LIKE A MANSION

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 234, 24 May 1932, Page 3

LIKE A MANSION

LUXURIOUS AMERICAN GAOL ERECTED FOR WOMEN j PRISONERp HOT AND COLD [WATER \ Easter was the seaso 1 chosen for the opening of New York's latest home for women — a pris )n erected at a cost of £360,000, whijh looks like a fashionable block of mansion flats. It replaces the dingy qtuarters provided for women malefaejtors on Welfare Island, and it has alfogether 410 bedrooms instead of cells. The building is 12 stories high, in Greenwich Village, New York's Chelsea, with a delightful roof garden, on which are tennis courts, a gymil nasium, and sun parlours. No one would suspect it to be a prison. Indeed, within the few weeks prior to — Easter seores of women have stopped to inquire about the rentals, eliciting from the Irish doorman, who enjoys the situation immensely, his stock formula: "No, ma'am, nothin' doing; you'll. have to shoot your husband to get in here." Hot and Cold Water The upper floors beneath the roof playground are devoted entirely to hospital quarters, and diet kitchens with rooms for nurses and doctors. The lower floors are offices, and the middle floors contain the prisoners' sleeping rooms, each 10ft. by 6£ft., with hot and cold running water and an immovable window with an outside exposure. Each class of offender is strictly segregated, so that it will be unnecessary, says a satrical writer, for instance, for a nice refined "husband shooter" ever to come into contact with a husband stealer or criminal of a lower order. Elaborate precautions have been taken architecturally to make this house of detention for women the most sanitary prison in the world. Its walls are of buff-coloured glaz-

, ed terra cotta, easily cleaned, and the builders say the estdblishment will have none of the characteristic prison odour. In fact, it smells as good as any hotel. Recreation Rooms The recreation rooms are equipped with electric sewing machines, and one of the features of the new institution, which is organised so that no offender, youthful or otherwise, will find it a school for erime, is a picturesque row of reception booths in which the prisoners may see and converse with visitors or lawyers. , A heavy bullet-proof glass .partition separates the prisoner from the visitor, whom she can see and talk to in whispers by means of a microphone. New York's new model prison for women is staffed exclusively by women. The doctors, as well as the nurses, are women, and so are the ' warders. The inmates have the privilege, when writing to their friends, of giving only the street address of the prison without betraying the nature of their home. On week days they will wear uniforms, not in the traditional drab grey; but of a brighter colour, and special Sunday garments will be supplied. The library contains 5,000 yolumes of varied literature.