Mr. BENNETT. Not too much. It is a long, hard problem. Mr. HARE. If you would furnish the money they would not object. Mr. BENNETT. Not so much. Mr. GILLESPIE. Here is something going through my mind. There was a scandal in a Denver jail a number of years ago, a very bad one. That was a local thing. They were not Federal prisoners, although they kept Federal prisoners in there, and I think that the Federal authorities came in and told them that they had to do certain things to bring the jail up to standard. I am wondering this: I know that it costs you a lot to send men from here, or any headquarters that you might have across the country. Why could you not have an arrangement made with some young attorney, or someone who would be glad to do that work at a very nominal amount? I will bet you that the Denver Rotary Club or the Kiwanis Club would love to do that work and would not charge anything for it. I think that that could be done in most communities. Mr. BENNETT. That is one of the things that we have tried to encourage. We have found that the women's organizations particularly have been helpful to us. We cannot get around to these jails very often, so we try to encourage some local club or group to do it. When you cannot get the judge of the court which sentences the man to the jail to go into the jail himself and see what goes on, it is pretty hard to get local groups to go in. They seem to forget the man who is in jail. Mr. O'BRIEN. A Federal prisoner could not go into a county jail unless these people approved it. Mr. BENNETT. That is right. Mr. O'BRIEN. Then they must be all right. Mr. BENNETT. No. We approve them more or less because we have to do it. Mr. O'BRIEN. You said our jail was 100 percent out there. Mr. BENNETT. There has been a big improvement in the Cook County jail. BUILDINGS AND EQUIPMENT, PENAL INSTITUTIONS SUMMARY OF THE ESTIMATE Mr. HARE. The next item is building and equipment, penal institutions. Page 195 of the justifications will be inserted in the record at this point. (The justification table referred to is as follows:) Mr. HARE. You are requesting $142,300 for advance planning unit. Mr. BENNETT. I explained that to you. CONSTRUCTION SUMMARY OF PROJECTS Mr. HARE. Now you have construction, $671,200. That is broken down on the following pages. We will insert pages 196, 197, 198, and 199 in the record. (The justification tables referred to are as follows: Buildings and equipment, penal institutions Because of the war, no construction funds were appropriated during fiscal years 1944, 1945, and 1946. We have under consideration an advance construction program aggregating in excess of $35,000,000. There is critical need for many of the construction projects proposed for the Federal prison system which have already been deferred for several years. The $813,500 requested will make provision for only the following most urgent items, including an advance planning unit to proceed with preliminary plans for construction and additions both at existing and at proposed new institutions. The projects contemplated in this estimate are: Total (a) Addition to coal bunkers__ Total___ 13. Sandstone: Farm buildings. 14. Tallahassee: (a) Garage and shops building (b) Fireproof storage for inflammable materials‒‒‒‒‒ 15. Texarkana : Total____ (a) Completion diary unit_ (b) Vegetable storage building (c) Increase sewage disposal plant_. Grand total___. 813, 500 Statement of average daily population (workload) penal and correctional institutions Statement of average daily population (workload) penal and correctional institutions— Continued 1 Columbia Camp established as separate unit March 1944; average for time in operation, 227. 2 Natural Bridge opened Aug. 14, 1944; average for time in operation, 47. M'NEIL ISLAND Mr. BENNETT. I would like to explain one item. That is for devel-. oping the water supply at McNeil Island, in the amount of $213,500. That is the cost of building a new reservoir and watershed at McNeil Island. It is badly needed, because the population of the institution has increased considerably over a period of years. The number of residents on the island has also increased, and our present watershed and water supply will not meet our needs. This work is going to be done exclusively by the inmates. This money is to purchase the equipment, to supply the technical service, to buy the pipe, the filters, and things of that kind. It is a very important item from our standpoint. We nearly had a drought out there this last year, and we cannot go on expanding the capacity of that institution and take more men in without making some progress in developing a new water supply. Mr. STEFAN. I wish that you would tell the committee a little bit more about McNeil Island. I think that is one of the best locations we have in the country, for the reason that the land is productive. There is a lot of wood there. I think that you ought to explain about the canning operations there, and how really important it is. Mr. BENNETT. The McNeil Island Prison serves all of the west coast. We have farms there of very considerable size. In addition to that, we operate a cannery and a dehydrating plant. The cannery receives its raw materials, its fruits, and so on, from the Columbia camp, which is a prison camp on the land adjacent to the big atomic bomb plant at Hanford. It is a strip of land formerly used for orchards and farmlands, and our prisoners are harvesting the crops, picking the crops, and we are sending them to McNeil Island, where they are canned and sold to ourselves and to other Government agencies. It has been a very productive and worth-while operation be cause it does two things: It protects and maintains the land out there. In addition to that, it gives us a source of raw material for our cannery and farms. At McNeil Island we also have a shipbuilding plant where we built boats during the war for the Army. Also, we built out there a 65foot boat to operate as a tender for Alcatraz. This committee some years ago gave us $30,000 to build a boat for a tender. We built that boat at McNeil Island. In addition to that, we are doing a good deal of work in salvaging raw materials, wire rope particularly, which is sent down to us from the navy yard at Bremerton. The institution has one of the finest dairy herds in the country. It has a very profitable poultry-raising project, and one of its advantages, of course, is that we can put men out to work on the farm who cannot be put out to work in other institutions where they might get away with greater ease. It is on an island and we can put them outside the walls so to speak. Mr. STEFAN. What was your can output there? Mr. CONNER. Our total production at the cannery was $687,000. POSSIBILITY OF EARLY CONSTRUCTION Mr. HARE. Do you think that it will be possible to proceed with the construction of these units within the next fiscal year? Mr. BENNETT. Yes. I think on these items we can proceed with them during the next fiscal year. I do not think that we shall be able to complete them all during the next fiscal year. Mr. HARE. You think that the estimate will cover it and that you will not have to come here for a supplemental? Mr. BENNETT. I think that the estimated cost will cover it even though construction costs have gone up considerably. Mr. GILLESPIE. I want to ask you about this wire-rope salvage. You take the wire rope and do what with it? Mr. BENNETT. We take cable, what they call battle-damaged material,and take off the insulation and cut it up into small pieces. Then it is melted down again into copper. It is turned back to the Navy Department. Mr. GILLESPIE. You are talking about electrical cable rather than wire rope? Mr. BENNETT. Yes. Mr. STEFAN. Are we going to get that California institution back from the Navy, near the sardine plant? Mr. BENNETT. I do not think so. permanently. The Navy is going to keep that ALCATRAZ Mr. STEFAN. Let us go back to Alcatraz. Some members of our committee do not know that we have to haul every drop of fresh water over there. We have been unable to dig a well there. I feel that Alcatraz is our most expensive institution. Mr. BENNETT. Far and away. Mr. HARE. And yet it is the most secure. |