USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 3 > Part 50
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Thomas Cleveland, M. D., was made Warden. He was a man of education and ability, well informed in all matters pertaining to his profession as a physician, actuated by exalted motives, and an enthusi- astic believer in the separate system of prison management. Perhaps it would have been impossible to find a man better adapted to his position, but the position was an impossible one. Isaac Hartshorn, M. D., an experienced and successful practitioner of medicine in the city of Providence was appointed Prison Physician. The Warden of the State Prison was made Keeper of the Providence County Jail also, an arrangement that has continued until the present day.
In the first report, and again in the second report of the Board of In- spectors, theseparatesystemis highly commended, and a very favorable opinion is expressed "of the effect of the discipline and regimen of the State Prison upon the convicts;" any question that a doubter might have raised being answered with a declaration that "experience shows it to be beneficial rather than injurious." The cells are described as "commodious, well ventilated, and cleanly," and the prisoners as "anxious for employment, so anxious that to be idle would be reck- oned a hardship." It is said of them that "their docility and content- ment are remarkable. They have sufficient food, which is simple and healthful; they are treated with all proper kindness; they are instruct-
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ed in the value of good conduct and good principles. Perhaps no condition can be imagined in which they could be placed, all circum- stances considered, more advantageously for society and for them- selves." Doubtless all this was believed by the inspectors ; they were sure that all of it ought to be true; unhappily it was scarcely any of it true. The inspectors were SO strongly preju- diced in favor of the system which had been adopted, and so confident of finding in its workings only desirable results, that they were blind to. the facts of the case. Perhaps too the new order assumed imaginary excellences because of the strong contrast that appeared between it and the state of affairs in the jail. Still it is not easy to see how men whose one office in the matter was to see the things that were and to report the actual state of affairs, could express thmeslves as they did in their first two reports. At the same time the prison physician reported that the prisoners "complain of a want of sufficient ventila- tion." He also describes at length a case of serious illness which he ascribed to the foulness of the atmosphere that the patient was com- pelled to breath in his cell.
In his second report (1840) the Warden said of the jail that "persons charged and convicted of various crimes have been committed to said jail, comprising all ages, sexes, colors, and conditions, except the moral and the good, comprising sufficient talent and experience, however, to make it a school of the highest order, for qualifying all who may be admitted thereto, to be adepts in every form of vice." He further said of the jail that its walls being "free of access to any one, the inmates are constantly supplied with saws, knives, files, keys, lamps, matches, and the like; and the man who to-day is thor- oughly searched, and deprived of everything of the kind, to-morrow finds his cell converted into a well furnished shop." He also mentions as a source of deep degradation "the free and constant communication kept up day and night between males and females therein confined." This evil he declares to be unavoidable under the plan of construction followed in the building of the jail.
In the third report of the Board of Inspectors (1841) a decided change of tone appears. Light had shown into the dark places, revealing that which wrought in them a violent revulsion of feeling. Unqualified disapprobation is now ex- pressed for the things which twelve months since were so highly com- mended. The inspectors now declare that "the labor in the prison is not a source of profit to the state," that "many of the prisoners are inclined to be idle," that "the cases in which the taking away of labor would be considered a hardship are very rare," that the removal of furniture from the cells and the deprivation of food, the only forms of punishment permitted under the law, were inadequate to secure obedience to the prison rules, that in some cases hunger had been stub-
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bornly endured till great weakness had resulted, and reeommending that the infliction of corporal punishment be legally authorized ; suggesting that "the experiment of solitary confinement has not sinee the prison was built proved perfeetly satisfactory," and that "they fear the effect is to injure strong minds, and to produec imbecility in those that are weak." They deelare that it had been impossible using the utmost vigilance to prevent communication between convicts and with friends outside the prison. They also speak of a "well arranged plan of insur- reetion," which had it not been detected might have been earricd into effect. So their third report contradicts the first two in all important partieulars ; but the Inspectors had now some experience in their office, and being no longer mere theorists, were able to see for themselves what was before unseen. Their enthusiastie endorsement of the soli- tary system they now admitted to have been premature.
The effeet of this report was the appointment of a special committee of the general assembly to examine the prison and jail, with orders to enquire whether there were not abuses ealling for legislative aetion, and to consider whether the expense of supporting these institutions might not be in some way redueed.
Reports presented by the Inspectors in the two years next following were equally unfavorable to the separate system. Six of the thirty- seven conviets in the prison had beeome hopelessly insane, and several others were mentally unbalanced as the direct result of the conditions of their confinement. Here was ground for alarm. The ease was urgent and called for immediate action. As a relief from the strain of solitude and silenee, it was ordered that the prisoners be permitted to work together in the corridors; but the insuffieieney of this coneession was soon manifest. A common workshop was now determined upon, to be fifty-four feet long and ten feet high and forty-two feet wide, without windows, being lighted from the top only. To light a prison workshop by windows through which a conviet might look into the prison enelosure and see the sunshine, and perhaps himself be seen by some one living in the world, was more than eould be permitted. The cost of this workshop was $2,397. When this had been in use but a single year the warden reported that the health, general appearance and conduet of the prisoners, arising doubtless from the ehange from solitary confinement to congregated labor, "has been very apparent, redueing the loss of time oceasioned by sickness at least three- fourths."
The separate system was fast breaking down under its own weight. It received a finishing stroke in 1844 when Warden Cleveland reported at considerable length and with great vigor "the injurious and alarm- ing effects of solitary eonfinement upon those who are subjects of it." Dr. Julius of Berlin, a widely known advocate of the separate system,
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had charged its failure in Rhode Island to the "mismanagement of those charged with the duty of carrying it into effect." Against this unfounded charge Mr. Cleveland successfully defended the prison au- thorities, discussing the whole subject with much ability, showing that the causes of failure were inherent in the system, and making plain that it was impossible for one who hadstudied and observed its practical workings "to hesitate in condemning the penal system of solitary con- finement." After five years of fair trial given it in an institution de- signed and constructed with special reference to its methods, under the management and direction of those who had honestly advocated and secured its introduction as the best scheme of prison administration at the time before the world, it became necessary to abandon it in the interest of humanity and for the well being of society at large.
The Inspectors now reminded the General Assembly that reduced current expenses should not be the first end sought in the administra- tion of prisons and jails. "These," they said, "were to be maintained as places for the confinement of criminals, where under wholesome restraint proper efforts may be made to give them habits of industry, and to those who are to return to society correct ideas of their duties to their fellow men." For the furtherance of these ends a set of rules was framed, which would in our time seem stringent enough to meet any conceivable case, but which in truth were much milder than had hitherto been in force. It was required of each man that he should wake at sunrise cach day the year round, begin work fifteen minutes later, and continue work till a half hour before sunset, one hour and a half being allowed him for his meals and for reading. Previous to the adoption of these rules but an hour had been allowed him, thirty min- utes at a time for these purposes. Between September 20th and March 20th, when the hours of daylight were few, work was required to con- tinuc till 8 o'clock in the evening; and no lights were allowed in the cells except when work was being done. Food was to be furnished twice a day, of such description and in such quantities as the Inspectors and Warden might prescribe. The bill of fare thus provided might be in- teresting reading, but the writer has been unable to find a copy. No reason appears why we should fancy it to have been a long and varied one. Nine different acts are named as violations of discipline, for which the man was to be deprived of all food and drink for periods of twenty-four hours or longer. It would seem that nothing more than an adequate measure ofstarvation could be needed to subdue the rebellious spirit of the most refractory prisoner. Some privileges were accorded by these rules: Convicts in good health might enjoy the luxury of a warm bath as frequently as once in three months ; and the friends of a convict, "in case of dangerous sickness, might visit and converse with him, having first secured the permission in writing of at least four Inspectors." Such rules have a cruel sound; but they really were in
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the line of prison reform and doubtless some good persons reading them remarked that they were less severe than the deserts of those for whom they were made. The danger of making crime easy by treating too well the law breaker was then very keenly felt. Some still question the safety of regarding him as a human being.
It was during this period in the history of the Rhode Island state prison that Thomas W. Dorr was tricd, eonvieted, and senteneed to life imprisonment for treason, tlc first and it is to be devoutly hoped the last political offender to be inearecrated within the boundaries of the land of Roger Williams. Rules even more stringent than those just noted were in his case enforced and with unwonted rigor. Extraordinary eare was exercised to prevent any communication with his parents and counsel. This singular severity was relaxed only during the last few weeks of his confinement, when it was evident that he would be in a little time released. At the end of a year he was discharged by an aet of the legislature granting a complete amnesty to all who had been engaged in "the rebellion," as his movement was termed by its opponents ; an aet which provided that all such persons then in eustody should be at onee released, and that no person should ever in the future be prosecuted for treason against the state. During the greater part of his imprisonment Mr. Dorr oeeupied eell number seventeen, which till the prison was abandoned continued to be an object of enriosity and interest to all visitors to whom it was pointed out. Although he was eonfined but twelve months the hard- ships which he experienced in that comparatively short period of time were sufficient to wreck a splendid physical constitution, and after a few years passed in broken health he died prematurely in the home of his childhood at Providenee.1
The prison had not proved "impregnable from within," as at the first it was thought to be. At different times several convicts had found their way to liberty. In a single year there were three eseapes. One by one its many defects became obvious. It was at last so crowded that of necessity twomen were placed in one eell, a most vieious arrange- ment, as every person at all familiar with prison life will testify. The time arrived when on all hands it was seen and admitted that whatever of usefulness there may have been in such a structure at the first, there was now every reason why it should ccase to eurse men with its death- breeding conditions. A new state prison was an immediate necessity. This was built in 1852, as a wing at the west of the keeper's house. It contained cighty-eight eells, each seven and one-half feet long by four fcet wide, and seven feet in height. These were situated in the middle of the building, with corridors on either side between them and the outside walls. The eost was a little more than $18,000, or about $200 per cell, being much less than was usually spent on prisons built according to the same general plan.
'Report of Inspectors 1876.
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Until this time thic prisoners had been employed in the manufacture of goods on state aeeount. This plan was now abandoned, and their labor was let out on contraet, at the rate of twenty-five cents per day for each man for the first year, thirty eents per day for the sceond year and thirty-five cents per day for the third year.
A grant of $200 was voted by the general assembly to found a prison library, and the Warden was authorized to admit visitors to the prison at his discretion, colleeting from each a small fee which was to be used for the purchase of additional books. The prisoners were given aecess to this library, subject only to such regulations and restrictions as were made neecssary by the eircumstances of the case. A lamp was placed in each eell, and an opportunity afforded for intellectual im- provement out of work hours, of which not a few gladly availed them- selves.
It was an era of rapid and wise progress. There was an intelligent purpose on the part of controlling minds "to render the Rhode Island state prison notonly a place of confinement and needful labor, but espe- eially a school of reformation." Something was now done to make the prison surroundings less repulsive than they had been from the begin- ning. An unsightly sand hill just outside the wall was transformed by the well directed labor of jail conviets into a smiling garden. The wall itself was soon eovered with vines. A variety of fruit trees were planted. The diet of the prisoners was greatly improved in variety and in wholesomeness by the addition of fruits and vegetables thus produced, with little or no additional expense to the state. Important improvements and additions were made to the industrial equipment. A boiler and engine house was erected. A foree pump and much- needed drains or sewers were put in place. The wall was extended and the prison enelosure was considerably enlarged. A new wing eon- taining seventy-two cells and a ehapel was built at a cost of twenty- five thousand dollars. The total expense for betterments amounted in a brief period to nearly $50,000-eonviet labor having been employed wherever it could be made available, and the expense thereby greatly reduced.
When the Board of Inspeetors was created, power had been given it to "license any proper person who would serve without compensation to visit the convicts as a moral and religious instructor." Such per- sons were expected to do their work in such a way as would not eonflict with any rule that might be necessary in administering the separate system then in forec. During the next five years cleven persons were found willing to undertake this unpromising and well nigh hopeless service. How long any one of them continued in it does not appear. The results were as a matter of course very unsatisfactory to all eon- cerned, and were many times so reported. What could one do morally and religiously for a man between whom and himself was a solid door
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pierced by a small aperture, whom he was not permitted to see and who was not permitted to see him, of whose personality and history he could know knowing, except upon the statement of those who by reason of official relations were not in the nature of the case least of all likely to be unprejudiced witnesses ; whose name he had not heard and who was known to him only by the number of the cell which he occupied ; who, however depraved he might be when he entered the prison, was quite sure to be yet further embittered and brutalized by the treatment which he had since received in the name of justice? Was ever any good work made more nearly impossible by the conditions imposed than this of a religious instructor in the Rhode Island state prison while the separate system was in operation ?
Of all who were licensed to this work, only the Rev. William Douglas persevered, and in spite of all disheartening conditions, found evidence that his self-sacrificing efforts were not wholly fruitless. He continued to fill the office uninterruptedly till after the prison had been removed to Cranston, laying down his work only when the burden of great age was heavy upon him, and after more than forty years of service; the first eighteen of which were without compensation save that of an approving conscience.
When the rigidity of the separate system had been relaxed a little, provision was made for occasional worship and preaching in the corri- dor of the prison, to which it was expected that prisoners would listen each with his ear pressed against the aperture in his cell door. Some- what later, to facilitate hearing, it was deemed safe to go so far as to open the cell doors a little way, great care being taken that no oppor- tunity be afforded one prisoner to see another prisoner or to communi- cate with another prisoner, or for the preacher to see his hearers, or for his hearers to see their preacher. But preaching in a narrow pas- sage between blank stone walls by an invisible preacher to an invisible audience must have been a spiritless performance, and not at all likely to awaken devotional feeling or quicken the moral sense. In time there was a further relaxation of the rules, and at last the prisoners were permitted to gather as a congregation on Sunday in a workshop then recently erected. Ten or twelve years later a chapel was built and in a plain way furnished. The Sunday School which had been for some years in existence was now given a more thorough organiza- tion. Singing was introduced, and this soon became an important feature in the service. The library was brought into more general use and its influence for good correspondingly increased. The new chapel was found too small for the accommodation of more than two- thirds of the prisoners at any one time, and the upper story of the workshop was fitted up for chapel uses ; ample room was now afforded for all at each service. The last vestige of the old separate system was removed and the personality of each convict frankly recognized when
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the name of the man was substituted for the number by which alone he till now had been known.
In the year 1867 General Nelson Viall was made Warden of the State Prison and Keeper of the Providence County Jail. At the date of this writing, after nearly thirty-five years of service, he continues in the discharge of his office with the same vigor, ability and conscientious faithfulness, that have from the first characterized his administration.
The work of reform was now prosecuted with renewed energy. The parti-colored uniform of the prisoners was discarded for a serviceable and decent suit not calculated to degrade a man in his own esteem or in the esteem of others. The system of commutation of imprisonment for good conduct still in use was soon inaugurated, at once demon- strating its worth as an aid to discipline and an encouragement to habits of self-control in those whose great need was to escape the tyranny of an unreasoning impulse. An hour or two of comparative freedom was allowed in the prison yard or in the prison chapel on holidays, when the men were permitted to mingle together to converse among themselves and to engage in a variety of recreations, subject only to such limitations as the exigencies of the case made imperative. Lectures upon topics of current interest were delivered in the chapel by leading citizens of Providence and of the state at large. An even- ing school was established for the benefit of illiterate convicts who mnight wish to become acquainted with the primary elements of an English education. This school achieved a degree of usefulness greater than its most sanguine friends had anticipated. In 1876 the prisoners were for the first time permitted to eat their Christmas dinner together from tables spread in the old chapel, instead of taking it in tin plates to their cells, to be eaten there in solitude and silence. Many looked upon this as a hazardous experiment, but it was fully justified in the outcome.
In the meantime the subject of a new prison to be constructed upon a new plan and in a new locality, received thoughtful consideration from some of the broadest and best informed minds in the state. Public sentiment at last demanded the destruction of that which at the beginning was a mistake, which it had always been impossible to adapt to an efficient and humane scheme of prison administration, and which had long since become a scandal and a reproach. The general assem- bly appointed a commission with instructions to select a site which should be approved by the State Board of Charities and Corrections, and to prepare plans for a prison which should be acceptable to the Board of Prison Inspectors. After much consideration a site was chosen on the State Farm, near the Pontiac road, seven miles from Providence, in the town of Cranston. Plans were adopted embodying the most improved features of prison architecture. A building com- mission was created, and work began without delay.
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This commission, consisting of Messrs. Edwin M. Snow, William B. Lawton, William D. Brayton, and George I. Chace, was both compe- tent and efficient. Foundations were laid in the autumn of 1874, and the building was pushed forward as rapidly as possible. The mate- rial used was split boulders, such as abound in the fields of the State Farm, and which were to be had for the gathering; the trimmings were of hewn granite. The prison proper was built facing the east. It is four hundred and fifty feet long, sixty feet wide, and forty feet to the eaves, with a dome in the center one hundred and ten feet in height. In this dome above the guard room, which is over the hall office or reception room, and sixty feet from the ground, is the chapel. In the prison there is no stronger point than the chapel. The cell rooms are in the wings of the building, at the right and left of the dome. The cells are arranged in four blocks placed in the middle of the cell room, three tiers in each block, in all two hundred and fifty cells. These are of different dimensions, the smallest being eight feet long by five feet wide, the next larger cight fect long by six and a half feet wide, and the largest eight feet square, the two larger sizes having each a window in addition to the open grated door. All the cells have either an east or a west frontage, and the arrangement is such that the unobstructed sunlight may fall into cach cell on every day of the year. The system of ventilation is all that can be desired. The atmosphere enters the building beneath each heat radiator, while each cell is provided with an independent five-inch flue rising to the roof, insur- ing at all times a perfect circulation. Cells which face the east are separated in the rear from those which face the west, in the same block and the same tier, by a passage six feet wide ; so that two sides of each cell are always accessible to the guard. They are of brick, laid in cement and are floored with concrete. Each cell is furnished with a chair, a table, an iron bedstead and a plenty of bedding. No provision is made for female convicts, and no female convicts have ever been confined in this prison.
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