32. The FEDERAL PENITENTIARY

(open only to immediate relatives of prisoners and to those having business to transact), Mc-Donough Rd. and South Boulevard, SE., housing an average population of 3,ooo inmates, is one of 30 similar institutions in the United States Prison System. The building, constructed of granite cut from Stone Mountain by prison labor, stands gray and massive behind its fence of tall iron pickets. The central main building was completed for use in 1902, the east and west wings being added in 1915 and 1918. The reservation comprises 28 acres of land enclosed by a wall 4,178 feet long, between 28 and 37 feet high, and varying in thickness from 2 to 4 feet.

Penologists have often praised the excellent equipment of the penitentiary, which includes a hospital, a library of about 20,000 books, and a school with required attendance for prisoners who have not completed the third grade. The prisoners, who occupy four five-tiered cellhouses, work at various occupations. Several hundred are employed in maintenance shops, while more than a thousand work in a textile mill, the only one in the United States that manufactures government mail sacks.

A wide variety of vocational and occupational training is provided in the industries and maintenance shops, ranging from textile manufacture to the various specialized types of construction work. Foremen-instructors, selected -from civil service lists on the basis of their ability to provide supervision, guidance, and training for prisoners, are in charge of the shop work. A placement service is operated to find employment for released prisoners who have equipped themselves by training and given evidence of plans to take advantage of job opportunities.

Sixty-nine per cent of the prisoners take part in the program provided by the education department of the institution. The curriculum and general educational program is specially adapted to the training and rehabilitative needs of these men and is co-ordinated with the entire prison program. Illiterates capable of education are required to take elementary courses. Those further advanced are given opportunity to pursue studies which will aid them in their job training and general rehabilitation.

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