By his far-sighted recommendations looking to the development of a more modern State Prison in North Carolina, George Ross Pou, superintendent of that institution, has started tongues to wagging and typewriters to clicking all over the State. Mr. Pou is anxious to make the prison self-sustaining by allowing prisoners to do certain classes of work which they are not now permitted to do. To that end he urges the establishment of various industries inside the prison walls by which the inmates who are now “dead heads” may be engaged in profitable employment.
Enemies of the prison program of progress not only opposed the superintendent’s recommendations, but some of them are attempting to discredit the management of the prison. They say that the prison has made no money farming. But the truth is, Superintendent Pou’s books disclose a net profit of $100,800 on the two farms run by the institution for the four-year program covering his administration. At the same time, the prison has expended over $429,000 on maintenance of “dead-heads” or non-producers, the prisoners who are physically disabled to perform labor on roads or farms. This number has increased about 150 percent, and is continually increasing as the Solicitors of the various districts will verify, because the counties secure most of the able-bodied prisoners and the “culls” are sent to the State Prison. The fact that this class of prisoner remains non-productive is due to no fault of the State Prison management, but is the result of laws restricting the work prisoners may do.
The prisoner in this day of progress must be fed on a balance ration, properly clothed and housed and treated in a humane manner, all of which adds to the cost of maintenance. However, with all this, and not withstanding the fact that the prison has supported more than double the number of “dead heads,” dangerously insane and tubercular patients, the institution has a deficit of less than $32,000.
The books further reveal that the amount of cash paid to prisoners upon discharge as required by the law enacted in 1919 amounted in the past four years to more than $65,000, or twice the amount of the deficit. And this is an expenditure no former administration of the prison has been called upon to face.
In view of these facts, the record of Superintendent Pou deserves commendation, not criticism, and the Legislature should give the most serious consideration to any recommendation he offers looking to the improvement of the institution over which he presides. He has demonstrated that he is capable of offering constructive advice. He is the best informed man in the state on prison conditions.
--Santford Martin in Winston-Salem Journal, Jan. 29
From the editorial page of The Smithfield Herald, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073982/1925-02-03/ed-1/seq-4/
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