Одноэтажная Америка / Little Golden America

We had never been in prison as inmates, yet even here, in the midst of the shining cleanliness of a bank, the clang of a closing cage made us shudder.

The assistant warden of Sing Sing was a spare, strongly built man. We turned at once to the inspection.

This was visitors’ day. Three visitors could call on every prisoner-provided he had no infraction of discipline charged against him. Polished barriers divide the large room into squares. In each square, facing each other, are two short benches – the kind you find in a street-car, let us say.

On these benches sit the prisoner and his guests. The visit

lasts an hour. At the exit door stands a warden. The prisoners are supposed to wear the grey prison uniform. They don’t have to wear all of it, but some part of it must be government issue, either the trousers or the grey sweater.

The hubbub of conversation in the room was reminiscent of a similar hubbub in the foyer of a motion-picture theatre. Children who had come to visit their fathers ran to taps to drink water.

The old man we had previously seen did not take his eyes off his beloved son. A woman was weeping softly, and her husband, the prisoner, was looking sadly at his own hands.

The conditions of the visits were such that most certainly visitors could transmit forbidden objects to the prisoners. But that would be useless. Every prisoner, when returning to his cell, is searched immediately the door of the visiting hall is closed.

Because of the election, this was a prison holiday. Passing through the yards we saw small groups of prisoners who were taking a sun-bath in the autumn sun or playing a game of ball which was unfamiliar to us (our guide said that it was an Italian game, that there are many Italians in Sing Sing). However, here were few people. Most of the prisoners were at the time in the prison motion-picture theatre.

“At present there are 2,299 people in prison,” said Mr. Lawes’s assistant.

“Of these, eighty-five have life sentences and sixteen are to be electrocuted. And all these sixteen will undoubtedly be electrocuted, although they hope for a pardon.”

The new buildings of Sing Sing are very interesting. Undoubtedly, the high general standard of American technique in building dwellings had affected its construction, especially the level of American life – what in America is called “the standard of living”.