Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1913 — PENAL FARM MIGHT BE A GOOD THING [ARTICLE]

PENAL FARM MIGHT BE A GOOD THING

Governor Said to Favor Establishment of Farm Where Short-term Prisoners Can Work.

A penal farm is proposed for Indiana. A commission headed by Senator Netterville will make a report favoring its establishment and Governor Ralston is said to approve it. It is proposed to buy not less than 500 acres of land in some locality yet to be selected, paying \in the neighborhood of $50,000 for it. Buildings required will cost $20,000 more and stock and equipment about SIO,OOO. The maintenance of the farm will be by legislative appropriation. The bill will propose that short-time prisoners in the jails be sent to the farm and required to work.

‘ It is a well known fact that many drunks and other minor law violators are not punished now because if given jail sentences the burden falls upon the taxpayers. If drunks were confronted with 30-day jail sentences and the knowledge that they would be required to work it out on a farm they would doubtless restrain themselves more. Take the situation in Rensselaer now. for example. Ed Fawley, a strapping big fellow, is eating at the expense of the taxpayers for al most a year, simply because there is no penal institution where he can be sent. His crime was against the state and not the-county, and yet the county is bearing all the expense because of the sentence given him. The proposed law looks like it would be a mighty good thing. A bill was introduced Wednesday"by Senator Yarling which proposes a sensible amendment to the registration law. It is proposed that voters who are away from home at the time of registration may file affidavits that will permit them to vote. Senator Yarling would also reduce the pay of members of the registration boards from $4 to $2 per day. Another bill proposes that fire men and brakemen must have had at least two years’ experience before they are entitled to become engineers or conductors. Senator Wood offered a bill making the county surveyor responsible under a single bond.