A KEYLESS PRISON.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17714, 18 May 1929, Page 13 (Supplement)

A KEYLESS PRISON.

DOORS AUTOMATICALLY LOCK. ANEW prison with 2000 cells, considered impregnable yet having neither keys nor keyholes, is to be built by New York State in Attica, near Buffalo (says a writer in a New York paper). The site selected is on part of an 875 acre tract of State-owned land in Wyoming County. The plans arc prepared and the funds are available, the total cost being estimated at £1,500,000The absence of keys is considered a security factor. The cells will be automatically locked and unlocked by compressed air from the central control room, and it will not be possible to open any cell door except by the central lever. This system is designed to avoid the picking of locks and the obtaining of keys. Another novel device to prevent escapes is that by which a check-up will be made of the prisoners. After being locked in his cell, each man will be required to press an electric button, which will operate an indicator in the control room. In this way one keeper will be able to tell at once when a convict is missing, and there will be no chance of deceiving guards by leaving a dummy in the cell bed- In addition, the new system will make unnecessary tne tedious night rounds of the keepers. Sentry Armed With Machine Guns. Plans for the prison, prepared by William J. Beardsley, architect, call for a thirty-foot concrete wall enclosing fifty-five acres, within which will be the entire plant. The wall will have a gap in the centre. Here a fence will be erected, thirty feet high, with concrete piers every few feet and an Iron grill between. There will be an unobstructed view from the street of the administration building and other structures. There will be fifteen watch towers, in each of which will be a sentry armed with machine guns, repeating rifles and other firearms. A large residence will be constructed for the prison warden. There will be four cell houses, forming a quadrangle, with cross corridors on the inside partitioning off the courtyard into four sections, and roof corridors to provide passageways from the cell houses to other parts of the prison. Another building will be used for receiving and classifying new arrivals. Behind it will be a schoolhousc, then the combined chapel and auditorium. There will also be a maintenance building for outfitting the men, a hospital, isolation building, mess hall with kitchen and bakery and a service building with bath house, laundry and barber shops. At the rear of the plant will be the industrial buildings, where the prisoners wall be taught trades; the storehouse, garage, dry kilns, lumber shed and power house v Cell units are to be built in three styles. One will have an intermediate floor separating each tier of cells, for purposes of classification. Another, comprising about

FROM CENTRAL CONTROL ROOM one-third of the cells, will be of the balcony type, three tiers high, as now used in most prisons. The remainder will be outside cells, with windows opening upon the yard. Protection at Night. An innovation in the administration unit will be a hall large cnougli to assemble tho employees, where the officials can address them without the prisoners overhearing. This building will also contain the warden’s office, the Bertillon and photograph departments and the principal keeper’s office, which is to be a vestibule to the arsenal and armory. For protection at night, the quadrangle will be watched by guards in five towers. With the assistance of floor lights the prison can be guarded on the late shift by only five sentries. This will be New' York State’s fifth prison. The others are Sing Sing, Mount Auburn, Great Meadow and Clinton, in addition, male felons are sent to the State institution for Defective Delinquents in Papanogh and Lo Elmira Reformatory. These six units have a population of approximately 8000, although there are not enough cells to go round. An entirely new system will be set up in the new unit. The other institutions were fashioned on the principle of treating all criminals alike, of allowing men who had made one slip, but who possibly were capable of being reformed, lo be mixed with hardened crooks- Dr. Raymond F. G. Kieb, State Commissioner of Correction, is veering toward a policy of individual treatment in the new prison. Psychiatrists can, it is believed, by mental and physical examinations, distinguish between the felons w'ho are mentally deficient and those who are fundamentally bad. Efforts will be made to improve mental powers where possible and to build up those who show' physical weakness. Individual Treatment Wanted. Provision is to be made for classification, segregation, education, religious instruction and industrial training, as well as for hospitalisation, exercise and entertainment. “We are aiming,” said Dr. Kieb, “at a maximum of security at a minimum cost. We want individual treatment as well as mass control.” Although New York’s older prisons have been built lo a large extent by patchwork, the new' jail will be designed and constructed after one major plan- The Legislature has allocated 3,500,000 dollars of the .State bond issue for building construction for the Attica unit. This sum is the estimated initial cost to gel the new prison functioning, and is expected to bring it about half way to completion. The properly at Attica where the new institution will be located consists of good tillable soil, and includes some woodland.]