Federal Inmate Work Programs Prior to the Creation of Federal Prison Industries
The controversy over prison labor was an important factor leading to the establishment of Federal prisons. Before the 1890's, the Federal Government did not operate its own prisons. Instead, the Justice Department paid State prisons and county jails to house individuals convicted of committing Federal crimes. The public outcry over the convict lease system, however, motivated the passage of a Federal law prohibiting the leasing of Federal offenders. Consequently, many State prisons and county jails became reluctant to house Federal offenders, because it was not economically advantageous to incarcerate inmates they could not lease. Moreover, the expansion of Federal law enforcement activities and the enactment of new Federal laws in the late l9th century led to an increase in the prosecution of Federal lawbreakers and to overcrowding in the prisons where they were held. With a growing population of Federal prisoners, and the growing reluctance of non-Federal prisons to house them, the Federal Government had no choice but to build prisons on its own. Congress authorized the establishment of three Federal prisons in 1891.
Inmate workers help build USP Atlanta, circa 1900.
Boat building at USP McNeil Island, circa 1910.
Industrial and other work programs at the first three Federal prisons were woefully inadequate. Inmates helped build the U.S. Penitentiaries at Atlanta and Leavenworth, but construction work on those facilities was substantially complete by 1902 and 1906, respectively. Thereafter, inmates lucky enough to work at Atlanta, Leavenworth, and the third penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington (which the Bureau vacated in 1981), engaged in institutional maintenance and janitorial work; farming to produce food for prison use; tailoring, mending, and laundering of inmate clothing; performing clerical functions in prison offices; and working as houseboys or "trusties" at the houses of wardens or other staff members. Inmates at McNeil Island (located on Puget Sound) built boats, scows, and wharfs for official use by the prison. USP Atlanta opened a textile mill in 1919, and Leavenworth built a shoe factory in 1924; both institutions were required by law to sell their products only to Federal agencies. Although these work activities were better than nothing, they were not nearly ambitious enough to keep all inmates busy.
ln 1928, the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency - forerunner of the modern Office of Management and Budget - issued a report on conditions inside Federal prisons. The following year, the Special Committee on Federal Penal and Reformatory Institutions of the U.S. House of Representatives also reported on Federal prison conditions and made recommendations for reform. The architect of both reports was a future Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, James V. Bennett.
The situation in Federal prisons, as described in the two Bennett reports, was deplorable. Overcrowding at the three penitentiaries was severe - eight men crowded into cells designed for four, and inmates sleeping in dark, poorly ventilated basements or makeshift living quarters in the prisons' warehouses. Sanitation was atrocious, and there were no rehabilitation programs to speak of. And there was idleness, extreme, chronic idleness, brought about by a lack of prison industrial programs. In Atlanta, for example, only 850 out of 3,149 inmates could work in the textile mill. Although several hundred additional inmates were employed in prison maintenance activities or on the prison farm, hundreds of inmates at USP Atlanta had little or nothing constructive to do.
Early Federal prison factories, such as this one at USPLeavenworth, were cramped and inefficient.
Accordingly, the Special Committee recommended that "immediate steps be taken to establish additional shops and factories in Federal prison. The Committee noted that there was "an ample market" in the Federal Government to keep all Federal prisoners employed. lt further noted that prison industrial programs could be self-sustaining and that industrial expansion would not require Congressional appropriations.
The Bureau of Efficiency and House of Representatives reports served as catalysts for legislation that consolidated the previously autonomous Federal prisons under the authority of a single, centralized agency: the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Its first Director was Sanford Bates, and one of Bates' Assistant Directors was James V. Bennett.
Under Bates and Bennett, the new Bureau of Prisons implemented a wide array of desperately-needed reforms. It began a major prison expansion program to alleviate terrible overcrowding. It implemented a agency-wide policy system and a chain-of-command structure to ensure uniform practices and accountability. lt introduced staff training programs and devised new programs for the classification and treatment of offenders. And it sought to create a new prison industrial structure that would solve the problem of inmate idleness.
