The Indiana Reformatory

In the fall of 1821 the first state prison in the state of Indiana was established on the northeast corner of Ohio avenue and Market street, in the town of Jeffersonville. Previous to the opening of the prison, prisoners were punished at the whipping post. The law was so changed that all persons who committed a crime for which they should receive not to exceed thirty-nine lashes, should be sent to prison for a term not to exceed three years. Where formerly the punishment was one hundred stripes, a term not to exceed seven years was imposed. The old prison was a primitive affair built of logs at a cost of about three thousand dollars, the greater part of which had been subscribed by Jeffersonville people. It had fifteen cells in a row, made of logs ten inches square, dove-tailed at the ends. The doors were four inches thick covered with strap iron. There was no light or ventilation except what came through a space of about four inches at the top of the door. The roof was of heavy planks cut from the surrounding forest, and dressed by hand. The cell-house was surrounded by a stockade made of logs, and to get into this enclosure one had to pass through a massive door swung on hinges and strong enough to resist a battering ram. The office, guardroom and other apartments were in a two-story log house outside the stockade, and within the guard room was an ample supply of lint-lock guns and pistols. These were strewn around on tables and desks and some of them were hung on the walls in accessible places. Rawhides were used on the convicts then without mercy, and one dose was usually enough. The first lessee was Capt. Seymour Westover.

The first convict ever received was named Friend, and it is a singular coincidence that the eldest inmate at present in the Indiana Reformatory bears the same name. Captain Westover went to Texas in 1826 and was killed with Crockett in the Alamo. He was succeeded by James Keigwin, the father of the late Col. James Keigwin.

The prisons of Indiana have been conducted on three different principles. The first adopted at their inception and above referred to, was suited to the days when but a small number of persons were convicted or confined, and may be designated as the boarding system. During its continuance the keeping of every prisoner was at the direct cost of the state, without any return and without any sufficient check upon the dishonesty and rapacity of keepers, who could abuse the men committed to their charge by semi-starvation and other measures of ‘economy.’

So soon as the number of convictions in the state had so far increased as to warrant the change, prisons were erected a t the cost of the people. In these the convicts were confined, building, prisoners and all, leased to private individuals who fed, clothes and maintained the prisoners and paid a certain gross annual sum in addition for such labor as they could extract from them.

The third system adopted by the state consisted of renting the labor of the convicts to contractors, who paid a certain per diem for each man employed, while the discipline, control and personal care of the men was in the hands of a warden and other officials representing the state. This was a commonly designated as the contract system. The curse of idleness was removed by the lessee system, but only to give place to abuses so horrible that it is a matter of congratulation that Indiana abandoned it as soon as she died. Under the lease system a warden was appointed by the state for each prison, whose duty it was to see that the contract of the lessee was lived up to, but the convicts were body and soul in the hands of the contractors, and the warden had little power and too often le3ss inclination to restrain those whose interest often led them to commit the greatest  cruelties. The one aim of most of the lessees was to obtain from the convicts under their control the greatest possible amount of labor at the least expenditure for maintenance. Men were ill-fed, ill-clothed, punished by the lash with the utmost severity, for trivial derelictions, or for a failure to perform in full the daily allotment of labor, often when sickness and infirmity made it an impossibility to fulfill the requirement. The sick and disabled were neglected as if the consideration of life weighed lightly in the balance, against the few cents daily necessary for their maintenance. The cells and corridors were foul, damp and unwholesome; swarms of vermin infested every corner, and thus overwork, cruelty, starvation, filth, the pistol and lash of the guard, all contributed to a wholesale murder of the weak, and to brutalizing the strong beyond the hope of redemption here or hereafter. The horrors of the prison systems before the lessee ceased to be the guardian of convicts were such as to better befit the days of the Spanish Inquisition than the enlightenment of the nineteenth century.

One great argument against the contract system was the fact that it worked in opposition to free labor.

The history of the old Prison South is one of many phases, and unfortunately the stories of cruelty and neglect were often true. The modern ideas of reformation and the square deal to the unfortunates incarcerated had not developed to a degree that resulted in any great benefit to them. With advanced ideas and improvements in every line of business and science, it was but natural that the students of criminology should advance likewise, and the metamorphosis of the old stockade of the Prison South into the present wonderful institution of the Indiana Reformatory bears testimony that Indiana is the peer of any state in handling such questions.

Hardly a year has passed since the present location was selected that improvements of some kind have not been made. In 1882 a large cell house was built at a cost of fifty thousand dollars, but the greatest number of improvements have been made since the institution became the Indiana Reformatory.

In April, 1897, an exchange of inmates was made between the Indiana Reformatory and the Michigan City penitentiary, to carry out the provisions of the new law which provided that all life-time men and those over thirty years of age should be confined in the latter place. At that time three hundred and sixty men were taken north and two hundred and ninety-seven men were received here. A.T. Hert, who was the last warden, became the first superintendent, and he remained as such for two years, to be lowed by W.H. Whittaker. Among the many modern improvements which have been made at the new institution may be mentioned the new C cell house, constructed in 1901, from plans drawn by Arthur Loomis, of Jeffersonville. This cell house is one of the most modern in the United States. It is sixty cells long and five cells high, making a double stand of three hundred cells on each side of the center of the cell house. Each cell is about six feet wide by eight feet high, by ten feet deep and is equipped with running water, toilet and washstand, electric light, wire spring bed, shelf and chair. The total cell capacity is six hundred for C cell house; one hundred sixty-eight for B cell house, and two hundred for A cell house, making a total of nine hundred sixty-eight.

The present entrance was constructed during the wardenship of Mr. Patton, just preceding Mr. Hert. The foundry was built and burned in 1908; the hospital was built in 1898; the trade school building in 1895; the new laundry and bath house were built under Mr. Whittaker’s superintendency, and the large drill ground was walled in in 1907. In 1909 about eight additional acres of land were obtained through condemnation proceedings. The roof garden for the hospital is one of the most valuable features in the whole plant. Here the men in the grasp of the white plague are made to sleep and exercise, and the results of this treatment have been excellent. The building containing the office of Mr. Barnard, the assistant superintendent, also contains the solitary cells. The last report speaks as follows of the this feature:

‘Our methods of discipline are humane. At no time is a man thrown into a dungeon or into a dark or poorly ventilated cell; but, whenever necessary to confine a prisoner for discipline, it is done in a well-lighted and well-ventilated cell, and for the first offense he is given two full meals a day while in punishment. We find we get just as good results form this method as we did from the old method of giving a man only eight ounces of bread per day and all the water he could drink while in punishment.

I find that the best method of handling men of this character is to give them at all times fair treatment, and in no case should punishment be meted out to the offender unless he has willfully violated some rule of the institution. In adhering closely to his rule and in giving each fellow a ‘square deal,’ I find that far better results can be attained than by the old method of vindictive punishment, and where careful investigations were not always made before a prisoner was placed in punishment.’

There are no dungeons at the reformatory now. The solitary cells are bout eight feet by ten feet by twelve feet deep and are airy, clean and well lighted, every cell having an outside opening.

The library is of great benefit in offering good, clean instruction and pastime to the inmates and at the same time in furthering the reform idea. The library was burned on February 8, 1908, and three thousand and seventeen books out of a total of four thousand six hundred twenty-seven were destroyed. Since that time new books have been added until there are now six thousand, five hundred forty-nine. This library has an average monthly circulation of fifteen thousand seven hundred fifty-one volumes, or a total circulation of one hundred eighty-nine thousand and fourteen for the year.

On the second floor above the library is the chapel, with a seating capacity of one thousand fifty. Here every Sunday morning the inmates and officers gather for divine service, and the fact that the inmates contributed one thousand two hundred dollars toward the purchase of a pipe organ for this chapel indicates to what extent they are interested.

Among the minor features of the reformatory may be mentioned as excellent brass band of twenty-eight pieces, and also a newspaper, called the ‘Reflector,’ which each inmate finds in his cell every evening. For physical exercise, besides the daily work of the trade schools, the military idea has been adopted, and a drill for each day is held if possible. Under the instruction of Lieutenant Harrell, of the Indiana National Guard, the men have received excellent training in the sitting-up exercise and marching, as well as in discipline.

The central idea in the reformatory being reform, education is naturally used as the best means of accomplishing this result. The trade schools are not only teaching trades to the men, but are a source of revenue to the institution. They are on an excellent basis. Instruction is given the men in the shoe-making, tinsmithing, blacksmithing, brick-masonry, broom and brush making, cabinet making, carpentering, tailoring, laundering, painting and printing.

The various other institutions in the state such as the insane asylums, etc., etc., are supplied with furniture, clothing, shoes, etc., from the reformatory and the receipts from this source reduce considerably the expense on the taxpayers for maintaining this institution. The shirt department clears about forty-five thousand dollars per year. In 1908 the institution cost one hundred ninety-six thousand eight hundred fifty-seven dollars, and thirty-nine cents for maintenance in all departments including schools, library, parole and discharge of prisoners, supervision of paroled prisoners, salaries, food, clothing, fuel, etc., yet the trade schools made one hundred seventeen thousand three hundred twenty-one dollars and forty-four cents, leaving a very small remainder for the taxpayers to contribute towards the support of nearly one thousand capita, when we remember, too, that over two hundred boys are kept in school under competent teachers more than nine months in the year. The fact that competent instructors are provided in all trades schools, and the fact that inmates are given military drill and moral instruction to help them physically and mentally, and the further fact that no contractor has a word to say as to the amount of work a boy must perform makes the system almost ideal. The trades schools are now furnishing all the chairs, beds, mattresses, tinware and furniture for the new Southeastern Hospital for the Insane, being constructed at Madison.

In the educational department the men are given good practical instruction. If they are illiterate they are placed in the kindergarten department, where they are taught reading, writing, spelling and number work. In the next or primary department the men are taught reading, elementary language, arithmetic, history and geography. In the intermediate department, literature, grammar, physiology, civil-government, geography and arithmetic are taught. In the advanced department, arithmetic, English grammar, and ten lessons in algebraic equations.

There is also another department for weak minded boys, and also, one for foreigners, another department of mechanical drawing, and a correspondence school, whereby the men may study in their cells. At present the school is able to offer arithmetic only by correspondence, but the demand for this work ahs been so large and results so commendable that this course is to be made to include the other subjects.

The system as adopted in the reformatory is certainly a success, and each succeeding year demonstrates its value. Its idea is to correct rather than to punish. Although there is a complete lack of clap-trap sentimentality, there is no unswerving rigor in enforcing the regulations. The instructions are of practical benefit and the output is of practical benefit to some one. The ultimate intention is to produce everything required by the other state institutions. The system of paroling men has stood the test of time and its unquestioned value proven. The wonderful results evident in the management of the Indiana Reformatory could never have been produced with politics the sole qualification for service. The sixty-five to seventy officer and instructors are doing what the average politician could never do. W.H. Whittaker and M. Barnard, the superintendent and assistant superintendent, have given the state an exceptionally efficient service. Mr. Barnard came to the reformatory from the Michigan City penitentiary after eight years service there as assistant superintendent. The other officers of the institution without an exception are imbued with an esprit de corps which argues well for the present and future management of the plant.

Source: Baird’s History of Clark County, Indiana by Capt. Lewis C. Baird, 1909.