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YALC Testimony(From front page)Road Builders Association—leading industry’s delegation at the public hearing—said the use of convicts to construct highways amounted to “socialism” in a “vicious” form. He suggested that more of the prisoners be used in producing needed food for state institutions, saying that the state now owns 20 million acres. This would amount to one prisoner for each 1.7 acres. The spokesman pointed out that the state made a profit on three farms last year and it “seems logical that it would be more efficient to put more (convicts) on farms.”The Virginia Mineral Aggregates spokesman after following the same pattern used by other industry spokesmen of presenting figures as to the number of prisoners used in the field he was representing, the inefficiencies of these laborers, the amount it costs taxpayers, and the encroachment upon private business, suggested that the state close its quarries and put the convicts in other fields, perhaps in canneries to feed state institutions.One spokesman for the Virginia Manufacturers Association told the committee that the goods and services produced by convict labor should be for the exclusive use of the state institutions. He suggested convict use in reforestation, soil erosion and conservation projects.Several of the spokesmen made the observation that the manufacturing plants now owned by the state were too large to supply only state institution needs and could not be operated efficiently unless on a full-time basis. This, they said, posed a continuing threat that prison-manufactured products might be put on the openmarket. 'State Penitentiary Superintendent W. Frank Smyth, Jr., speaking *t the end of the hearing discounted the various suggestions.He said the important thing was to keep all able-bodied convicts at work, training them for jobs “when they go home” and avoiding the idleness that prison administrators fear most. He said none of the suggestions provided either enough work or diversity of training.M. A. Hubbard, executive secretary of the VFBF, said in testimony that “the piddling competition of prison labor with private enterprise is but a very minute Part of this total problem. The financial gain of the few whc vvould benefit from a policy of converting the prison system into a haven for loafers would be offset many times by the loss of the benefits to our taxpayers from the present method of operation.”He stated that, at the present time, the taxpayers of the state are obligated to feed, house, clothe and otherwise provide for some 5,762 individuals who are inmates of the state penal system proper, plus 673 at the four state reform schools. In addition to these, thereare also 12,890 patients in our mental institutions whose maintenance must be largely provided for from public funds.. Including students at deaf and blind schools and patients at our state tuberculosis sanatoria, we have a total of 20,864 people who must be cared for largely if not entirely at state expense, Hubbard said.He commented that many problems arise in the care of these people and “our administrators have come up with some good answers.”“Approximately one-third of the penal population is provided employment on farms, another third on the road forces and the remaining third is employed in the industrial sections of the penitentiary. This useful employment of the penal population Is reducing the cost of maintenance to the taxpayer, giving vocational training which may be useful to him in earning his own livelihood upon release, and is keeping the inmates occupied, thus lessening the threat of dangerous riots,” Hubbard continued.In discussing the competition of convict labor with private business he commented, “The food produced, the shoes, clothing and other articles manufactured with prison labor are utilized entirely by either the prison system or other tax-supported agencies of the state or its political subdivisions. This contributes materially toward keeping the cost of state government low and at the same time makes it possible to provide better care for many of the wards of the state than would otherwise be possible without higher taxes.”Hubbard concluded that “the adoption of a policy which would place the entire prison population on state-owned farms would be grossly unfair to our farm people and would upset the program of vocational training and rehabilitation now in progress.”
Newspaper Details
Richmond Virginia Farm Bureau News
Richmond, Virginia, US
Wed, Jul 01, 1953
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Adam R.
VA, USA 29 Mar 2021
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