The Pennsylvania Prisoners' Employment Law by GEO. W. SPIES.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 26, 1907

The Pennsylvania Prisoners' Employment Law

By GEO. W. SPIES.

THE Pennsylvania State Sunday law provides for a term of imprisonment in case of non-payment of the fine imposed for its violation, while the “prisoners’ employment law,” which became a law since the last session of the Pennsylvania Legislature, provides that every able-bodied male prisoner in Pennsylvania jails may be compelled to work on the public highway, during the term of his imprisonment, for eight hours each day except Sundays and legal holidays.

The county jail commissioners are interesting themselves in the enforcement of this latter law, which makes it possible to repeat in Pennsylvania the chain-gang experiences of our brethren in some of the Southern States; and the near future will doubtless witness an effort to compel our brethren who may be arrested in Pennsylvania for violating the Sunday law, to labor on the Sabbath, as provided for by this law.

GEO. W. SPIES.