Name/Title
Booklet, Corrections, Wisconsin State Prison, The Story of the Wisconsin State Prison, 1939Description
Visitor's booklet from the Prison, printed in 1939. There was a period of history when anyone could go to the front gate and get a tour. At one point in the history of the Prison it cost 25 cents. Note: This booklet is also entered at 2001.0002.1089 and 2001.0002.1090.
THE STORY of the Wisconsin State Prison
Printed 1939
A Souvenir of Your Visit
THE HON. JULIUS P. HEIL, Governor
STATE BOARD OF CONTROL
FRANK C. KLODE, Chairman
LILA 0. BURTON, Member
ARTHUR W. PREHN, Member
WISCONSIN STATE PRISON
JOHN C. BURKE, Warden
FRANK L. BERNART, Deputy Warden
L. NEIL LARSEN, Business Manager
H. B. HAYDEN, Supervisor of Sales and Production
RULES FOR THE GUIDANCE OF VISITORS
WHEN PASSING THROUGH THE INSTITUTION:
DO NOT Point out prisoners.
DO NOT Stare at prisoners.
DO NOT Communicate with prisoners.
DO NOT Attempt to converse with prisoners.
DO NOT Pass anything to prisoners.
Smoking is not allowed while passing through the institution.
Visitors are not permitted to carry kodaks, packages, wraps, etc., while passing through the institution.
Photo of the Front Yard and South Cell Block
The Wisconsin State Prison
Waupun, Wisconsin
HISTORY:
The State P
Physical Description: Booklet given to visitors to the prison.
Extended Description: Visitor's booklet from the Prison, printed in 1939. There was a period of history when anyone could go to the front gate and get a tour. At one point in the history of the Prison it cost 25 cents. Note: This booklet is also entered at 2001.0002.1089 and 2001.0002.1090.
THE STORY of the Wisconsin State Prison
Printed 1939
A Souvenir of Your Visit
THE HON. JULIUS P. HEIL, Governor
STATE BOARD OF CONTROL
FRANK C. KLODE, Chairman
LILA 0. BURTON, Member
ARTHUR W. PREHN, Member
WISCONSIN STATE PRISON
JOHN C. BURKE, Warden
FRANK L. BERNART, Deputy Warden
L. NEIL LARSEN, Business Manager
H. B. HAYDEN, Supervisor of Sales and Production
RULES FOR THE GUIDANCE OF VISITORS
WHEN PASSING THROUGH THE INSTITUTION:
DO NOT Point out prisoners.
DO NOT Stare at prisoners.
DO NOT Communicate with prisoners.
DO NOT Attempt to converse with prisoners.
DO NOT Pass anything to prisoners.
Smoking is not allowed while passing through the institution.
Visitors are not permitted to carry kodaks, packages, wraps, etc., while passing through the institution.
Photo of the Front Yard and South Cell Block
The Wisconsin State Prison
Waupun, Wisconsin
HISTORY:
The State Prison was located at Waupun in July, 1851. A commission, consisting of the Messrs. John Bullen, John Taylor, and A. W. Worth, determined the location under a law enacted that year. The construction of a temporary prison was begun at once.
In 1853 a contract was let for the south wing of the prison. This wing is still standing, to the south of the main entrance. This one building provided room for all prisoners for about twenty-five years, after which time the present north wing was added. Since then all the other buildings have been added from time to time as the need arose.
The first record of prison population is April 1, 1852 when there where 15 prisoners. In 1920 there were 760 inmates on January 1st: in 1930, 1187; and in 1937, 1634.
The prison buildings and enclosed grounds now occupy twenty-two acres of land.
ADMINISTRATION:
The prison administration is in charge of the Warden, who is under the supervision of the state Board of Control. He is assisted by the Deputy Warden, who is charged with maintaining the discipline of officers and inmates. Accounting and purchasing is in the hands of the Business Manager. Inmates' records, fingerprints, and case histories of inmates are in charge of the Record Clerk. The Industrial program is under the supervision of the Supervisor of Sales and Production. The School for inmates and the instructions of inmate teachers are in the hands of the Director of Education. The health of the prisoners is maintained by a resident Physician and Dentist and the
State Psychiatric Field Service; while their spiritual needs are ministered to by a resident Catholic Priest and a Protestant Chaplain.
A PRISONER'S DAY:
What is the pattern of the prisoner's day? When does he get up; when does he eat; and when does he go to bed? Many people ask these questions; so here is a typical "prisoner's day." Of course this is varied for individuals whose work requires a different schedule.
5:50 A.M. Rising bell and whistle.
6:25 March to mess hall for breakfast.
6:50 March to shops or other work.
11:35 Signal for stopping work, wash, and line up.
11:45 March to mess hall for noon meal.
12:20 P.M. March to cells for rest period.
12:30 Whistle announces completion of count and check-up of all inmates.
12:55 March to shops.
4:40 Signal for stopping work, wash, and line-up.
4:45 March to mess hall for evening meal.
5:10 March to cells for evening and night.
5:30 Whistle announces completion of evening check-up.
9:50 Retiring bell.
10:00 Lights out.
During the week, at regular intervals, all inmates are shaved and marched to the bathhouse for shower baths.
PRISONER DISTRIBUTION:
It requires the labor of about 21% of the prisoners in the maintenance work of the institution
itself. About 24% are outside the walls in the reforestration camps, and on the farms from which the institution draws much of its food. 15% are full time students in the prison school, and 30% are in the industries which cooperate with the school in vocational training so far as this is possible. There remains about 5% who are ill, in quarantine, or otherwise disbarred from the regular activities of the institution, and about 5% which are not as yet absorbed into the industrial program.
THE INSTITUTIONAL SERVICES:
These services, requiring the labor, as stated in the foregoing paragraph, of about 21% of the prisoners, include a number of recognized vocations which those inmates trained in them may find duplicated in many places throughout the State upon their release from the prison.
There is the carpenter shop, the electrical service room, a large steam laundry, a large greenhouse and gardens, a barber shop, and a corps of barbers who move from place to place inside the institution. The commissary department includes a dairy, a large bakery, a cannery, a cold storage plant for meats and other perishables, and a kitchen which rivals a large metropolitan hotel.
In addition to these easily recognized occupations, there are groups busy with the cleaning of buildings and grounds; the handling of supplies; and the maintenance of the power house and boiler room.
HEAT, LIGHT, POWER & WATER:
Power and light for all the activities of the prison are provided by a battery of four boilers with a total rating of 1200 horsepower and four steam driven generating units with a total rating of 1100 kilowatts. The industrial and institutional operations require 225 electric motors. Two deep wells provide an ample supply of excellent water and a large underground reservoir carries a reserve for contingencies.
HEALTH:
Within the walls is a hospital with a resident physician and a resident dentist and a corps of assistants. Every prisoner, upon entrance, is given a careful medical and dental examination. He is kept two weeks in quarantine during which time he is carefully watched for possible infections or contagious disease. Any required medical or dental program is then charted and is carried out during the period of imprisonment.
COMMISSARY:
The central building, directly back of the administration building, is given over to the storage and preparation of food; and the upper floor contains the large dining hall. The entire menu is made out for all meals for a week in advance and this gives opportunity to economically obtain all the ingredients. The planning of the meals and their preparation is in charge of a Chef and his assistants. The products of the prison farms are all consumed in the institution, with the exception of the occasional sale of surplus blooded cattle. Within the dining hall, the men march in, in units, under the supervision of their guards, and are served by the corps of waiters. A man may take all he wants but is expected to eat what he takes. The prison band plays in the dining hall during the noon meal.
RECREATION:
Movies are shown weekly in the dining hall during the winter months. These are modern and up-to-date films and the moving picture equipment is modern. Saturday afternoons during the summer months there are ball games between the prison team and different outside teams. At intervals there are boxing matches. A band and orchestra, under competent supervision, claim the interest
Photo showing the tiers of cells: Corridor-North Cell Block-Showing one side.
of the musically minded. Any prisoner may belong to one of these activities, provided his record is good and that it does not take more than one hour per day of his working time. A large circulating library, well balanced with both fiction and more serious volumes, is at the disposal of all prisoners with good records.
EDUCATION:
The full time school was organized in 1932, to provide instruction comparable to that found in the public elementary school in grades one to eight inclusive. For some studies, there is provision for instruction beyond this point.
In making changes in the industrial program in 1932, space became available for the school, and with the cooperation of the University Extension Division, the school was organized under the supervision of a Director of Education.
Two of the outstanding characteristics of the school are the provision for individualized instruction to a very high degree, and the use of inmate teachers. Individualized instruction is especially desirable among adults in the lower grades, where skills are developed and mastery gained in the use of the tools of learning. Material is provided for study which places emphasis upon adult experience, adult thought, adult needs and interests. This material, it will be realized, differs widely from that presented to young children at the same stage of learning. This study material is presented from the practical point of view, and as the individual progresses, he encounters a graduated increase in difficulty. As progress is made, the individual is given an increasing opportunity to elect the material he wishes to study.
The inmate teachers are chosen with care, and consideration is given to their ability to get along with their fellow men; their tact; their disposition to be helpful; and their ability to accept success with modesty.
Training in the art of teaching is provided by the Director, who holds classes for prospective teachers and conducts meetings and conferences with them. On Saturday mornings, the teachers present their problems and experiences of the week, and the technique of good teaching procedure is applied to them. The teacher is furnished with reading material aimed to increase his efficiency.
Each teacher instructs five classes per day, with sixteen men to a class. Six or more such classes are conducted at the same time in each of the large rooms. Attendance is mostly voluntary. Any man with less than an eighth grade education may go to school to reach that point, before being taken into the industrial program. Some men have given up jobs in industry in order to carry out some special course of study. For many it is the last opportunity for formal educational training.
School is in session five days per week from 8 A. M. to 4:35 P. M. The average daily attendance is now 275. Students must remain in school six months before they can be transferred to other places in the institution. Men who are at work in the industries or about the institution are permitted to have cell study courses which are similar to correspondence courses. Those who have advanced beyond the Institutional study level may have University Extension course work. Over seventy men are following special courses of study through this means. About eight hundred men are following special reading courses which have been outlined for them, on subjects related to their special interests or needs.
An apprenticeship system is being developed in cooperation with the prison industries. At present this is in operation in two shops, and it is hoped to extend it as fast as it may seem practicable. In this program, the men are selected by the Director and they pursue special studies relating to this vocation. Later on they spend half their time on the shop floor, working with the regular workmen, and continue their classroom studies the rest of the time.
As a result of the educational program, beneficial results have been observed. On the part of the inmates it has resulted in an improvement in mental alertness and general knowledge; an improvement in their attitude toward society and toward the rules and regulations of the institution; and appreciation that they are becoming better prepared to make their way upon their return to free society.
INDUSTRIAL:
At one time the industrial program of the Wisconsin State Prison comprised one or two large units, making goods for sale on the open market. These were marketed through the ordinary commercial channels on what was known as the contract basis. While the contracts in this state were very well administered without many of the troubles experienced elsewhere; nevertheless, this contract system did not provide a satisfactory basis for the underlying requirement of the rehabilitation of prisoners.
Some years ago therefor, the entire program was changed to one where the industries were state-owned and operated and the products were distributed by the state itself. In the development of this program, the emphasis has been laid on small industrial units of a diversified character. The benefit of such diversification is obvious. It enables us to offer more types of training to the men in accordance with their different aptitudes. It has a further advantage of a small output which is relatively unimportant in the general market for the commodity concerned. It enables especial attention to be given to the requirements of the
state-use market as contrasted with the requirements of the general public.
The industries of the prison are organized under State laws which provide for their financing and the distribution of the proceeds from their operation. No person or firm makes any profit from the labor of the prisoners. The prisoner is paid a small wage and the state is compensated for the cost of his maintenance in prison. Nor is it unfair competition, because written into the costs is a labor charge comparable to that of similar work elsewhere in the State.
Except for the binder twine, none of these products is sold to the general public. They go only to tax-supported subdivisions of the state of Wisconsin, and benefit not only the taxpayers of the governmental unit making the purchase, but all the taxpayers of the state.
Of far more importance, however, than these direct savings, is the saving to the state which will result, if, through this combined program of education, vocational training, and training in pursuits and habits of industry, we can reduce the number of men who become repeaters in crime. Although the records are incomplete, those available do indicate that this is the case, and that this program is really resulting in a lessening of the number of second and third offenders.
The largest industry is the binder twine plant, whose product goes to the farmers of our own state exclusively. Binder twine is made from the fibres of a species of cactus somewhat resembling, although much larger, our sansavaria plants. A proper blend of these fibres is combed and then spun and then put up in balls of eight pounds each.
The group of manufactures called the Metal Industry, contains a stamping plant, a machine shop, a sheet metal department, a welding room. polishing and finishing and enameling rooms, a can mill, a blacksmith shop, a small foundry, and
Photo Showing: [main Dining 'Room - Capacity 896]
other allied departments. Its products consist of automobile license plates, highway signs and traffic markers, tin cans for canning the vegetable products of the farms, metal furniture, miscellaneous machine and foundry products used mainly in maintenance work in this and other state institutions.
There is a shoe shop making shoes for the state and county institutions, and a tailor shop making clothing, hospital uniforms and other garments for the same institutions. The tailor shop also makes the mattress ticks for the mattress shop.
In the mattress shop, blown-type cotton mattresses are made at the rate of about fifty per day for the state welfare department, which distributes them to the needy through the county relief departments.
In a well equipped paint factory, paints and enamels are ground and mixed.
A bindery rebinds books for the prison library and for public libraries through the state.
From time to time other industries will be added which will train inmates in habits of industry and fit them industrially.
FARMS AND CAMPS:
There are three reforestration camps in the northern part of the state. Within a few miles of the prison are six farms, four of which are owned by the state and two of which are leased. Here large herds of excellent cattle provide the institution with milk, butter, and cheese. Vegetables and fruits are raised which are canned for the use of the institution. Prisoners with a good record are selected for work on these camps and farms, where they earn an additional measure of good time deduction from their sentence. The change from the indoor life to the outdoor work and activity, and the larger responsibility, provides an important step in their progress toward freedom.
PAROLE:
The final service in the prison treatment program is parole. Parole is not clemency, nor does it shorten the offender's term in any way. It is a period of adjustment, under strict supervision, from the artificial life of an institution to normal life in society. The prisoner on parole is still a ward of the state and is still undergoing treatment. The function of the Parole Officer is to substitute the discipline, education, and watchfulness available in community life for the discipline and treatment in an institution. The parolee may be brought back to the institution for violation of parole. The Parole system, therefore, presents two aspects; it is supervised adjustment from the prison to free society, and it is a continuation of treatment.
Parole is the only release procedure wherein supervision is given. If a prisoner is kept in prison until the day of his discharge and then turned out into the world, which he has been away from for several years, he faces a very difficult situation. Despite the confidence and determination to make good that has been built up by a prison program, the gossip and ridicule that he meets, the refusal of jobs because of his record, and the using up of the money he has brought with him from prison, makes it easy for him to drift back to old, undesirable associates and the general environment which tends to weaken his moral fibre.
Parole was devised to correct this difficulty. The paroled prisoner has at his back the helping hand of the State through its force of parole officers, who call upon the wholesome forces of the community to aid in readjusting the parolee to participation in its normal life.
Unless the offender is adjusted back into the community life, society is not protected; so the parole system should act as a protection to the community.
Under supervision of the parole officers, a job is found for the parolee and he is required to make an account of his earnings and expenditures. He is expected, so far as possible, to support his family. He is cautioned and advised when necessary and helped over the difficulties which arise to confound a man who has been out of touch with free society for any length of time.
If a parolee violates his parole regulations, he may be returned to prison without the cost of a court trial, because he is still under the jurisdiction of the authorities. It is true that this has sometimes happened, but under the strict supervision which Wisconsin exercises, and the care with which applicants for parole are sorted out and selected before parole is granted, these violations of parole are not frequent.
Over a period of years, the records show only about ten per cent of parolees failing to make good and useful citizens. It seems reasonable that the prisoner who is released on parole under strict but constructive supervision, has a better chance of making good than one released without such assistance.
WISCONSIN'S PROGRAM FOR REHABILITATION OF PRISONERS:
In the foregoing paragraphs we have tried to give you a very brief sketch of the activities of the prison. We hope you will see in it a coordinated program, designed to carry the prisoner away from the anti-social acts which brought him to prison, and to substitute for them a wider education and better habits, together with a training in some industry or occupation which will enable him to earn his livelihood upon his release.
This program is not completely achieved, nor will it be for many years; but in its scope and in its development, it is the answer to those who claim that prisons are necessarily breeders of crime and criminals.
We hope that you enjoyed your visit to this unit of your State's institutions. We hope you will carry away with you some thought and some sympathy for the population behind the gray walls; some appreciation of the handicaps under which they will again take their places in your world; and some desire to support your State's forward looking program for their rehabilitation.
DIVISION OF INDUSTRIES
WISCONSIN STATE PRISON
WAUPUN, WISCONSIN
Manufacturers of: -
Highway Signs - Street Signs - Paints, Rubber Door Mats - Steel Filing Cases and Cabinets - Steel Lockers, Steel Chairs, Tables and Desks - Special Steel Equipment - Mattresses Bookbinding-Shoes-Socks-Clothing.
Sold only to tax supported political subdivisions of Wisconsin
Binder Twine - Standard and Climax Sold to the Public in Wisconsin only.
Ask for:
Highway signs Catalog "M"
Paints Catalog "R"
Furniture Catalog "S"
The printing of this booklet is charged to the Advertising Expense of the Division of Industries. Your contribution goes entirely to forward the prisoners' recreational program.Acquisition
Accession
2008.0001Source or Donor
James & Harriet LairdAcquisition Method
Bequest,Collected by
