Here in New York City the municipality protects the interests of its citizens by the enactment of a structural and sanitary code. Structural safety and physical security and health are provided for all classifications of human activities under the maturely established provisions of that code.
Typical floor plan of Detention Building, a basement and four-story outside cell building. This plan shows the arrangement of cells against outside walls, which gives to each inmate direct sunlight and air]
Scientifically, psychologically and practically important as is the structural side of this great prison problem, I have yet to see any workmanlike attempt to establish for prison planners a code so carefully developed and yet with an elasticity to adapt it to various localities and climates, to the end that the inhumanity of the present day, 1920, toward prisoners would be for all time impossible.
The tremendous security and help that such a code would provide for the development of state prisons and jails and reformatories is at once apparent.
The complete findings of a competent Code Committee would be the average of the experience of all penal housing problems throughout the country and should be determined by a two-group committee, acting under an organization of national scope. In one group should be available the experience and suggestion of the leaders in penal administration, medicinal, psychiatric, industrial, vocational, educational and religious activities. The second group should consist of a small number of architects, engineers or contractual experts--men who have actually planned and structurally executed prison buildings and whose practical experience would enable them sympathetically to translate into constructive form and crystallize the theoretical standards recommended by the sub-committee on strictly scientific phases.
As it is an admitted fact that apperception and interest are the cardinal principles of thought foundation, it may be seen that the chance of improvement in the prisoner will vary in accordance with the thought and action required of him. In order, therefore, that this idea may be efficiently carried out, the prisoner, immediately on commitment to prison, should receive the benefit of an expert clinical examination to determine through his mental and economic possibilities what branch of work he should follow during his term of imprisonment to insure a better existence and a chance to live a decent and productive life after discharge.