The Brutality of the Walla Walla Penitentiary
A critical look at the failing 'cell system' and the questionable state industries in Washington’s state prison.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Of all the state institutions the penitentiary at Walla Walla will demand more time and attention from the next legislature than any other. With the rapid growth of the state, the increase of criminals is naturally beyond anticipation, and with that comes the next perplexing question: What to do with them? How to employ them so their labor does not compete with citizen labor while not wasting energy? The penitentiary sits on a hill just outside Walla Walla, a two-story brick structure surrounded by a sixteen-foot stockade. The prison uses the 'cell system,' confining two men in a 7x9 foot iron cage with no furniture but bunks and a slop bucket. They are kept there every minute except when at work, eating in the same gloom where they sleep. There is no attempt at reformation, no books, and no light in the cells. It discharges a sullen, lazy, and rotten wretch who has learned in darkness to hate mankind. Wealthy convicts, however, can bribe guards for luxuries, while the poor suffer the full rigors of the system. Regarding industries, the jute mill and brickyard have shown little profit, often losing money for the state. The penitentiary does not impress me as well-conducted; for the sake of humanity, the legislature must investigate.
“Instead of discharging a man from the penitentiary with an acquired industrial habit, a taste for reading and a sober and temperate constitution, this system discharges a morose, sullen, lazy and rotten wretch.”
This 1893 critique of Washington's carceral system highlights the long-standing tension between 'punitive' incarceration and rehabilitative goals. The debates over prison labor competing with private industry and the disparity between wealthy and indigent inmates echo modern critiques of the prison-industrial complex in Washington state.
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