Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 191, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1911 — Army Convicts Building Model Prison [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Army Convicts Building Model Prison

Fort Leavenworth, kan.— Work on what is intended to be the largest and finest military prison In the world —an Institution which the war department plans to make a model for all future penal establishments—has been begun here, to replace the prison built In 1877. The cost of the new prison is estimated at only $643,000, but the completed structure will be the equal of $3,000,000 buildings erected by contract. This saving of more than $2,000,000 will be represented by the work done by convicts, the material manufactured In the prison, and the parts of the old prison utilized in the new. The entire work, It is expected, will be completed by January 1, 1914. By the end of next year, however, a large part of the new prison will be; occupied. When the new prison is completed it will have accommodations for 2,182 convicts, and each will have a large cell to himself, fitted with every modern convenience. The cell houses are to be built on the radial plan, each tier of cells radiating from a central rotunda, from which the watch officer can, by merely turning his head, see the entire frontage. Military prisoners differ greatly* from convicts in civil penitentiaries in that most of them are under sentence

for what In civil life would merit merely discharge from their employment. Most of the prisoners are under sentence for desertion or disobedience of orders, and many of them voluntarily surrender for punishment. As a rule they average higher in the seals of manhood and intelligence than civil convicts and, accordingly, will receive better treatment In the old prison there are now nearly 800 men, and many of them live two in a cell. In the new prison it is doubtful whether all of cells ever will be occupied, unless the; army should be increased greatly. The men now convicts are erecting the new buildings, burning the lime, making cement blocks, cvttlag and sawing timber, fitting the plumbing, erecting the steely in fact, doing practically every part of the work under civilian foremen. Practically all material entering into the construction of the new prison buildings' is being made by convicts.