Prisons: Hell in Arkansas

To most people outside penitentiary walls, the term prison reform is a meaningless abstraction. Only when the particular problems of a particular prison break into the open is there public pressure for correction. Such was the case in Arkansas last week. For years, Arkansas legislators have been referring to their two large convict farms as a "model system." The farms turned in a handsome profit that averaged about $1,400,000 over the years from the sale of farm products, and few prisoners ever seemed to escape. But the realities of prison life in...