Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1913 — PENAL FARM BILL PASSED IN HOUSE [ARTICLE]

PENAL FARM BILL PASSED IN HOUSE

Substitute for Jails as Place for Prisoners—Vote in Favor of It Was 72 to 19.

By a vote of 72 to 19, the house Monday afternoon passed the Voris penal farm bill after extended arguments for and against the bill. Few members who spoke against the bill opposed the theory of the penal farm, but, on the contrary; opposed it on the ground that the state is not justified in making the appropriation at this time that would be required to establish the farm. The majority of the members who supported the bill in speeches said that in time the penal farm would be a source of income to the state through the preparation of road material for state roads and manufacture of supplies for state institutions as provided in the bill. The house took up the bill as a special order bn third reading. The proposed penal farm would receive prisoners who otherwise would be sent to county jails. An amendment offered by Representative Leyendecker was incorporated into the bill by unanimous consent, which would give the board of trustees of the penal farm the power to condemn land through the right of eminent domain. Representative Voris, in speaking for his bill, quoted former Governor Marshall as having said at the Logansport conference on charities that a county jail is only a breeding place for crime, and that it should be only a place for detention, pending prisoners being put under state control. Representative Cravens favored the bill, and said that the institution should be located at Jeffersonville near the Indiana reformatory. This would, he said, largely impair the effectiveness of the penal farm. He predicted that in a short time the institution would become selfsupporting. Jail conditions in Indiana, Representative Sands said, are so ma-' lignant that some judges would much prefer to send an offender to the state reformatory for a full year than to commit him to a county jail for much less time. '