What To Do With All These Prisoners, June 16, 1921

What Are We To Do With Our Prisoners?

Our county commissioners have a problem on their hands that has arisen as the result of the depressed condition that the country is passing thru. There are now 12 stout, healthy men in Dobson jail being fed by the county at a cost of $9 per day, or $270 per month, and no way to dispense of this expenditure.

For years past, this county has been able to hire its prisoners to other counties for roadbuilding but for the past few months they have been unable to place their prisoners with these counties. Clerk of the Court Jackson tells us that he has written every county in the state that usually uses convict labor and not one of them will take these men off the county’s hands even free of charge.

There are those who wonder why they are not used here at home, but people who know the situation say that it is not profitable to handle convict labor unless you can get together a force of 40 or 50 men, which force would be hard to keep in this section. Mayor West of this city has considered the matter of using some of these men on street work but the problem of housing, guarding and feeding them makes it doubtful whether or not the town could afford to use them.

The majority of these men now in jail are there for various offenses and no one except the governor has authority to release them, and so there is nothing to do but for the county to continue to feed them at Dobson. And every week sees the number increased mostly by violators of our prohibition laws.

From the editorial page of The Mount Airy News, Thursday, June 16, 1921, J.E. Johnson and son, publishers.