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THE PRISON NEWS
PUBLISHED MONTHLY, BY THE STATE PRISON DEPARTMENT
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I THE STATE’S PRISON. RALEIGH, N. C. APRIL i, 1927 MEMBER VI
General Assembly Backs Prison Administration. Additional Farm Land Needed
To Care For Hundred Per-cent Population Increase. Bill Passes By Vote Of 38
to 7. Governor Assigns Reasons For Bond Issue, For Purchase Of Land.
1 he Bill authorizing the purchase of addition¬
al farm lands for use of the State's Prison passed
its final reading in the Senate of the General
Assembly by a vote of 38 to 7. Additional
lands are needed due to the more than one hun¬
dred per-cent increase in Prison population.
I he acquisition of additional property had no
out spoken opposition, as a large majority of the
members of the Legislature had acquainted
themselves with Prison conditions and fully real¬
ized the Prison needs more land when its pop¬
ulation has more than doubled.
A letter from Governor McLean to Senator
P. H. Williams setting forth in an unanswerable
manner the reasons for the necessary expansion
was drafted but the bill was passed without de¬
bate making it therefore unnecessary to use the
Governor’s letter.
The letter of Governor McLean was as
follows:
March 7th, 1927.
Hon. P. H. Williams, Chairman,
Committee on Appropriations,
Senate Chamber,
Releigh, N. C.
My dear Senator Williams:
I am very glad to comply with your request
to give you some of the reasons why it is best
to authorize a bond issue of $400,000 for the
State’s Prison, as contemplated in an act which
has passed the House and is now pending in the
Senate. You will no doubt recall that we dis¬
cussed the needs of the State’s Prison very fully
during the deliberations of the Budget Com¬
mission, at which time it was generally agreed
that it will be necessary to have additional farm
lands for the use of the Prison within the next
two years. 1 he Director and members of the
Advisory Budget Commission reached the conclu¬
sion at that lime that it might be best to sell a
part of the Method farm for which a very high
price can be obtained and purchase land with
the proceeds of that sale. For that reason no
recommendation was made in the report of the
Budget Commission for funds with which to
purchase lands.
After discussing I he matter with members of
the I louse of Representatives it was ascertained
that there was division of opinion as to whether
it would be best to sell part of the Method farm
now and purchase additional lands out of the
proceeds or retain the Method farm and ask the
General Assembly to authorize a bond issue
for the purchase of additional land. After con¬
sultation with the Chairman of the Committee
on Appropriations and f inance in the House
of Representatives, it was determined to ask the
General Assembly to authorize an issue of
$400,000 in bonds to purchase additional land
and erect buildings thereon with the understand¬
ing that the power will not be exercised unless
the Directors of the Prison, the members of the
Advisory Budget Commission, and the Governor
and Council of Slate finally determine that it is to
the best interests of the State to make the pur¬
chase by issuing bonds rather than by selling a
part of the Method farm.
I he need for an additional farm will appear
from the following facts:
When the Method farm was purchased dur¬
ing the Bickett administration, in January 1920,
the total population of the Prison was about sev¬
en hundred. I he population at the present
time is I 322 and is increasing at a rapid rate.
For example, the net increase for the month of
February was forty prisoners. 1 here are I 49
prisoners on the Method farm at the present time,
49 more than is necessary to cultivate that farm.
There are at the Caledonia farm, at present,
approximately six hundred prisoners, or about
I 30 more than is necessary to cultivate that
farm.
There are 306 prisoners in the Central Pris¬
on at Raleigh and only about 100 of this num¬
ber can be profitably utilized at that prison.
There are now about 300 prisoners in road
camps and rock quarries.
These may be returned at any time upon ten
days notice. Inasmuch as road work in the
section of the State in which these prisoners arc¬
being used is slowing down it is probable that
many if not a'l of them will be returned
within the next year. If these five hundred
prisoners are returned there is no place to put
them except at Central Prison at Raleigh. I he
facilities of the Central Prison are wholly insuf¬
ficient to properly house and take care of the
500 prisoners that may be returned and at the
same time take care of the prisoners now there,
as well as those that are coming in every day.
1
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make sufficient room available at the Cen¬
tral Prison would require the expenditure of a
large sum of money, which would be inadvis¬
able because there is no profitable use to which
the prisoners may be put in the Central Prison.
Experience has taught that whenever a large
number o! prisoners me confined in the Central
Prison, they !•■ v -in.
»
d. tinit liability for lack
of means of • n.pioyin ; them m profitable work.
In this connection, it may be said that if the
500 prisoners now on roads and quarries should
be returned within the next two years, the pop¬
ulation of the Central Prison would be about
800 prisoners, plus the increase in the mean¬
time, with no means of making them self-sup¬
porting.
It has been exceedingly difficult to find work
for prisoners in the Central Prison for the reason
that various interests in the State, particularly
local parties in Raleigh, object to using them in
any employment that might by any stretch of
the imagination permit them to compete with
skilled labor.
To issue the bonds authorized by the pend¬
ing act, the cost to the Slate, including interest
and sinking fund requirements, would be about
$2 1 ,000 per annum as against a loss to the
State of probably twice that amount if prisoners
are kept in the Central Prison without profitable
employment.
Up until a few years ago the proportion of
negro prisoners to white prisoners was about
three to one, but recently over half of the total
number of prisoners being admitted are white.
Wry few of the white prisoners now- being re-
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