THE IDEAL OF A TRUE PRISON SYSTEM FOR A STATE
By Z[EBULON]. R[EED]. BROCKWAY
Superintendent of the Detroit House of Correction
5. A GRADUATED SERIES OF REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS FOR ADULTS. These should consist of three grades:
(a) The House of Reception.—Here all prisoners should be received and retained, until reliable information is obtained as to their ancestral history, their constitutional tendencies and propensities, their early social condition and its probable influence in forming their character; and until, with this aid, an examination is had and a careful estimate made of their physical, mental and moral condition, upon which basis a plan of treatment may be outlined. Here the incorrigible must be detained in solitary or safe custody, and experimentative treatment applied to all, for the purpose of finding those who can be properly transferred to the next grade.
(b) The Industrial Reformatory.—The special office of this grade is to cultivate the germinal faculties of the intellect and the moral nature, discovered during their stay in the house of reception. Prisoners coming to this institution with good physical health, which should be made a sine qua non, will be here so trained to labor as to insure their productive employment thereafter, and their perseverance and self-command will be developed and subjected to appropriate tests. The mind will be stimulated by such means as best interest and instruct. The benevolent principle, that foundation for all religious growth, will be brought into active use, and, if possible, so developed that it shall shape their purposes throughout all their future life. Such of the prisoners as thrive under this training may be removed, with great hope and confident security, to the last of the series for male prisoners, viz.:
(c) The Intermediate Reformatory.—This grade of establishments may be supplied from present municipal prisons or district penitentiaries, or may be otherwise provided. They will form outposts on the brink of society, at once guarding it from the return of prisoners of dangerous influence, and restoring those who show themselves worthy. Their location should be in the interior, in the best part of the state, near some populous town, and, if possible, near the state university, or other prominent educational institution. Their construction should embrace a large inclosure, secure in and of itself, and sufficiently removed from apartments where most of the time is spent, to obviate the evil effect of an ever-present and observable physical restraint. This inclosure should contain dormitories (not in the sense of burial-places), affording to each prisoner a separate room, such as a respectable citizen might occupy; a dining-hall, upon the plan of a well-regulated restaurant for work-people, where, within due limits, any desired edible may be supplied; a library building and public hall, suitable for reading rooms, religious services, scientific and other intellectual exercises of a public nature; suitable industrial apartments for the branches of mechanical business carried on, which, with limited agricultural employment, may constitute the productive industrial occupation of the residents; the whole to be organized substantially upon the co-operative plan.