.

1846.

No. 4.

Report of the Committee on the State Prison.

The committee on the state prison, to whom was referred the " annual report of the inspectors of the state prison at Jackson, for the year ending Oct. 31, 1845;" also, a resolution of instruction, requiring the committee to "inquire whether the present mode of employing convicts in said prison, operates injuriously upon mechanical and manufacturing industry, and if so, what alterations, if any, ought to be made in said method of employment ;" having had the same under consideration, respectfully present the following report:

From the statement of the number of days' work performed, and the amount earned by convicts during the year ending as above, it appears that the total value of labor amounts to $11,348 07, of which $6,922 70 is the amount for contractors in the several mechanical pursuits, and $4,425 37 for the state.

The number of convicts employed in the fulfillment of contracts, is from 69 to 130, and the branches of business to which their labor is directed, are shoe-making, coopering, the manufacturing of iron machinery and of woolen goods, blacksmithing and wagon-making; of these the largest number are employed in the manufacture of woollens, a branch which interferes less with the general industry of the country than any other.

The following abstract will show the number of convicts actually employed, and the character of the occupations in which they are engaged:

The number employed in other service than that of the state, is eighty-four; and the total value of their services, as we have before stated, amounts to $6,922 70. It is further contemplated during the present year, to let a number of convicts to be employed in the business of cabinet making, should sufficient inducement be offered for that purpose.

The committee are here led to the inquiry referred to them by the resolution of instruction-whether the employment of convict labor is detrimental to mechanical and manufacturing industry ?—and if so, how this may be best obviated?

Your committee judge that there can be no weighty objections to the employment of convicts in such mechanical labor as the state may require for her own benefit; and especially those branches which shall least interfere with the mechanical industry of the state, if it is found necessary for the support of the prison. If the convicts are maintained in idleness at the expense of the community, apart from all moral considerations, the people would be compelled to bear the burden imposed by the vices of a few. It is certainly a great step in political science, that by constraining the vicious to support not only themselves, but those immediately concerned in the infliction of punishment, we are enabled to vindicate the law without taxing the public, and to make the offender support himself while undergoing the punishment of his crime.

It has sometimes been urged that if the convicts were not employed in industrial pursuits, their support would encourage mechanical and manufacturing industry in the community where they were placed. But while this is true, it surely was never contemplated that the state

should erect an institution for the punishment of felons, and that the people should be taxed to support them in idleness, because such support would thereby benefit a few. Such a practice would impose an onerous tariff upon the mass, for the benefit of indivduals, a doctrine at war with democratic principles, and the sound maxims of political economy. On the other hand, the employment of convict labor in the mechanical branches when not required for the support of the prison, is no less derogatory to the dignity of labor than prejudicial to the best interest of the community. Monopolies of every description are to be viewed with a jealous eye, as conflicting with the equal rights and common privileges of individuals: And no monopoly could be more anti-democratic in principle, or more mischievous in its consequences, than one where the vices of mankind are brought to bear in opposition to the honest industry of the artizan.

The labor of the convict is compulsory. He must work for such a sum as his taskmaster is disposed to give, as free labor cannot compete with labor thus obtained; the inevitable consequences must be to drive industry from the field, and compel the mechanic and the manufacturer to retire before the rogue and the felon. This cheap labor may indeed benefit the consumer, but it is at the expense of the producer, and if maintained by the authority of the state, the state becomes guilty of the suicidal policy of ruining the interset of a portion of her citizens to benefit, in a very trifling degree, the other portion of them. In this the state may arbitrarily locate her prison in any of our numerous thriving villages: she may employ her convicts in supplying not only their own wants, but the wants of the entire community, and thus in a few years will snatch the bread from the mouths of her artizans, and compel them at whatever sacrifice, to dispose of their property, and seek elsewhere the livelihood of which she has deprived them. This principle is, to the minds of the committee, fraught with gross injustice to that class of the community who add so much to the wealth and prosperity of a state or nation. The committee therefore are constrained to insist that the state ought not to speculate on a capital of vice; or array the compulsory labor of the felon in deadly hostility to the struggles of honest toil, while at the same time they admit that if the institution can be rendered a self sustaining one, without imposing a burden upon the people to support it, it will have then answered the great object of its creation.