Chapter II: Part 2

The second group, composed of prisoners who have shown themselves worthy of trust, will be allowed privileges which are denied the first. A concrete expression of these privileges will consist of lodging them in buildings situated on a higher level and with no enclosing walls, thus allowing them to carry on dairying, farming, stone crushing and similar industries.

As the working out of our community idea demands that the governing class occupy a higher site than those they govern, we have planned an adjacent but higher elevation for the offices, dwellings and other buildings necessary for the proper maintenance of a model prison.

In our plan for the new Wingdale Prison we have attempted to express a prison which will meet the scientific and historic precedents which we have at our command, and we fully believe that our plan will exert as beneficial an influence on our prisoners as did the noble monuments on the Acropolis at Athens on the humble people who constructed their mud-brick houses at its base.

Kilby Prison--The New Alabama Penitentiary Near Montgomery

Preliminary Note

_By_ HASTINGS H. HART, LL.D.

Alabama was the last of the Southern States to retain the convict lease system. The system has been very profitable, having produced for several years past more than $1,000,000 per year of net revenue.

The last legislature decreed the abandonment of the convict lease system in January, 1924, and in preparation for this change the State has undertaken the construction of the most elaborate prison in the south, with the possible exception of the United States Prison in Atlanta.

Under the laws of the State the prison managers have authority to expend the revenues from convict labor for land and improvements. Acting under this authority, Gov. Thomas E. Kilby; Hon. C. B. Rogers, President of the State Board of Control; and Dr. William F. Feagin, Warden General of the penitentiary system, have united in the effort to perfect a model southern prison.

The general plan of this prison was suggested by the Minnesota State Prison, with the important change, however, of adopting the outside cell system instead of the interior cage system. The adoption of the outside cell plan of construction increases the opportunity for escapes; therefore the prison wall surrounds the entire prison. None of the buildings except the office building is on the outer wall.

Following the example of the United States Government prison at Atlanta, the cells above the first tier are constructed to accommodate five prisoners each. The lower cells for one man each are of generous capacity, 7 feet wide, 10 feet long, and 8½ feet high, with an outside window for every cell, and elaborate ventilation system.

Alabama has about 3,000 prisoners. The new prison is designed to accommodate 800 men, with plans for enlargement to double that capacity. The remainder of the State convicts will probably be kept, as heretofore, in prison camps and employed on State farms. It is probable that the prison at Speigner, with the State cotton mill, will be continued, at least for the present.

The employment of prisoners in the cotton-mill industry has been successfully tested at Speigner, and it is purposed to establish a new cotton mill at Kilby Prison which will employ the greater part of the prisoners. It is proposed to manufacture cotton cloth suitable for shirting and to establish a shirt factory where the cloth will be manufactured into shirts for the market. The manufacturing will be on State account, the shirts to be sold at a contract price agreed upon in advance under certain standards of quality.

A large farm is attached to the prison where a model dairy has already been constructed with a herd of 90 Guernsey cows and an extensive piggery.

It is expected that this new departure will bring Alabama from the rear of the procession in prison administration to the front rank.

Notes on the Design and Construction of Kilby Prison,
Near Montgomery, Alabama

_By_ MARTIN J. LIDE, _Engineer and Architect_

Kilby Prison is designed essentially as an industrial prison. There are about 3,000 State convicts in Alabama. The labor of the majority of these heretofore has been leased out, principally to mining and lumber corporations. The State is poor in revenue and backward in education. It is, therefore, essential that these convicts be put to productive work in order that they may be at least self-sustaining. By act of the Legislature the leasing of convicts must cease after January, 1924. In order to receive these convicts from the mines and lumber camps and to place them into productive work this prison is being constructed.

As will be noted from the ground plan, the prison, exclusive of the administration building, is contained within a surrounding walled enclosure. The wall is about 20 feet high, 12 inches thick at the top, and 20 inches thick at the bottom, and sits on a concrete mat 6 feet wide. At the four corners of the wall are concrete guard towers, and on one side there is a lock gate 120 feet long, equipped with steel doors suspended with rollers. The walls are 1,000 feet long at the front and are 1,200 feet long on the sides. The wall is constructed in sections 30 feet long. Expansion is taken care of by the construction joints. During cool weather these joints were painted with tar, the thickness of the coating depending on the temperature at the time of the pouring. The concrete aggregate was mixed in the proportion of 1: 2: 4 parts of cement, sand, and gravel, the sand and gravel being mined on the property by the State. At the top of the wall four strands of barbed wire are mounted, alternate strands being charged to a potential of 6,600 volts, and the other strands being grounded. The connections to these strands are such that in case the charged wire is either cut or short circuited, an electric siren will blow.

It will be noted from the ground plan that the administration building is in front of the prison on the outside of the walls. Thus all free office employees work outside the prison. The administration building is a one-story building of brick and concrete. Connecting the Administration Building with the cell house is a corridor flanked on either side by rooms whose purposes are set forth in the ground plan drawing.

MAIN CELL HOUSE

The main cell house is a monolithic concrete structure veneered with brick and with cement tile roof laid on steel purlins. All cells and walkways are of concrete. The cell house contains five tiers of cells, the first tier being composed of single man cells and the remaining four tiers of five or six man cells. The single man cells are 7 feet wide, 8½ feet high, and 10 feet deep, and the multiple man cells are of the same height and depth, but are 22 feet wide. The rows of cells are separated by a 15-foot corridor with an open well in the center and with 3 feet 6 inches walkways in front. Every cell has one or more windows which are screened, barred with tool-proof steel guards, and equipped with counterbalanced steel sash. The cell building is so constructed that the multiple man cells may be converted into single man cells at any time in the future. Toilets and lavatories are provided for each cell. Forty-eight-inch roof ventilators are mounted on the cell house at 15-foot intervals. These ventilators also have fans mounted in them, the fans being driven by a common line shaft from a motor in the attic. By means of these fans it will be possible to completely ventilate the cell house at intervals, the air being drawn in from the windows and discharged from the roof.

As will be noted from the plans, large day-rooms or school-rooms separate the two wings of the cell house. These rooms are located on the second and third floors. These rooms will be used for religious purposes, as school-rooms, and for rest-rooms during rainy Sundays and holidays. In the rear of the cell house is a corridor flanked on either side by rooms whose purposes are explained on the ground plan. The corridor connects with a concrete and steel building in the rear, one wing of which will be used as a detention cell house and punitive cell house and the other wing as a utility house.

DETENTION CELL HOUSE

The detention cell house is two tiers high and contains 60 single man cells, each 6 by 10 feet, and 8½ feet high. These cells are otherwise similar to the single man cells in the main cell house. As may be inferred from the designation, the detention cell house will be used as a clearing-house for all new State convicts. All new convicts will be sent here for a quarantine period of ten days to two weeks. During this period the new convict will be given a careful mental, moral, and physical examination, and his past history will also be investigated. Obviously, the purpose will be to protect the prison body from the infectious diseases brought in by new convicts, to correct physical defects in the new prisoner, to make the necessary identification records, and to study the mental and physical characteristics of the prisoner, in addition to his past history, in order that he may be properly classified. By this means the mental and physical degenerates, confirmed criminals, and diseased criminals may be isolated from their fellows by placing them in the single man cells. It will also be possible, by proper classification, to segregate convicts of the same social and moral strata into the same multiple man cells.

At the outer end of the detention cell building is the punitive cell building, containing 24 concrete cells supplied with mechanical ventilation. Twelve of these cells will face the windows and will thus be solitary light cells, while the remaining 12 cells will face the dark corridor and will thus be solitary dark cells. In future, confinement and other methods of punishment will supersede corporal punishment in Alabama prisons.

On the opposite wing from the detention cell house is a utility building which is a brick and steel building containing clothing storage rooms, laundry, shower-bath, clothing and shoe repair room, and locker room for the clothes.

KITCHEN AND MESS HALL

A concrete and brick corridor, 10 feet wide, connects the detention cell house with the kitchen and mess hall in the rear. Space is provided between these two buildings for the future construction of another cell house which will double the cell facilities.

The mess hall and kitchen consists of an open brick and steel building, with brick walls, steel trusses, cement tile roof, no ceiling, and with concrete floor. The building is approximately 65 feet wide and 225 feet long. Forty-eight-inch ventilators are mounted between each pair of trusses. Steel factory sash with large ventilators are used throughout. All windows are barred and screened. The mess hall will also be used temporarily as an auditorium for speakers and picture shows. On the opposite wing from the mess hall is the kitchen, which will be equipped with steam cooking equipment. In the rear of the kitchen is the cold storage plant, consisting of vegetable, meat and ice storage rooms, and a complete refrigerating plant. In the rear of the mess hall is a covered concrete walk connecting same with the power plant. This walk is of permanent construction, with cement tile roof. The essential purpose of the shed covering the walk is to protect prisoners from the rain in going to and from the factories in the rear of the prison yard.

The power plant is located at the end of the covered walk. It consists of a brick and steel building with cement tile roof and concrete floors. The boiler plant consists of three 200 H.P. boilers connected to a radial brick stack 6 feet 6 inches in diameter by 150 feet high. In front of the boilers is a concrete bin underneath the railroad tracks, which are on the yard grade. The power plant contains a 100 K.W. emergency lighting generator, switchboard, vacuum pumps, feed water pumps, heater, and piping. All buildings are supplied from the power plant with vacuum steam heat, hot water, and electricity through a system of tunnels which connect the power plant with all buildings. Hot water is also supplied to the several buildings from a large heater located in the laundry room.

HOSPITAL

To the left of the prison proper is located the hospital, as indicated on the ground plan. This building is of brick and concrete, with cement tile roof. In general, as indicated, the hospital consists of a central administrative and operative portion, connected to wings at either end by means of corridors which are also flanked by rooms. Racial segregation will take place by placing white and colored patients at opposite ends of the hospital. At each end of the hospital are provided surgical and medical wards, each connecting into a sun-room.

By the construction of an additional cell house in the space indicated by the dotted lines on the ground plan, and by the construction of an additional kitchen and mess hall between the present mess hall and the power house, the population of the prison may be doubled. The present prison is designed to accommodate 800 prisoners on a basis of five men to the large cells. By putting six men in the cells, however, the present population may be increased to something over 900. By constructing an additional mess hall and kitchen, racial segregation may be more completely effected.

The present capacity of the hospital is 32 patients, but this capacity may be increased by extending the surgical and medical wards.

At the rear of the prison a cotton mill and a shirt factory are being constructed to consume the labor of the present prison population.

ECONOMY

The dominant consideration in the construction of the present prison has been the question of the maximum possible economy in first cost consistent with permanency and the security and welfare of the prisoners. All buildings are practically fireproof, but are no larger than are absolutely essential, and as far as possible all non-essential features have been eliminated. All essential utilities, such as a complete telephone system, alarm signal system, steam heat, an adequate lighting system for both the interior and the exterior of the prison, hot and cold water, etc., have been provided.

OUTSIDE CELLS

Economy in first cost was the guiding consideration in the construction of the cell houses, although a monolithic concrete structure with brick veneered exterior walls is by no means a cheap construction. But it is a permanent and safe construction. Economy in the construction of the cell house was secured through its compactness.

The outside type of cell house can be made practically secure for all classes of prisoners when surrounded by an outside wall of adequate height, with its top guarded by high tension charged wires, provided the windows to the cell houses are barred with steel-proof window guards and the prisoners are reasonably well guarded.

The relative hygienic and physiologic advantages of the outside and inside cell construction I will not discuss here except to say that we considered the outside cell construction manifestly superior in both of these respects. While we consider these features very important in a permanent prison, the question of economy in initial cost was also important in that the outside cell type of prison is a considerably narrower prison for the same cell capacity, and, furthermore, since continuous mechanical ventilation is not essential with the outside cell type, it can be more densely occupied, which further promotes economy in construction.

In designing the outside cell type of prison the problem is one of providing a certain definite external wall area for the sides of the prison, since for given dimensions of cells and a specified number of these cells a definite external wall area is required. The problem of maximum economy in construction then resolves itself into a question of providing the maximum of wall area with the minimum of floor area. Two general forms of outside cell buildings have been proposed: one, the narrow rectangular type adopted at the Kilby prison, and the other the cylindric type. It is demonstrated in geometry that of all figures a circle has a maximum of area for a given length of periphery, while a very narrow rectangle or quadrilateral has a minimum of area for a given periphery. It is, therefore, obvious that for a given external wall area, or a given cell capacity, the narrow rectangular type is more economical in first cost, since it reduces the ceiling and floor area to a minimum.

Economy in construction was also promoted by constructing our cell house five tiers high instead of four tiers, as is more usual.

Finally, additional economy was secured by the use of the multiple man cell. Our multiple man cells accommodate six prisoners, while three single man cells of the same cubic contents containing two partitions, two extra prison doors and locks, two extra lavatories, two extra water-closets, two extra radiators, with all of the necessary connections to these utilities, will only accommodate half as many prisoners. It will, therefore, cost more than twice as much in cell-house construction to incarcerate a given number of prisoners in the single man cells than in the six man cells.

It will, therefore, be noted that we have secured economy in cell-house construction (which is the most expensive item of prison construction) by increasing the density of occupancy in the cell houses. But this density of occupancy carries with it responsibilities in the matter of providing adequate ventilation for the inmates. Recognizing this responsibility, we have designed our cell house to secure the very maximum of natural ventilation. This is secured, first of all, by a very large proportion of window area to wall area; by ventilating the windows top and bottom; by constructing the cell house with a cross-section shaped like a chimney, with a large number of large ventilators on top of an open pitched roof, so as to secure the very maximum of chimney effect and also the very maximum effect from breezes.

Finally, to insure an adequate supply of ventilation in the summer, when there may be neither wind nor temperature difference, we have mounted disc fans in each ventilator, driven by ball-bearing shafting from a push-button-controlled motor. By this means the cell attendants, by pushing a button, will be enabled to flood the cell house with fresh air at any time the air becomes foul, and since the attendants will be on the inside of the prison, where the air will be most foul, they will probably make use of their opportunities.

Apart from humanitarian considerations, which in a large measure should dominate the designer of a prison, there is also the economic question of securing the maximum mental and physical output from the prisoner while at work. In an industrial prison a man can do more and better work if he sleeps and rests sufficiently. If the cotton mills are to be operated double shift during summer months with a large portion of the population sleeping during hot summer days, it is doubly important that the prisoners be confined in well-ventilated and sanitary quarters. This fact we have borne in mind in the design of the cell houses at Kilby Prison.

Prison Farms for Women

_By_ HASTINGS H. HART, LL.D.

Several States are developing prison farms for women on the cottage plan. We present herewith plans of two cottages recently constructed at the Connecticut State Farm for Women at Niantic and the New Jersey Reformatory for Women at Clinton.

State Farm for Women at Niantic, Connecticut--Reception Building

State reformatory institutions for women are rapidly being developed in the United States. The first two institutions of this class, the Indiana State Reformatory for Women at Indianapolis and the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women at Framingham, were prison structures, less rigid and formal than typical prisons for men, but still following prison models.

In the meantime the cottage system for younger girls grew up, and it was soon found that delinquent girls could be safely kept in ordinary cottages without any surrounding wall and without prison construction.

When the New York State Reformatory for Women was built at Bedford, cottages were erected instead of a large congregate building, and the gates of the institution stood open day and night. While occasionally escapes took place, the number was not large, and the fugitives were usually speedily recaptured.

All the new institutions for delinquent women are on the cottage plan, and in most cases the cottages are of simple construction, without window gratings, strong bars, walls, or even fences. In some cottages an iron grill protects the lower sash; sometimes this grill is masked by window plants.

The Connecticut State Farm for Women receives women committed for misdemeanors from all parts of Connecticut. There are only eight women convicted of felonies in the Connecticut State Prison at Wethersfield, but a considerable number of women are still committed to the county jails throughout the State. All the women at Niantic are committed for criminal offenses.

Three old farmhouses have been refitted to serve as cottages, and one new Reception Building has been erected to accommodate 27 incoming women. This is a wooden building, similar in construction to a well-built farmhouse. On the first floor are a kitchen, a dining-room, a living-room, and a reception department for incoming prisoners, with hospital wards, isolation wards, and accommodations for officers.

The dining-room and living-room are practically one room, so that the dining-room with its tables is available as an evening sitting-room and living-room.

On the second floor are single rooms for inmates, with accommodations for the matron and her assistant. The rooms are about 7 by 10 feet. They are simply but neatly furnished. Notwithstanding the fact that this cottage is designed for the incoming prisoners who are most likely to run away, the doors of this house are unlocked throughout the day.

The farm contains about 500 acres. Three old farmhouses, having been repaired and supplied with plumbing, furnish houseroom for three groups of women, each under charge of a matron. No one of these buildings is in any sense “secure”; but escapes are infrequent, and escaping prisoners are usually recaptured.

The only secure place on the farm consists of three small “thinking rooms” located in the basement of the receiving cottage. These rooms have strong doors and barred windows. Their construction is not satisfactory, but they will be replaced by more suitable detention rooms when additional buildings are erected.

The present buildings are inconvenient and ill adapted to the care and supervision of the women. When permanent buildings are erected, the work of the officers will be greatly simplified; but the probability is that the new buildings will be of simple construction, similar to that of the buildings that have already been erected.

The small number of escapes from the Connecticut State Farm for Women and Clinton Farms in New Jersey appears to be due to the establishment of a certain morale among the women. This morale rests partly on the fine spirit of the superintendents and their staffs, partly upon the certainty of recapture, and partly upon the spirit of the inmates. Running away is contrary to the practice of the place. “It isn’t done.”

Newcomers have to be carefully watched for the first few days until they overcome homesickness and become won to the place. After that they are less likely to attempt to abscond.

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

We present herewith the plan of the maternity cottage of the New Jersey State Reformatory for Women. This cottage is designed for the reception, care, and treatment of young mothers and babies. The building is 102 feet long and 40 feet wide, with a rear extension 24 by 28, containing the kitchen on the first floor and bedrooms for inmates on the second floor. The whole aspect of the house is cheerful and there is no appearance of a prison about the place.

The building contains 20 sleeping rooms for inmates, with a sleeping porch having room for ten additional inmates, and having a separate dressing-room for each person. There is a nursery for 12 or 14 infants, with a large sleeping porch.

The building is so arranged on both floors as to minimize the amount of waste space. There is a corridor on each floor which is only 60 feet long and 6 feet wide. This corridor terminates at each end in a large room so as to avoid unnecessary corridor space. The rooms for the inmates are about 6½ by 10 feet. Each room has a good outside window.

In this cottage kitchen space adequate for preparing of mothers’ and infants’ food is provided. A diet kitchen adjoining the larger kitchen assists in the preparation of the infants’ food. A dumbwaiter shaft extends from this diet kitchen to the second floor, where a small diet kitchen for food service and storage of milk formulas is provided. In this diet kitchen is a refrigerator especially adapted to the needs. This refrigerator is six feet high and six feet wide, porcelain lined, with shelving specially planned to hold wire baskets containing the regular eight ounce nursing bottle. No other foods except the milk formulas are kept in this refrigerator.

Room is provided in the basement for milk pasteurizer with 144 bottle capacity. This is connected with high pressure steam.

Adjoining the nursery is a specially equipped infants’ bath-room. A small bath-tub and two bath-slabs provide ample bathing facilities for both small infants and those of larger size. Tiled floors and hard finished walls make this a most sanitary arrangement.

FRANCIS H. BENT, _Architect_]

This building is constructed entirely of hollow tile and stucco corridors of cement, and rear stair and front stair fireproof towers of metal, and fire glass construction with cement stairways. The room floors and nursery floor, living room floor, and dining room are of hardwood construction, but you will note that all exits and main corridors are fireproof.

General plan of using gray slate roof on our institution buildings has been adopted. Dormer windows in the roof give ample storage space in the attic for clothing and other stock. The laundry is situated in the basement, and here the mothers are taught properly to care for their infants’ clothing.

The other cottages are similar to those which are built for younger delinquent girls in State industrial schools, without prison construction, strong doors, or window-bars, except that in some cottages the lower window-sash is protected by an iron grill which obstructs but does not prevent egress. Some of the cottages are old farmhouses which have been repaired and equipped with plumbing in order to adapt them to their present use.

It must be borne in mind that all the women in this institution are committed for criminal offenses, including many petty offenses and sex offenses. They include also such crimes as grand larceny, burglary, assault with intent to kill, atrocious assault and battery, highway robbery, and manslaughter.

There are no walls or high fences surrounding the buildings.

Notwithstanding the absence of prison walls and prison buildings, the number of escapes is very small and escaping prisoners are usually recovered within a few hours.

The institution was opened January 8, 1912, and it has received 584 women. Of these, 33 have escaped, of whom 25 have been recaptured and 8 still remain at large. This makes a record of only one and one-third per cent of successful escapes, which in view of the absence of prison restraints is a remarkable record. It certainly justifies the policy of the Board of Managers in adopting the cottage plan and discarding prison walls.

Proposed Plans for a State Prison

ALFRED HOPKINS, _Architect_]

In 1915 Mr. Alfred Hopkins, architect of the Westchester County Penitentiary, drew tentative plans of a large state prison for the New York Prison Association. These plans were drawn in consultation with the late Dr. Orlando F. Lewis, Secretary of the Association. Mr. Hopkins describes the plans as follows:

It was proposed to house 1500 inmates, all told. These were divided into four general classifications: the main or institutional group was to contain 800 inmates, a disciplinary group was to house 150 inmates, a defective or abnormal group was to contain 150 inmates, and the honor group in cottages was to house 400. By looking at the accompanying plan it will be seen that the institutional group is composed of eight cell blocks of 100 men each, four cell blocks disposed on either side of the main court and all joined by a connecting corridor, establishing two general classifications which are consistently maintained throughout every function of the institution.

The cell blocks are three stories high, each floor separated and segregated from the other floors, which makes 24 classifications--all that will ever be required. There are two bath-houses, one for each group of four-cell blocks.

The administration building is placed at one end of the court and the mess hall at the other. The mess hall is arranged with entrances at each end so that the two general classifications can be kept separate in the dining room as well as in the school-rooms on the floor above. On the third floor is the large auditorium. This has been set back at the ends so as to let into the main court the maximum amount of air and sunshine.

To the right of the institution are the cell blocks and shops for the hardened offenders who will be confined here and will not leave their quarters. On the corresponding side to the left is the hospital and the quarters for the abnormal and defectives. The power house, over which is a gymnasium, is located behind the institution. The shops have been placed so that they form a large enclosure, giving two athletic fields with the gymnasium between and used jointly for both, so that the two general classifications of the institution group each have their special fields for exercise. In front of the institutions is the cottage group, whose inmates will work largely in the fields. The cottages are all in smaller units where the men may be housed in dormitories or in single rooms.

Proposed Plan for a Reformatory

ALFRED HOPKINS, _Architect_

This tentative plan was developed by Mr. Alfred Hopkins, Architect, along lines suggested by Superintendent Frank Moore, of the New Jersey State Reformatory at Rahway. It provides for three general classifications: An Administration and Custodial Group, an Agricultural Group and an Industrial Group; the various departments of the institution being connected by a covered passageway. Mr. Hopkins remarks: “While this plan is only in the nature of a preliminary sketch, it is interesting in showing that a practical prison man is quite willing to get away from the old idea of supervision which established the radiating plan and the long type of cell block.”

ALFRED HOPKINS, _Architect_]

Westchester County Penitentiary and Workhouse, White Plains, N. Y.

_By_ ALFRED HOPKINS, _Architect_

(First published in February, 1918)

ALFRED HOPKINS, _Architect_]

The Westchester County Penitentiary is a simple form of the type of a plan whose various parts are brought together by the use of the connecting corridor to provide indoor circulation throughout the group. This system of design is well known in connection with other types of building, but seems to be new to prison architecture. Indeed, such an arrangement would have only been tolerated in the present attitude toward the offender. Modern penology demands, first of all, adequate possibilities for segregation and classification. These are of vital importance in the administration of the modern penal institution, and cannot be properly had in the huge cell block. To achieve this classification and segregation, the connecting corridor offers the greatest possibilities.

THE GENERAL PROBLEM

The general problem was as follows:

Westchester County had purchased at East View, at a very reasonable price, a fine estate of some four hundred acres of exceptionally tillable land. On this property it was proposed to build a Poor House for about 700 and a penitentiary and workhouse for about 350, all short-term prisoners, the maximum sentence being thirteen months. Most of the men were to be employed on the farm, but in an institution of this size there are always men who will do better in shops so that the two kinds of work ought to be available. The plan was to build the institution by contract and the shops by prison labor.

The general scheme is set forth clearly in the plan, and it may be said that at the very beginning it was determined the men should be housed in smaller units than was usual. There are four cell blocks of three tiers each, all with outside cells, there being 27 men on a floor and 81 to a cell block. The connecting corridor 16 feet wide runs approximately east and west, and to this are joined the four cell blocks on the south, and on the north the reception building, the refectory, and school building. Between the two central cell blocks is placed the administration building, connected to them by an open passage.

The administration building has on the ground floor the warden’s office on one side of the hall, and the clerical office on the other, and in the rear, a long corridor which has been called the “guards’ corridor” but which will be used largely for the intercourse between the prisoners and the public. On the second floor of the administration building are quarters for a hospital and some rooms for the officers. It will be noted that the officers’ rooms on the second floor and the guards’ rooms on the third floor are accessible from the public space, but the hospital is accessible only from the prison side. In other words, the hospital is in the fortified portion and the guards’ quarters in the unfortified. The main stairway goes up to the third floor of the administration building, devoted entirely to guards’ rooms, and these were made large enough so that two guards could occupy one room, and while this is not generally advisable it was a wise forethought because some of the rooms have already been used in this way.

HOSPITAL AND RECEPTION BUILDING

The hospital quarters are small, because in the prison with the individual room a man who is sick is better off in his cell than he would be in a general hospital ward, and the men very frequently prefer to stay by themselves.

The prisoners brought to the institution enter the bath and reception building at the rear, where the process of their reception is as follows:

They enter to the left, where they undress and bathe. Their clothes are tied up in a bag, temporarily placed in a metal-lined closet, which can be fumigated, and later taken to the general county farm laundry and sterilized. After the prisoner has had his bath he goes into the doctor’s office, where he is given a careful physical examination, and here also are made the finger-print and other records of identification which are very desirable from many points of view.

He then goes to the barber if necessary and has his hair cut. It is not now the custom to crop all prisoners’ heads unless the actual physical condition makes such treatment necessary. After he has been given clean underclothes and a clean prison suit he goes to the warden’s office and is there interviewed by him. The prisoner is told what the rules of the institution are, and his first meeting with the warden is of consequence to both, as it gives the warden an intimate opportunity to regard and to counsel his man, and the prisoner his first intimation of what is expected of him and what his treatment will be. After his interview with the warden the prisoner is placed in cell block 3 to stay during the period of observation, which is usually about two weeks. This is not only for the purpose of finding out what his physical condition may be, and to guard against the development of contagious disease, but also that the prison authorities may make the equally important diagnosis of his mentality, from which is largely determined his future treatment.

OBSERVATION CELL BLOCK

This cell block set apart for the observation period of the inmate adjoins the administration building, and it is easy for the warden to be in frequent touch with the new men. An inmate who is only sentenced for a week or ten days would never leave this cell block, but would serve his sentence and be released from there. Men confined for a longer period, however, would be assigned to whatever classification seemed best after the observation period expires. In the reception building are also included the shower baths, twenty-seven in number, so that all the inmates of each floor may be bathed at one period. Shower baths are frequently put in the basement, about the worst possible place for them at all times, but especially in a prison. At Westchester no quarters of any kind were put in the basement. It was determined at the outset that all requirements should be accommodated above ground, a very wise provision for every prison building. Adjoining the shower room is a store room which would be small under ordinary circumstances, but in this instance there is a large general storehouse which will be maintained independently for the penitentiary and workhouse.

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING]

The school building contains four rooms with accommodations for 30 pupils in each school-room.

MESS HALL

The mess hall has been laid out so that the prisoners will sit at the table in the ordinary way, facing one another, with alternate wide aisles for service. Feeding the prisoners in a large mess hall has now been generally adopted in this country, and is infinitely better than the continental system of feeding them in the cell. Man is a gregarious animal, especially when his waywardness has landed him in prison, and the old systems, which aimed at the solitary confinement of the prisoner and tried to reform him by opposing all the things which were natural to him, were as stupid as they were cruel.

Over the mess hall is the auditorium, large enough for all, with two stairways so that the inmates from cell blocks 3 and 4 may be separated from those in cell blocks 1 and 2, and the connecting corridor has been divided by mesh grilles, so that these two general classifications which are very desirable may be maintained.

THE CONNECTING CORRIDOR

The connecting corridor is not only advantageous in permitting all portions of the institution to be reached under cover, but has been very desirable as a place of recreation for the prisoners. It will be noted that it is cross ventilated by windows north and south and that, with its extended southern exposure, it makes a very satisfactory place for recreation and exercise in bad weather when the men cannot work outdoors. A signal advantage, too, arising from this type of plan is that the cell blocks on the second and third stories are lighted on all four sides because of the one story height of the connecting corridor. The cell blocks are not only closed off from the connecting corridor by a glass partition, but at each floor the corridor between the cells is again closed off from the stair hall so as to make the quarters for the men as quiet as possible. The intolerable banging, rattling, and reverberation of the usual steel cell in the huge modern cell block is one of the chief things to be said against it.

It will be noticed that the institution as planned resolves itself into three courts, all of which will be kept in grass and planting and will look as little like the usual prison enclosure as is possible to make them through gardening means.

THREE DOMINANT IDEAS

In designing Westchester the dominant idea was to accomplish three things: first, to create an institution which would look as little like the conventional jail as possible; second, to give each inmate the privacy of a separate compartment; and third, to build a county jail that, without giving much more in appearance and accommodation than the old type, should not exceed it in cost.

ELEVATIONS OF CORRIDOR AND CELL]

With the first idea in mind the bars to the windows were all located on the inside of the sash, instead of on the outside, so that this distinguishing mark of the usual penal institution should be as little evident as possible.

By a special dispensation of the New York State Prison Commission permission was given to place the bars six inches on centers instead of the usual four and one-half inches on centers. The windows were designed so that only three bars were necessary. These are painted light in color, and consequently offer much less obstruction to the light. They are of tool-proof steel, and as the inmates are all short-term men, the desire for escape is not so great as in the longer term prisoner. At the time this idea was developed the author would have hesitated to put long-term men behind prison bars which were so readily accessible to the ingenuity of the accomplished crook, but he would not hesitate to do so now.

In the cells a toilet has been placed where it will be screened as much as possible, and the usual prison seat has been arranged to close down over it and conceal it almost entirely from view. The cell walls have been painted a soft gray, and each cell has a cot, a table and chair, a shelf and hook for the prisoner’s clothes, and a wash-basin. The dining-room has been furnished with very creditable looking tables and chairs, and the floor paved with a bright red tile, and the dull monotony of color usual in a prison building has been avoided throughout the institution.

THE OUTSIDE CELL

In designing the Westchester County Penitentiary and Workhouse, the second ambition realized by the author was to give each prisoner an outside cell. When the plan was first developed, three years ago, the outside cell was much more a matter of controversy than it is at the present time. The inside cell of the American prison is a type peculiar to this country, and its design is based on the principle that the prisoner is to be retained above every other consideration. Consequently our jails have been designed with what has come to be known as “interior cells,” that is, the cells are placed not against the outside walls, but in the center of the building, back to back, separated by a passageway from three to four feet in width, referred to as a utility corridor, in which all the plumbing and ventilating pipes are placed. The space between the outside of the building and the front of the cells is frequently divided by a steel grille forming two long corridors, the outside corridor being called the guards’ corridor, and the inside corridor, next to the cells, the prisoners’ corridor. The object of this division was to protect the guard from the prisoner, for this system is devised on the theory that every jail building must be constructed on the basis of making it safe for the worst possible criminal which might ever get into it. Indeed, every once in a while a guard is killed by a prisoner; but so every once in a while a man is killed crossing the street, but this does not mean that our streets are unsafe, if reasonable care is observed in traversing them.

LIGHT, HEAT, AND VENTILATION

Placing the cells in the center of the cell block makes it possible to fill the outside wall with windows--in fact, a proportion of light area which came to be established was that the outside wall should be 50 per cent glass. The radiation was placed between the windows, which open like louvres, and with an exhaust fan in the top of the utility corridor it was possible to draw the warm fresh air through the cell to the roof, thereby obtaining very satisfactory results in heating and ventilation.

While a good deal may be said for such a prison from the standpoint of its mechanical heating and ventilation, from the standpoint of the welfare of the prisoner hardly too much can be said against it. The great disadvantages of the cage type of cell are the complete loss of all privacy to the inmate, the inhuman and grotesque appearance which it gives to his confinement, and the difficulty of providing really adequate segregation and classification. Important prisons like the Great Meadow Prison of New York State and the prison at Stillwater, Minn., both of which are renowned for enlightened and efficient administration, have this inside cell arrangement. These prisons, however, were constructed when very little was known of the outside cell construction, and many practical prison men were largely against its adoption.

There is really no place in this country where it is possible to study adequately the outside cell, long advocated by our more progressive penologists, so that the author made a tour of Continental prisons for the sole purpose of discovering wherein lay their advantage and how they should be designed to make them suitable to this country and climate.

CONTINENTAL CONSTRUCTION

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.

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.

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.

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.

VENTILATION BY CELL DOORS

The cell doors operate on an automatic device, with which it is possible to open all the doors at once, or each one individually. The author’s contribution to this device was that they could also be locked five inches open. In this way it is possible in warm weather to ventilate the cell into the central corridor; which in turn is ventilated at each end by accessible windows across its entire width. It is true that the prisoners can look out through the five-inch opening and communicate with one another across the corridor; but if this privilege is abused, the door can be closed separately and the offending inmate may be disciplined without affecting the comfort of the others. In the new cell block at the Eastern Penitentiary at Philadelphia the cells have been equipped with two doors--one of solid wood and the other an iron grating. In warm weather the grating only is used, and if a prisoner becomes unruly or noisy, the wooden door is closed. The upper portions of the doors at Westchester are glazed, as they always should be, because it is necessary for the guard at all times to see if the prisoner is in his cell.

Almost the whole problem of the outside cell lies of course in the window. Our climate is such in summer that it would be almost inhuman to put a man in a cell and shut the door without providing adequate window area. The English cell with its small window opening would be intolerable here. So would those in the Holland and German prisons, where the windows are hinged at the bottom and open at the top. The Westchester windows are steel sash of the usual casement type except that they are pivoted top and bottom 4 inches from the jamb. This enables the window to be readily cleaned on each side. The window opens at right angles to the wall, and the opening is entirely adequate for our weather conditions, the window being two feet wide and four feet high. The adjuster is a commercial type, and will keep the window open at 90 degrees, 45 degrees, and about 15 degrees.

Proposed Plans of the Detroit House of Correction

_By_ ALBERT KAHN, _Architect_

The plan of the new Detroit House of Correction is the result of a careful survey of the most recently designed penological institutions and the assembling of what was considered best about them, adding such features as seemed desirable to the Hoard of Commissioners and its architect.

CORRELATION OF DIVISIONS

Foremost in the general scheme is the proper correlation of the various divisions, for administration, the admission, care, and education of prisoners; the workshops and recreation courts. With all, the idea of preserving the prisoner’s self-respect as far as possible and impressing him with the idea that while he must receive deserved punishment, every chance of rehabilitation is offered him.