See Handbook of Texas entry for overview.

The “New Law” of 1910

A 1910 law reorganized the prison sytem, effective January 20, 1911. The law was a response to public outcry raised by exposés on the prison farms published by George Waverley Briggs and Tom Finty, which in turn led the Senate to create an investigating committee that released its report, after a long investigation, in 1910.¹

Part of the public outcry revolved around the lack of separation of prisoners by incorrigibility, age, sex—and race. As Finty put it, “Under this system there is no penological classification of prisoners; in some camps there is no separation of races; all ages are thrown together” (p. 390).

Among the new law’s provisions:

• An end to the convict lease system, providing that all leases would end no later than January 1, 1914, so that all convicts would labor in the walls or on state farms exclusively
• Creation of three-member Board of Prison Commissioners (aka Prison Commission)
• Construction of more sanitary buildings on all prison properties
• Abolition of striped uniforms except in cases of discipline
• Classification of prisoners according to progress towards moral reform
• Regulation of whippings and requirement that they be approved by Commission
• “White and negro prisoners shall not be worked together when it can be avoided, and shall be kept separate when not at work” (included in the section on whipping)
• A per diem payment of 10 cents to each convict
• Ten-hour working days
• Provisions regarding death and burial; bodies will be returned to relatives at state expense if relatives can be found, otherwise “such prisoner shall be decently buried in citizen’s clothes, and the grave marked by a stone with the name of said prisoner, date of death and age, if known, inscribed thereon,” after an inquest

The law also called for an annual report from prison officials, the first of which was released at the end of 1911 and found that the number of black convicts was double the number of white convicts in the system as of January 1, 1912. The report from the farm commissioner, Brahan, also indicated steps being taken to implement racial segregation at Imperial Prison Farm:

When we assumed control of the prison system we found the whites, Mexicans and negroes all mixed throughout the system. Noting this, and taking immediate steps to comply with the new prison law in the matter of segregation, we issued orders to concentrate the Mexican prison population at the Imperial State plantation at Sartartia and at Huntsville prison. … At No. 1 camp we have a double building, the negroes being on the one side and the whites and Mexicans on the other, and a separate dining room was put in for the negroes and the whites and Mexicans. At the No. 3 camp, the Mexicans are alone, and are much better satisfied than when they were with the whites and negroes. (102)

See also p. 104. The physician’s report for the Imperial State Farm and the Imperial Sugar Company Camp are also in this report.

Investigating Committee of 1913

The end to the leasing system subsequently raised concerns about the system’s financial health, prompting another investigating committee created by the House of Representatives, which released its report in 1913. The committee drew particular attention to operation losses from the prison farms during 1911 and 1912, contributing to the overall indebtedness of the prison system. The committee traced the increase expenses and losses “directly and indirectly to the mandatory provisions of the new law,” especially the per diem payment to convicts but also a decrease in efficiency due to humanitarian provisions like the ten-hour day (13).

In its report, the committee also concluded with some reflections on “general policy,” which exposed the racial assumptions on which the system was built. After noting that “indoor work affords better opportunities for the exercise of reformatory influences” than farm work, the committee recommended that the system work towards “the employment eventually of the greater part of the white convicts in manufacturing enterprises” (p. 22. The same did not apply, however, to non-white convicts:

At this time there are approximately four thousand convicts, between 65 and 70 per cent of whom are negroes and Mexicans. The limited capacity of these races to acquire technical knowledge, and the extreme improbability that they would, or could to any appreciable extent, make use of such knowledge after release as well as their general adaptibility to farm work, indicate the advisability of the adoption of a policy that will provide for employing the negro and Mexican convicts on farms and in work connected with farm operations (p. 22-23).

The committee returned to the theme later when reflecting on the 25,000 acres owned by the state in Fort Bend and Brazoria counties, some of the most fertile farm land in the state:

In view of the fact … that this portion of the State is universally conceded as most favorable to the best results in the employment of colored labor, we recommend that it be the policy of the prison system to work its negro and Mexican convicts on farms owned by the system, concentrating such farms to the extent found possible. … Whether or not the suggestions of the committee regarding the complete separation of the races be approved, the committee would suggest the advisability of having one camp on one of the farms conveniently located to railroad facilities equipped to receive the negro and Mexican convicts, from which point they may be distributed to the different camps on the farms (p. 24.

These views were echoed by the [interrogation of Cabell]: “larger per cent. of our prisoners are negroes and Mexicans. These ought all to go to the farm; I believe that is the proper place for them.”

The committee further complained that the cessation of all whipping by strap had led to the increase of less effective punishments—the “dark cell” and the chain—and points out that farm managers unite in complaining of the new law’s restrictions on whipping and work hours.

A minority report also recommended the repeal of the new law’s regulations on “shipment of corpses of deceased prisoners” and ratified that “whites, Mexicans and negroes be separated.” (The chairman of the Prison Commission also recommended the repeal of the new law’s provision for shipment of bodies.)

A committee of residents of Richmond told investigators that they worried about the fact that “the convicts who are brought here and kept here are largely negroes, and heretofore they have been turned loose here, and increased very largely our criminal class.”

Further discussion of the presence of white, black, and “Mexican” convicts at the Imperial Prison Farm is included in the interrogation of Addison.