Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1902 — Some Prison Facts. [ARTICLE]

Some Prison Facts.

In the state prison 574 prisoners were members of a Sunday school and ten of the Y. M. C. A... There are 444 who” are members of a Protestant churoh and 140 who are members of the Catholic churoh 7, Petit larceny has sent more prisoners ovbr the road than any other crime. In the state prison there are 226 who were convicted of petty thievery. Grand larceny oomes next, with 101 offenders in the Michigan City bastile and 161 in tfip reformatory. In the state prison there are 103 murderers and in the reformatory 31 are serving time for manslaughter. In the reformatory there are 37 confined for forgery and in the prison 39 for the same orime. Assault and battery with intent to kill has sent 66 to the reformatory and 37 to the state prison. There are two bunko steerers and one counterfeiter in the Michigan City prison and one man in for the unlawful exploding of dynamite. In the prison 177 were from other states, or their residence unknown. Of the others, in the institutions 1,212 were from the cities and towns, and 455 from the country districts. Less than one-half of the State’s population is in the oities and towns, yet they furnish nearly two-thirds of the convicts.

Of ihe 1,670 convicts in prison and reformatory. 638 were idle at the time of their arrest, 439 or more than one-fourth of the whole number, knew no trade. It would look as if a compulsory labor law was needed. 201, or nearly oneeighth of the whole number, are wholly illiterate; 1,282 of the others only had a very limited education and 1,129 ended their sohool days before the sixth year of the common schools. Ten had passed four years in college, and twelve had passed through the four years’ oourse at high sohool. Of the oonvicts in the prison at Miohigan City, 342, or nearly onehalf, were between the ages of 30 and 40 years at the time of their oonviction, and in the reformatory 612, or more than two-thirds of the whole nomber, were between the ages of 18 and 26 years. In the prison there are twenty-one who were over 60 years of age at the time of conviofion, four of them having been more than 70.