Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1894 — Uncle Sam’s Prisoners. [ARTICLE]

Uncle Sam’s Prisoners.

There are now about 1,500 individualS, sentenced for violations of the laws of the United States, scattered about in forty odd penitentiaries in various parts of the country. The government sadly needs more prisons. It owns at jjresent only five penal establishments —two penitentiaries in Washington State and Utah, and jails at Washington City, Portsmouth, Ark., and Sitka, Alaska. Besides these it rent 3 a few jails in Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory. The institutions mentioned being insufficient, Uncle Sam is obliged to make use of those belonging to the States. A bill wa3 passed by the last Congress establishing three federal prisons big enough to accommodate 1,500 guosts, but the necessary clause appropiating money to build them with was omitted from the law by accident.