely rid of this burden, just as we shall never be rid of the burden of physical and mental disease; but just as science has diminished and is still diminishing these latter, so we have reason to believe that similar scientific methods, properly applied, will diminish the burden of anti-social behavior, and help us to approach the irreducible minimum, a minimum which must probably always exist in a human world like ours, but a minimum from which we are at present still very far.

Psychiatric Classification in Prison

_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.

INDIVIDUALIZATION

Any betterment procedure must be in the direction of individualization. The modern prison, penitentiary, jail or reformatory should embody in their respective organizations the function of scientific study of the individual prisoner--and this should be made the fundamental element of the entire correctional process.

The side elevations show the terracing of the site and the advantages derived from the differences in levels]

The dynamic unit of all human problems is the individual. Modern medical science makes the appraisal of this unit possible through the medium of psychiatric treatment and social service research. An undertaking, however, which is really consciously intent on reclaiming the individual prisoner to the limit of his capacity with a view of preventing future returning to misbehavior, would be hampered in its effect if it were to concern itself solely with the native endowments of the individual prisoner. The source of the prisoner’s particular being, life, is a dynamic process; and every contact the individual makes throughout life not only leaves its impression on him, but shapes his mental attitude toward his environment. Thus, it is obvious that the housing problem, touching as it does every phase of the life of man, is of fundamental importance, for the environment determines, through the influence of the associative imagery of the inmate, a control of his conscious acts and the mechanization of the conscious acts of the prisoner establishes his habits. The manner in which the prisoner has been handled in the past has unquestionably been responsible, if not for the great amount of criminal careers, certainly for the confirming of the individual in his life of crime. The character and kind of prison we have had, in the past, had as its sole aim to achieve mediæval security; a housing condition crude and archaic in conception, which has not helped to relieve and protect society against the spirit of crime, but on the contrary has actually tended to its increase.

Here in New York City the municipality protects the interests of its citizens by the enactment of a structural and sanitary code. Structural safety and physical security and health are provided for all classifications of human activities under the maturely established provisions of that code.

Typical floor plan of Detention Building, a basement and four-story outside cell building. This plan shows the arrangement of cells against outside walls, which gives to each inmate direct sunlight and air]

A PRISON PLANNER’S CODE

Scientifically, psychologically and practically important as is the structural side of this great prison problem, I have yet to see any workmanlike attempt to establish for prison planners a code so carefully developed and yet with an elasticity to adapt it to various localities and climates, to the end that the inhumanity of the present day, 1920, toward prisoners would be for all time impossible.

The tremendous security and help that such a code would provide for the development of state prisons and jails and reformatories is at once apparent.

The complete findings of a competent Code Committee would be the average of the experience of all penal housing problems throughout the country and should be determined by a two-group committee, acting under an organization of national scope. In one group should be available the experience and suggestion of the leaders in penal administration, medicinal, psychiatric, industrial, vocational, educational and religious activities. The second group should consist of a small number of architects, engineers or contractual experts--men who have actually planned and structurally executed prison buildings and whose practical experience would enable them sympathetically to translate into constructive form and crystallize the theoretical standards recommended by the sub-committee on strictly scientific phases.

As it is an admitted fact that apperception and interest are the cardinal principles of thought foundation, it may be seen that the chance of improvement in the prisoner will vary in accordance with the thought and action required of him. In order, therefore, that this idea may be efficiently carried out, the prisoner, immediately on commitment to prison, should receive the benefit of an expert clinical examination to determine through his mental and economic possibilities what branch of work he should follow during his term of imprisonment to insure a better existence and a chance to live a decent and productive life after discharge.

A DISTRIBUTING PRISON

The new Sing Sing, therefore, has been planned as a Classification and Distributing Prison, from which the prisoner, after a definite determination has been made of his mental, physical and economic possibilities, will be assigned to that State institution best suited to his individual demands. For example, if it be found that a prisoner is physically unsound, he will be sent to an institution where he can be therapeutically bettered; or, if mentally deficient, to an institution where he can be scientifically treated, and, if possible, given work that will enable him to direct his minimal capacity so as to exempt him from purely custodial care.

The construction and location of the buildings at Sing Sing mean much more, therefore, than the mere erection of a series of large prison buildings for the detention of those who have violated the laws of the State. It will exist as a twentieth century prison elixir, which will take the recrement of society and so purge and refine it that the result will advance, rather than retard, the onward and upward movement of humanity.

STUDY OF THE PRISONER

In order fully to understand the problem of prison registration, let us follow the course taken by the convict upon his arrival at the Sing Sing of the future: Immediately upon entering the prison grounds, the Court Officer conducts him to the arrival room in the basement of the Registration Building. Here he is turned over to the prison authorities, who take and receipt for his personal property and clothes. The civilian clothes are removed for disinfection and storage. He is then led to the baths, situated across the hall from the property room. After being thoroughly bathed, and subjected to a hasty medical inspection, clean prison clothes are provided. Then, contagion from outside sources having been removed, the prisoner is lodged in a classification cell on the first floor, to await his turn for examination in the rooms provided for that purpose on the second floor. When the examiner is ready for him, he is taken upstairs to be photographed, weighed, finger-printed and generally “Bertilloned,” and is then sent across the hall to be given a preliminary examination for the determination of his general physical condition. This over, he is led to the educational examination room, where facts concerning his birth, occupation and general history are recorded, and an examination conducted to determine both the extent of his education and his occupational skill. Following that comes a careful mental examination in which the findings of those just preceding are fully utilized. As a result of these different examinations his first classification is made, subject of course to change from examinations to be conducted later.

THE REGISTRATION BUILDING

Besides containing the general Administration Offices, the Bureau of Registration and the Record Bureau the Registration Building will include a reception room where prisoners may converse with visiting relatives and friends. In the past this problem of a reception room for the visitors to prisoners was a difficult one for prison authorities, as it was practically impossible while allowing prisoners a reasonable amount of freedom for the discussion of private and confidential matters to prevent the transfer of weapons, liquors, drugs and implements of escape. This difficulty, however, we think, has now been successfully solved through the following arrangement: Two parts of a large room are separated by two wire nettings, so placed that they form an enclosed passage six feet in width, where guards can be stationed to prevent any attempt to pass articles to the prisoners without, at the same time, interfering in the carrying on of a conversation.

THIS FLOOR CONTAINS A BAKERY WITH FLOUR AND BREAD STORAGE ROOMS AND WITH EQUIPMENT TO PROVIDE BREAD FOR THE ENTIRE INSTITUTION, REFRIGERATING ROOMS FOR THE STORAGE OF UNPREPARED FOOD, A PLANT FOR THE MAKING OF ICE, AND AN AMPLE KITCHEN STORE ROOM.

A MESS HALL WITH INDEPENDENT COAT ROOM AND OUTSIDE ENTRANCE, A GUARD’S TOILET, RECREATION AND LUNCH ROOM ARE ALSO PROVIDED.]

THIS BUILDING OCCUPIES THE CENTRAL POSITION OF THIS GROUP AND IS EASILY ACCESSIBLE FROM ALL CELL BUILDINGS.

THE MESS HALLS ARE SO DESIGNED AS TO TAKE COMPLETE CARE OF THE INMATES OF ONE AND TWO CELL BUILDINGS IN EACH HALL RESPECTIVELY.

THE INMATES OF THE DETENTION BUILDING CAN ENTER THEIR MESS HALL DIRECTLY FROM THE DETENTION BUILDING BY THE ENCLOSED PASSAGE.

A KITCHEN ECONOMICALLY AND EFFICIENTLY EQUIPPED OCCUPIES THE EAST WING OF THIS BUILDING.]

THE TEMPORARY DETENTION BUILDING (“No. 5”)

Adjacent to the Registration Building, and on the same high plateau overlooking the Hudson, is the Temporary Detention Building, with cell rooms on separate floors, so arranged as to place the prisoners under the constant supervision of the clinical experts, who will conduct their examinations in the adjoining Clinic Building.

THE CLINICAL LABORATORY

The clinical laboratory was developed under a medical commission composed of: Dr. Walter B. James, President of the New York Academy of Medicine; Dr. Charles W. Pilgrim, Chairman, New York State Hospital Commission; Dr. Thomas W. Salmon, Director of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene; Dr. G. H. Kirby, Director of the Psychiatric Institute of the State of New York; Dr. Isham G. Harris, Superintendent of the Brooklyn State Hospital; Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald, Alienist, and Dr. W. F. Brewer, Surgeon. Provision has been made on the first floor for a modern X-ray apparatus and its various accessories; three rooms for the physician in charge of the venereal examinations; a surgical laboratory; rooms fitted for the examinations of the eye, ear and throat, psychiatric and psychological examining room, dental operating room and laboratory, and a laboratory for the use of the staff working in the diagnosis and examination rooms.

On the second floor is a quantitative and qualitative laboratory; a museum, a recording room, a library and lecture rooms, and on the third floor are surgical wards, subdivided for major and minor operative cases, together with medical wards, so planned as to have ordinary and chronic medical cases in separate divisions. The hospital is to be freely used for detailed observation as well as for treatment.

The fourth floor contains a complete operating department with two operating rooms, one for major and the other for minor operations, each having separate sterilization facilities, together with preparation, etherizing and recovery rooms, while the remainder of the floor is given up to rooms for the male nurses and a convalescent solarium.

A TRAINING SCHOOL FOR NURSES

In addition to using the building as a clinical hospital for the housing of psychiatric and medical requirements of the prison, it is also planned to use it as a school for the education of male nurses, as it is found that efficiency in prison nursing is directly proportional to the nurse’s understanding of the relation of scientific, medical and psychiatric knowledge to the peculiar problems of a prison community.

The entire Sing Sing project includes kitchens, dining rooms, library, school, vocational shops, recreation hall, roads, walks, a modern sewage plant, a power house to heat and light the many buildings and to operate the industrial plants, and a church for the development of religious and community ideals.

In addition to the proper placing and co-ordination of the structures and their component parts, and the abolishment of unsanitary conditions in the interiors, by the architectural treatment of buildings and site, a great step forward has been taken in the creating of a proper and fitting atmosphere and environment. The old idea of the ugly, heavy barred and broken walls, which produced the dismal, forsaken, isolated and jail-like appearance of former prisons, has been discarded. In their places will be many-windowed, substantial brick structures, extending from the river to the plateau in the rear of the elevated site, in dignified and well-proportioned stages.

The causes which formerly created in prisoners the feeling of being entombed, useless and hopeless exiles have been done away with. It is our hope that ideals of respectability, industry, efficiency and co-operation will arise from these new prison conditions and make strong, beneficial and lasting impressions on the mind of each prisoner.

It is only by such utilization of the experiences in allied fields and their thoughtful application to prison conditions that progress may be hoped for in solving this important human problem.

The Wingdale Prison

_By_ LEWIS F. PILCHER, _New York State Architect_

(Reprinted by permission from the _American Architect_ of
January 28, 1920)

The more advanced of the modern penologists are rapidly discarding the old theory that a certain humanity and kindliness should be eliminated from society’s dealings with its less responsible citizens. They are substituting in its place the idea that the majority of criminals are not inherently bad, but, lacking the idealistic principles of good citizenship which result from environment and education, are only wayward.

If we accept this new theory, and make negligible the assumption that most criminals have inherited a tendency toward wrong-doing, it becomes necessary for us to revise many of our ideas concerning the government, discipline and housing of prisoners, and to acquire an impressionable quality of mind susceptible to new theories and experiments which concern the welfare and advancement of our less fortunate fellow men.

With all these things in mind, and with the desire to do our part in ameliorating prison government, the Commission on New Prisons has endeavored, in the building of the Wingdale Prison, to achieve a good architectural result combined with these essential reforms. In order that these aims may be fully understood, I shall attempt to explain both the architectural plan of this new prison and the reasons for selecting a sloping rather than a level topographical site.

ARCHITECTURAL PRECEDENTS

If one surveys the history of civilization and investigates the growth and final results of the structural plan of either religious or civil communities, it is at once apparent that the final housing scheme of any given settlement is determined by the topography of the region of its location.

For example, the study of the settlements of antiquity shows that the higher locations were universally chosen as the sites of palaces and temples, and that where the configuration of land did not permit of such natural elevation, mounds or raised crepidomas were constructed, in order that by means of the terraced elevations a distinction might be made between the different degrees of religious prominence.

That the Egyptians who inhabited the level areas of the alluvial Nile appreciated the psychological effect of such terraced elevation is shown by the architectural arrangement of their temples. To emphasize the hieratic mysteries, the worshiper was led from a pyloned gateway into an atrium with a pavement slightly graded above the level of the dromos. This atrium, open as it was to the effects of the brilliant Egyptian atmosphere, offered a subtle psychic preparation for that elation of soul which stimulated the novitiate when, after ascending the steps on the far side of the atrium, he entered the sombre shadow of the hypostyle hall. This elation increased in many cases to a religious ecstasy when the novitiate ascended into the upper region where the esoteric mysteries were performed.

A simpler expression of this religious constructive arrangement may be seen in the Temple of Kohn. Here the priestcraft developed a form of temple construction which crystallized all the associative imagery of man and reflected in its different stages of elevation of the various sections the relevant distinctions of class and the progress of humanity toward its idealistic goal.

Thus in the low grade level of the atrium the light, the air, and freedom of movement suggested that lack of function and freedom from formal life which exists among the multitudes; the conscious effort of ascent in walking from the atrium to the hypostyle hall suggested the difficulties of rising from a lower to a higher social order, while the further ascent to the small, calm and dimly illuminated holy-of-holies symbolized the fact that only through struggle, loneliness and pain may a devout one hope to attain the quiet and sublime dwelling place of the gods.

When the Greeks rose to intellectual and artistic position they evolved the Greek form of temple, which was simply an Hellenic translation, through the medium of the Mosaic temple, of the Egyptian hieratic imagery. Perhaps the most typical of these temples is the great marble Parthenon (438 B. C.) which was reared upon a three-stepped crepidoma, a worthy stylobate support, a marvelous peristyle, reminiscent of the open air atrium of its Egyptian prototype. Further on, and beyond the peripteros, and at a higher level, the pronaos led through a great door into the shrine chamber of Athena. Thus did the architects, Ictinus and Callicrates, express in much the same manner as the Egyptians the essence of crystallized human experience.

LEWIS F. PILCHER, New York State Architect]

In the flat country of Mesopotamia the architects built lofty zekkurats in order to provide high substructures for the crowning cella or shrine, and these lofty, temple-capped pyramids had a materialistic as well as a spiritual value in that they helped to form in the minds of the people an ideal as to the position in the community of both temporal and spiritual power.

To the north, at Khorsabad, a city of Assyria, the rulers constructed, as part of the great wall, an enormous plateau. This artificial mound, towering as it did some sixty feet above the level of the city, was used as a place of residence for the king and his court, while back of it, and so high that it bathed the plateau with its shadows, was constructed the many-stepped, cella-crowned temple of the priests. Thus religion looked down upon royalty and royalty, in turn, on its walled city with its level streets and multitudinous inhabitants, and thus in this segregated and self-sufficient community a natural and unwitting psychological arrangement of class housing was worked out by these early architects.

This same community phenomenon which we have noted in the Orient existed at the same time at Mycenae, Thyrns, Argos, Attica and Rome,--the heights being always occupied by the rulers, the foot-hills by the nobles and the adjacent plains by the people.

By these few examples taken from the religious and civil architecture of early civilization I have endeavored to show that class distinction tends to express itself through the use of different housing levels, the height of each group being directly proportional to the power of its social division, thus giving a concrete expression to the theoretical grades by which the human mind differentiates the social status of the people who comprise any given group.

APPLICATION TO WINGDALE

If we apply this rather pragmatic psychology to the problem of planning a new prison, we find it obvious at the outset that a prison population forms, together with its dependencies, a complete segregated community and therefore presents few phases which have not been successfully solved in the various treatments of community houses in past eras. Bearing in mind both this and the psychological principles which determine the function of any segregated community, it becomes perfectly clear that the old system of plotting an entire prison plan on an absolutely level piece of ground does not agree with either the teachings of history or the psychological principles which determine the site of community housing, and it thus becomes manifest that if we are to plan a prison which will be both a protection and a benefit to society we must select our site and construct our plans with the idea of having different grades of elevation for different degrees of social eminence.

If, remembering this, we summon practical experience to our aid we find that a prison population divides itself naturally into three major divisions, two of which are composed of actual inmates and a third of those in authority over them. The first and largest of these groups is made up of sub-normals and general recalcitrants who of necessity must work, eat, and sleep under constant and direct supervision. These will be confined in strong, well-guarded buildings situated within a walled enclosure and the work which they do will be such as can be efficiently done within the comparatively small space to which they are restricted.