Atlanta Daily World

City Prison Farm Totals Top 1959

More Atlantans made a temporary home in the City Prison Farm system in 1960 than in 1959, according to an annual report released here earlier this week.

The increase in prison population was attributed to the lengthier sentences being dished out in the city courts to the drunks and other disturbers of the peace.

Formerly, the judges' usual sentences for drunks was approximately 13 days in the prison farm, but the jurists started a get-tough movement with frequent imbibers last year that landed many defendants behind bars for 60 days.

The lengthier sentences, added to the number who came every day on lighter sentences, led to an overcrowding of the prison farm facilities that sometimes caused inmates to sleep on the floor of the prison building, and others to sleep in beds placed in the gymnasium.

The annual report was written by Warden H. H. Gibson to Ald. R. E. Lee Fields, chairman of the aldermanic board prison committee.

Fields read the report to the full aldermanic panel Tuesday afternoon.

In cold hard figures, Gibson reported that his facility had received 20,910 prisoners in 1960, as compared to the 18,596 that reported there for incarceration in 1959, a jump of some 2,364 persons.

The report said 1,039,425 meals were served in 1960, as compared with the 896,744 meals served in 1959. The total costs of feeding the prisoners amounted to $200,391 in 1960, as compared to the $173,280 spent in that direction in 1959.

In 1960, from January to December, 8,998 Negro males and 2,103 Negro females were imprisoned in the city system. That compared with 8,584 white males and 1,224 white females held there during the same period.

Ald. Fields said the report of 1960 operations at the City Prison Farm showed that the facility was growing to the exploding point and that an increase in available capacity at the prison will be needed soon.

Fields said a study is presently underway to determine just how much increase in capacity is needed at the prison farm to take care of the growing population at the city institution.