Investigation Finds Flogging in N.C. Chain Gangs, Sept. 11, 1922

Flogging Found in Chain Gangs. . . Practice Is Common Says Public Welfare Progress Bulletin. . . 2 Prisoners Whipped. . . Thorough Investigation Is Being Made

By Brock Barkley

Raleigh, Sept. 10—"The practice of flogging is common” in county chain gangs over the state, Public Welfare Progress, monthly bulletin of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, complains in reporting an investigation into the conduct of prison camps.

Although the law requires that rules shall be published governing the conduct of prisoners in the camps and the methods of punishment for violations, only two counties responded with any sort of set rules and regulations when the State Board of Charities asked for copies, the bulletin protests. It goes on with these reports on the investigations:

“While only two counties seem to have enacted rules and regulations in accordance with law, the practice of flogging is common. A few weeks ago, two prisoners were whipped in a county prison camp in a certain county. Citizens living in the community aroused by the brutality of the beating threatened to indict the superintendent. An investigation was made. The men’s backs were blistered by the flogging. The chairman of board of county commissioners, the county superintendent of roads, the county physician and another physician decided that the punishment was not excessive. One of the men was beaten for singing a vulgar song while a woman was passing; the other, for being lazy. The song as repeated by the prisoner to a representative of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare is coarse, but such as may be heard in many places outside prison camps. The superintendent in charge is excessively profane and overbearing in directing his men. This county has enacted no rules for the regulation of its prison camp.”

Stating that the law does not confer any authority upon county commissioners to make rules for inmates of county prisons, the Public Welfare Progress makes mention of this case which it evidently considers a clear case against the jailor.

“A few days ago a representative of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare visited a jail. He found a negro girl with a bloody bandage around her head. The jailor admitted having beaten her with a black-jack because she cursed him and his wife. The prisoners in the jail told of other instances of brutal treatment of prisoners by this jailor.

“These are not unusual instances. Worse have been reported, and are under investigation. On the other hand there are exceptions that prove brutal methods of discipline unnecessary. Such an exception is the Vance county prison camp—the best kept and perhaps the best disciplined camp in the state. Prisones are not flogged in the camp.”

The State Board is sponsoring the state-wide investigations of the Committee of One Hundred on Prison improvement that are expected to result in recommendations to the next general assembly for additional laws governing the conduct of prisons and chain gang camps. Individual members of this committee are understood to have been looking into conditions in this state and elsewhere for ideas to be suggested when the committee gets ready to put its recommendations into concrete form. The investigations of the State Board of Charities probably will be a basis, its reports beign considered in showing the need for additional laws.

The question has been put here among persons reading the bulletin just issued as to whether efforts are being made by the charities board to correct the violations reported. As it states, they are against the law, the board it is looked upon as the government agency to see that these laws are enforced as well as informing the public of their occurrence.

From the front page of The Winston-Salem Journal, Sept. 11, 1922