STATE PRISONS.
So far as I am informed, the State Prisons are well managed and in a satisfactory condition. The financial success of the present administration of the Northern Prison in making it self-sustaining, without disregarding or neglecting the physical, moral or intellectual interests of the prisoners, is worthy of the highest commendation.
The moral reformation that has been wrought in the affairs of the State Prison South, since the commencement of the administration of the present Warden, has merited all the praise that has been so generously bestowed upon it.
It is deeply to be regretted that under our system of officering these Institutions, the administration of their affairs is so liable to be changed with the mutations of political parties. Wisdom would dictate that considerable permanency of administration, coupled with a rigid responsibility on the part of those having the management of such Institutions, should prevail; our policy is just the reverse of this. It is frequent change of administration, with no liability to have the affairs of the Prisons inspected or the officers thereof called to account, except during the sixty-one days, in every period of two years, when the General Assembly is in session.
I call your attention to the fact that there are insane prisoners in one, and perhaps both of our prisons, and some of these are dangerous to the other prisoners for want of proper facilities for their care and treatment. Experience has shown in Ohio and other States that it is unwise to transfer such prisoners to the Insane Hospital, as placing those convicted of crime among the other insane patients has a bad influence on the latter, and the treatment which the insane prisoners receive from the other inmates of the Hospital is not such as to promote their recovery. In addition to this, the Hospital is not sufficiently strong for such patients without preparing a ward expressly for their accommodation. I therefore recommend that a ward be constructed within the walls of the Northern Prison expressly for insane prisoners, and that provision be made for the transfer, from time to time, as occasion may require, of all insane prisoners in either of the prisons to such ward.
I invite your attention to the statements in the Reports of the Directors and Warden of the Southern Prison in relation to the fire that occurred in April last and the money advanced to repair the damage done to the prison by the fire. The amount advanced was $12,000, and it was furnished by the Auditor of State out of the uninvested money of the Sinking Fund in his hands. There is consequently no liability for interest unless you see proper to provide for the payment of interest to the School Fund for the use of the money.
I have already in speaking of the Sinking Fund recommended that an appropriation be made without delay to reimburse that Fund to the amount thus borrowed.
I desire here to suggest that there ought to be a definite policy established by law as to the insurance of the buildings belonging to the various State institutions. There should be a uniform practice in this respect to insure all State buildings connected with the benevolent institutions, prisons and reformatories, or to insure none of them. As it now is, there is a partial insurance on some and none at all an others. The true policy, in my judgment, would be for the State to be the insurer of its own buildings without exception; that this policy would be profitable in the long run I have no doubt; but with it should be coupled the power, in the event of a loss by fire, to the Executive officers of the State to draw from the Treasury of the State, under proper restrictions and limitations to be prescribed by law, a sufficient sum of money to repair the injury done. As the matter now stands the General Assembly must in such case be convened in special session, at an expense to the State greater, as a general rule, than the sum necessary to be appropriated, or the Governor or some other officer must take the responsibility of obtaining and applying the necessary amount without authority of law.
I commend to your careful consideration the propriety of pondering the question, whether it will not soon be necessary to abandon the Southern Prison, and establish in lieu thereof, at some central point in the State, a prison intermediate between the House of Refuge and the Penitentiary, with a view to the gradation of our reformatory and penal institutions, as well as to a classification of prisoners. The prison at Michigan City might be made to accommodate all the prisoners that would for some years be sent to a prison of that class if we had an intermediate prison. Its location in one of the extremes of the State is an objection to the policy of having but one prison of its class for the entire State, but I do not think this objection is insuperable. The prison at Jeffersonville is in such a condition that it will require a large amount to keep it in even tolerable repair, and then it seems cruel to perpetuate the policy of keeping human beings, though they be convicted criminals, in cells seven feet long, seven feet high, and three and a half feet wide, with no ventilating flues, and no possibility of getting fresh air except through the grating of the cell doors. If the contract system is to be continued, and I do not see how to do otherwise at present, the law itself should contain such provisions as will give the directors and warden full control and en able them to terminate the contracts whenever the interests of the State may require it. As the matter now is, the rights of the State depend very much on the skill, or want of skill with which the contracts for the labor of the prisoners are drawn.
