Penitentiary

A prison in which persons convicted of serious offenses (felonies), or sentenced for long terms of imprisonment, are confined.

A prison for the punishment of convicts. A prison or place of punishment. The place of punishment in which convicts, sentenced to confinement and hard labor, are confined by the authority of the law. Millar v. State, 2 Kan. 174; State v. Nolan, 48 Kan. 723, 29 Pac. 568, 30 Pac. 486. There are two systems of penitentiaries in the United States, each of which is claimed to be the best by its partisans, — the Pennsylvania system and the New York system. By the former, convicts are lodged in separate, well-lighted, and well-ventilated cells, where they are required to work during stated hours. During the whole time of their confinement they are never permitted' to see or speak with each other. Their usual employments are shoemaking, weaving, winding yarn, picking wool, and such like business. The only punishments to which convicts are subject are the privation of food for short periods, and confinement without labor in dark but well-aired cells: this discipline has been found sufficient to keep perfect order; the whip and all other corporal punishments are prohibited. The advantages when deprived of It, ask it as a favor, and, in order to retain it, use, generally, their best exertions to do their work well; being entirely secluded, they are of course unknown to their fellow-prisoners, and can form no combination to escape while in prison, or associations to prey upon society when they are out; being treated with kindness, and afforded books for their instruction and amusement, they become satisfied that society does not make war upon them, and more disposed to return to it, which they are not prevented from doing by the exposure of their fellow-prisoners when in a strange place; the labor of the convicts tends greatly to defray the expenses of the prison. The disadvantages which were anticipated have been found to be groundless. Among these were that the prisoners would be unhealthy; experience has proved the contrary: that they would become insane; this has also been found to be otherwise: that solitude is incompatible with the performance of business: that obedience to the discipline of the prison could not be enforced. These, and all other objections to this system, are by its friends believed to be without force. The New York system, adopted at Auburn, which was probably copied from the penitentiary at Ghent, in the Netherlands, called La Maison de Force, is founded on the system of isolation and separation, as well as that of Pennsylvania, but with this difference, that in the former the prisoners are confined to their separate cells during the night only; during the working-hours in the daytime they labor together in workshops appropriated to their use. They eat their meals together, but in such a manner as not to be able to speak with each other. Silence is also imposed upon them at their labor. They perform the labor of carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers, shoemakers, tailors, coopers, gardeners, woodsawyers, etc. The discipline of the prison is enforced by stripes inflicted by the assistant keepers, on the backs of the prisoners; though this punishment is rarely exercised. The advantages of this plan are that the convicts are in solitary confinement during the night: that their labor, by being joint, is more productive; that, inasmuch as a clergyman is employed to preach to the prisoners, the system affords an opportunity for mental and moral improvements. Among the objections made to it are that the prisoners have opportunities of communicating with each other and of forming plans of escape, and, when they are out of prison, of associating together in consequence of their previous acquaintance, to the detriment of those who wish to return to virtue, and to the danger of the public; that the discipline is degrading, and that it engenders bitter resentment in the mind of the convict.

^ A prison or place of punishment; ^ any place designed for the confinement of convicts; a State's prison. By statute 19 Geo. Ill (1779). all offenders liable to transportation maybe confined at hard labor in certain " penitentiary houses," to be created by virtue of that act.^ Sir William Blackstone, co-operating with John Howard, was infiuential in procuring the passage of that act, — legislation which led the way to more just and rational views of prison discipline. ^ See Infamy; Labor, 1, Hard; Prison.

A place for confinement of convicts. It is sometimes the name of a particular prison, sometimes used generically. The word penitentiary is used in Kansas statutes to denote a prison or place of punishment; and therefore it is not error to sentence a prisoner to hard labor in the penitentiary, although there is no penitentiary in the state, and no statute authorizing such punishment for the offence charged. Millar v. State, 2 Kan. 174.