SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 410, 25 February 1870, Page 3 (Supplement)

SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONS.

A striking confirmation of the views we (Eclu>) have maintained respeoting prison management is afforde;! jy a recent report on the prisons of the State o' •lassachusetts. We pointed fouk an instance of an English borough gaol whore each inmate cost th axpayer jBIOO a year. At the Massachusetts State ,>ri*on at Bridgwater,where there were on an average >l7 convicts during the past year, each of them co.-D •nly .£lO sterling for the year. Of tho whole 317, uree-fourths were women, and their labour, of course, •as not so valuable as that of men. At the Charlesown State prison, where tho convicts were more thai'. • vice as numerous as at Bridgwater, and when hey were all male, each prisoner earned about threo ■ hillings a week moro than the whole cost of hi-; upport, that is to say, the labour of the prisoner ot only paid for their own maintenance, and defrayed •il the other expenses of tho establishment, but in ddition yielded a profit equal to £lO a head. On :io other hand, in twenty out of the twenty-on.-junty prisons in the State, tho cost of each inmate •■as over .£3O. Thus wo see t!io evils of our own sperience reproduced, where an expensive staff an : -tublishment have to be kept up for a small number ■•l' prisoners.