One of the issues that rose repeatedly during the first half of the decade concerned the use of convicts as contract laborers. At a time when conditions in penitentiaries throughout the country were being severely criticized, prison administrators found themselves under fire for a time-honored practice that had originally been welcomed as a means of putting idle inmates to work.

In 1912 the Bureau of Labor completed a study of some 296 state prison facilities, noting that of the eighty-six thousand men and women then under confinement in these institutions, fifty-one thousand were employed by private contractors and industry. Almost all of those who were in a position to earn wages were paid below the prevailing rate; none were entitled to set the terms or conditions of their employment; and all were at risk of suffering severe punishment should their performance prove unsatisfactory. Many...