VERY LIKE WAIKERIA

Waipa Post, Volume 38, Issue 2271, 21 February 1929, Page 2

VERY LIKE WAIKERIA

PRISON INMATES REHABILITAT-

Ep BY FARM WORK.

Fruit, vegetables, grain and cattle stand as significant products of the 220 acre state farm operated as an adjunct to Auburn prison at Sennett, New York, but not so significant as the annual increasing crop of remade human beings. Persons convicted of homicide, forgery, theft, garbed in prison gray, have walked beneath its entrance gate, and later have stepped beyond it, out into the world again, free men and good citizens, rehabilitated by months of constructive work, unwatched by prison guards. Sennett farm is an experiment. Listed primarily as a "prison industry," it takes its profits only in restored men. No guards with guns patrol the farm. Every man is "on his own." Beyond a count at 9 o'clock every night, when they retire, and another at 6 o'clock in the morning, when they rise, there are no checks. During the daylight hours the men scatter over the 220 acres to perform their duties unwatched. A rule that no man may go beyond the farm boundaries without special permission is the only guard. HONOUR SYSTEM IN FORCE. In the winter season, a mere dozen men operate the farm. In the spring, the number is gradually increased until a full score is on duty a tharvest time. Throughout the year the honour system is in force. The men sleep in a farm house across the road from the residence of the farm director and his family. No guard watches them during the night. A convict cook prepares and serves their meals. Working hours and duties for the State farm hands are little different from those of the average farmer. Crops are planted as efficiently and cultivated as carefully as> any on a prosperous well kept private farm. Individual duties are parcelled out by the farm director and his lone assistant. Inspired by the kindness and offer of open trust where they expected suspicion, the prison farmers answered with the type of co-operation that any farmer would be delighted to find among his own hands. The men have set a record for efficiency in milk production which leads those of all other 31 state institutions, developed a cow which in 12 months produced 22,000 pounds of milk, dug a sulphur water well 410 feet deep, trained the herd to drink the water, and built a big barn and chicken house. They have developed the herd to a point where it is considered one of the leaders of the State. SPECIALISES IN DAIRY PRODUCTS. Most of the farm products go to the upkeep of state institutions. By virtue of the presence of fresh milk and vegetables, however, Sennett farm hands eat pancakes and drink milk as regular items of food, neither of which appear on prison tables. Sennett farm has justified itself in the eyes of prison officials. It leads all other prison departments in !;he number of men who never return as convicts, once their time is served. The farm is manned mostly by first offenders and those for whom no warrants are outstanding upon release — men whom kindness and trust in their sense of honour can save effectively. Sennett farm has launched a move to specialise in dairy products. The herd will be enlarged soon. Every man on the farm is a co-operative worker, eager to see the goal achieved.