REPORT OF THE BOARD OF MANAGERS.

MANSFIELD, OHIO, November 15, 1903.

To His Excellency, Geo. K. Nash, Governor of Ohio:

The Board of Managers of the Ohio State Reformatory respectfully submit for your consideration, the twentieth annual report, as required by law:

During the past year the personnel of the board has not been changed. The general policy as set forth in the annual reports for the years 1901, and 1902, have been continued with gratifying results.

FINANCIAL.

The per capita cost of maintaining the inmates for the fiscal year has heen reduced from two hundred and thirty-two dollars and forty-eight cents ($232.48) to one hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety cents ($199.90); showing a per capita saving of thirty-two dollars and fifty-eight cents ($32.58). This reduction in cost of maintenance has not been secured at the expense of good service in any of the departments of the institution, as all the conditions bearing upon the physical, moral and intellectual welfare of the young men committed to the institution have been improved during the year.

For interesting details bearing upon this matter of per capita cost you are respectfully referred to the tabulated statements in the Superinten dent's report, herewith submitted.

SANITARY.

The sanitary conditions at the Reformatory approach the ideal. The salubrious location, abundant supply of good water, thorough drainage and good ventilation, are the conditions that make possible the very favorable showing as to the health of the employes and inmates during the year. Considering that there was an average inmate population of five hundred and seventeen (517), the hospital and mortality records as shown by the physician's report are worthy of note. There were but three deaths during the year and these were due to disease contracted before the men were committed to the institution.

EDUCATIONAL.

The efficiency of the schools has been greatly increased by the employment of professional teachers and by an increase of inmates at

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tending the day schools. The number of inmates now warrants the inauguration of a cherished plan of the management to introduce a double-shift plan of employment throughout the departments of the institution. This will afford all inmates opportunity for industrial activity for one-half of each day while the other half day is devoted to school studies and other Reformatory methods of training and development.

The two new trade-school shops are now completed and steps have been taken to inaugurate, without delay, systematic industrial training to go hand in hand with the academic studies of the school. The importance of this industrial training can not be overestimated. Experience has demonstrated that there is no better way of stimulating the self-respect necessary to reformation than to put these young men in the way of discovering that they have power in skilled production. We would earnestly recommend that the legislature grant the appropriation, that will be asked to properly equip and maintain these industrial schools.

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TRAINING.

Regular chapel services, Sabbath-school instruction, lectures and entertainments having ethical bearing and conveying instruction as to the civic duties and responsibilities; the circulation of a well selected library and the privilege of a well supplied reading room are among the agencies employed to effect the moral regeneration and spiritual quickening of the young men in our custody. Valuable information in detail bearing upon this subject will be found in the reports of the Chaplain and the Superintendent of Schools, herewith submitted.

REFORMATION OF INMATES.

Since the opening of the Ohio State Reformatory ten hundred and ninety-four inmates have been paroled, and the best information obtainable is to the effect that not to exceed twenty per cent. have violated their parole or reverted to crime after receiving their final discharge from the custody of the institution.

Complete information as to the career of these young men would probably show an increase in the percentage, but it is a conservative estimate to say that at least three out of four young men released from this institution on parole re-establish themselves in lawful self-support.

The Reformatory method of dealing with young offenders, while not fully worked out as a science of penology or as an art of administration, has passed beyond the phase of questionable experiment and is firmly established as a fixed policy of the State.

We are gratified to report the success of an interesting experiment in extending to inmates, not regularly paroled, a limited or institutional parole, by means of which a large number of inmates are employed about the Reformatory premises and on the four-hundred acre farm without armed guards. In the last two years and a half, three hundred and

twenty-four men have been thus paroled upon their honor and were free to make their escape, the only means of detention being the moral restraint. Of this number twelve violated the trust reposed. Seven were promptly recaptured and five are still at large.

This experiment is justified in a moral and reformatory way because of the high value accruing to the three hundred and twelve men in the exercise of sustained self-restraint, and on pecuniary grounds because the saving in cost of guards and greater effectiveness in labor was greatly in excess of the expense incurred in the efforts to recapture those who ran away. But one man escaped from the enclosure during the year and he was captured the same day.

IMPROVEMENTS.

During the past year many improvements have been made to plant and premises that add much to convenience and economy in administration and to the beauty and attractiveness of the institution and its environment.

At the last general session of the Legislature an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) was made for the purchase and improvement of additional land. Of this amount fifteen thousand seven hundred and three dollars and sixty cents ($15,703.60) were expended for the purchase of two hundred acres of land lying contiguous to the original Reformatory farm. Much of the more valuable and productive portion of this farm required draining and ditching, and with a view to carrying out a thorough tiling and draining system on the land and the building of a barn and other buildings needed for farm purposes, a combined tile and brick machine was purchased and brick and tile are now made in sufficient quantities for all these purposes from excellent clay found on the institution premises.

The unexpended balance of this appropriation should be reapprop.iated so as to complete the improvements as contemplated.

In order to ensure protection from the ravages of floods it will be necessary for this institution to co-operate with the citizens of Richland county in an enterprise now being undertaken under the Ohio ditch law, to straighten, deepen and widen the bed of the Rocky fork of the Mohican for a distance of four miles. When these improvements are completed, the Reformatory land, of more than three hundred acres, will be tillable and highly productive, and it will be possible to produce all garden, farm and forage products required by the institution. It will, also, afford training for a large number of boys in gardening and extensive farming.

The most important work in construction was that undertaken to complete the interior of the east cell and lateral wing to the institution and the construction of one hundred additional cells. This involved much labor, most of it of a skilled character.

Aside from the cell construction, which was necessarily done in the factory, the labor, skilled and otherwise, was largely done by inmates, resulting in economy of expenditure and valuable training for the young men employed. This work happily is nearing completion, and this added facility will greatly add to the capacity of the plant and greatly increase the administrative effectiveness of the institution.

The completion of the cells above referred to will not, however, afford sufficient cell room to meet the requirements of an increase in population. All reformatory authorities agree that in a congregate system there should be individual cells. This should be insisted upon for moral and administrative reasons.

The cell house and lateral wing (the building proper now completed) represent an outlay of nearly four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000). In order that the State may get the benefit of this large outlay, it will be necessary to complete the block of cells as provided by the plans approved. This would give three hundred additional single cells. Every consideration, whether viewed from a standpoint of business or from a reformatory point of view, argues for the speedy completion of these cells, and at the proper time the General Assembly will be asked for an appropriation for this important work.

We realize that we have the responsibility of this institution during the formative period of its history, and while desiring to be conservative and to practice all wise economy, we feel it our duty to urge its speedy completion, so as to make fully available the large outlay already made and in order to fully inaugurate the reformatory methods and agencies contemplated by those in whose minds the institution had its inception.

We endorse the recommendation of the Superintendent that a cold storage plant and storeroom combined be erected without delay. This is regarded as a necessary feature to every well conducted institution.

The proper estimate of appropriation needed for the years 1904 and 1905 will be presented to the Auditor of State not later than December first, as required by law, and we trust the action of the General Assembly as to the same will be such as to make possible the forward movement at the Ohio State Reformatory as indicated in this report.