MICHIGAN PRISON

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 22, 26 July 1945, Page 7

MICHIGAN PRISON

REMARKABLE CHARGES

NEW YORK, July 24.

The Attorney-General of Michigan, Mr. John Dethmers, after four months of investigation, has reported that the Southern Michigan State prison is administered in a shockingly corrupt manner. Conditions prevailed which permitted the most disgraceful moral laxity and made the institution a "veritable Cupid club for lovelorn inmates," he alleged. Mr. Dethmers alleged further that "big shot" convicts had wide control inside the penitentiary and women were brought in for them. Some inmates were permitted the solace of wives or sweethearts. Inmates were taken for weekend parties with women to a prison official's cottage. Gambling for stakes as high as 1500 dollars was carried on and liquor was smuggled into the penitentiary. Certain inmates with imposing criminal records were permitted to attend outside theatrical shows, games, and country fairs, some travelling' to them in an official's car. At least 10 bookmakers operated in the prison. Some of the favoured inmates held monopoly rights of the manufacture of certain articles within the prison, doing an aggregate business exceeding 100,000 dollars a year. , ;