JUSTICE FOR FEDERAL WOMEN OFFENDERS

...These women need special therapeutic care such as could be and will be provided by the Institution Hospital and by supervised activity on the farm which will be maintained as a part of tie plant...

...It has been proved that girls in institutions are -often clever at repairs such as would be done by a job carpenter or plumber and the working with concrete has proved of therapeutic value...

...Those having tuberculosis could not be given adequate care in this length of time...

...What are some, of the problems concerning their rehabilitation...

...The rooms will be smaller, there will be no privilege of decorating them and there will be other privations according to the seriousness of the offense...

...Music will be a part of the schedule and there will be group singing of patriotic and other songs included, as those in the psychological world are advising such, not only for its curative effect but because they recognize the power of music to unite the group...

...The basis of the moral and ethical training given will be the earnest effort on the part of those who are working in this- endeavor to send out these women with a power of self control, a sense of responsibility for the wellbeing of the group, a value of team play, which would fit them to stand up more firmly against the temptations which brought about their commitment...

...On the Nash Farm will be pigs, cows and poultry, all of which will be cared for by the inmates under the supervision of two expert women who are already installed and are developing this phase of the activities...

...Real Community Life THERE is a natural division in these five hundred acres, as the Rose Farm, the gift oi...

...How will this institution be administered...

...This would help to bring about greater efficiency in obtaining desired results and would develop greater economy through the decrease in social and material waste...

...Those who need out-of-door, physical activity will be employed on the farm, at fruit and berry picking, cultivating, in the poultry houses or dairy...

...The Congressional Act also specifies that there should be offered such facilities for training as will enable the inmates upon release to obtain a job tliat will maintain her...

...Many are drug addicts w(ho have been caught while peddling drugs for the purpose of obtaining money for the purchase of more...

...The Colonial style of architecture has been adopted and each cottage or dormitory will hou-c thirty patients and a matron...

...The Administration Building will house the officers and staff and here will be kept the records, including the history and the progress of each case...

...use, but also they are planning for a sufficiently large surplus which will be handled in the canning plant and sold to other Federal Institutions...

...Others will have a specified number of hours to work in the Industrial Building in which underwear, hats, gloves, or similar articles will be manufactured tor use in this and other governmental institutions...

...Patients without contagious diseases will be employed in the preparation of meals, in the power and hand laundries and in the canning plant...

...There will be a school in which elementary education will be given those who have not had it and an opportunity for advanced scholastic work will be available -to pthers after their regular industrial activities are performed...

...Who are these women ? What have they done to bring trtiem under the jurisdiction of the federal government...

...Since responsibility develops responsibility, a system of self-government will be directed by the teachers and matrons...

...This, of course, presupposes that each will receive such care and treatment as will establish a state of wellbeing so that she can physically carry through a day's work and the training given in habits of industry will create a desire for responsible citizenship...

...There Are Xo Prison Walls NO WALLS are planned for, as the present administration feels that where there are walls they are apt to be too much depended upon and when this occurs there is less emphasis placed upon the morale within...

...With the exception of a night-watchman and a few men laborers, this institution will be staffed by women...

...Justice For Federal Women Offenders Cottage Plan of Housing at New Alderson Institution Will Give Healthful Employment Under Sanitary Conditions By CATHERINE DODD T 3E UNITED STATES Government is fast completing: the plans for its latest equipment for the administration of social justice...

...Others for whose care the Department of Justice is responsible are the bootleggers, counterfeiters, misusers of the mails and some District of Columbia lawbreakers...

...What supervision will they have...

...The receiving building will house fifty and to this the new arrival will go for the many examinations, to the Bcrtillon and photograph rooms, and then to the quarantine wing where she will be kept rW two weeks unless there are evidences of special infections, in which case she will be scfifc to an isolation ward for treatment...

...Each will be self-sustaining, a distinct unit with its own dining room, sitting room and kitchen, planned in this way so as to assure an opportunity for training the individual in household activities and to make classification more possible...

...At these power machines instruction will be given so that the worker may obtain like employment upon -discharge, and it is hoped that these industries will be supervised by a woman who has had her training in industries in the outside world so that standards may be acquired by each girl under her which will enable the girl to cope with the task assigned when she takes a job after her release...

...An effort is being made to bring about the giving1 of indeterminate sentences, for With this it is thought that the possibility of success with each case wotild be far greater than it is under the present system...

...The "Nash Farm" is truly a farm, having been productive for several generations, and as a farm it will be used, as the Institution will be self-supporting to a great extent, and plans are being worked out with the co-operation of the Department -of Agriculture not only for the raising of fruits, vegetables and grain for the Institution...

...The superintendent...

...At present no effort is made to prepare them for community life after the sentence is completed and no records are kept of these women after their commitment or release...

...For this Federal Industrial Institution the cottage plan was determined upon and a group of energetic cittzens in Alderson, West Virginia, proved to the Attorney General and his advisers that their town was not only desirable and accessible but was also the hub of a. radius that included the greatest number of federal criminals...

...This town with a population of 1,800 collected a sum of $30,000 for the purchase of a two hundred-acre farm as a gift to the Government, and after due consideration the gift was accepted and the adjoining farm of three hundred acres was purchased according to the provision in the Congressional Act...

...Staffed by Women PICTURESQUE, healthful and lying along the Greenbrier River at an altitude of nearly seventeen hundred feet, this property is fast feeing prepared for the five hundred federal women prisoners who are now being housed under unsuitable, unhealthy conditions in whatever . jail, county workhouse or prison the Department of Justice can place them...

...Given Healthful Work VOCATIONAL content will i* given all maintenance industries...

...A distinct problem is the determinate sentence...

...the Alderson citizens, is largely wooded, rolling land and on this, roads are being built and the buildings are being erected...

...Two years afro, -due to the efforts of the United States Assistant Attorney General, Mabel Walker Wille-brandt, with the able support of ttie two million *romen in the General Federation of Women's Clubs, a Congressional Act was passed which created the first national penal institution for women and provided a sum of over $2,000,000 for the purchase of a site, the erection and equipment of the buildings, and a farm...

...This Federal Industrial Institution for Women is worthy of attention and interest and if this scientific effort has the interest of the people throughout the country it might be possible to halt the increase in lawbreaking and set up for this nation an example of the best practices of penology which could be followed in other institutions...

...One cottage will be equipped with barred windows and this will house those who need special restraint...

...Mary B. Harris, was appointed soon after the passage of the Enabling Act which made possible the 'project, and she has been in her office in Washington and at Alderson formulating plans and working closely with the federal supervising architect and the budget committee and has been making the necessary detailed preparations for the administration and equipment of this worthwhile enterprise...

...A prisoner "sent up" for "a year and a day" is eligible for parole after four months, and it is easy to comprehend that there is little that can be done in so short a period for such physical and mental wrecks, as, for example, the drug addicts...