The Sullivan County Jail
A copy of a lengthy letter to Dr. E. E. Dudding of the Prison Relief Society at Washington, D. C. , signed “Prisoners of Blountville, Sullivan County Jail,” has been sent to the Herald Courier. The letter requests that “some Christian person, man or woman,” be sent to the jail to investigate sanitary conditions and to inquire into the treatment of prisoners confined there. It also suggests a number of questions to be asked the prisoners, among them the following:
Are there any vermin in your beds and in your clothes? Are your blankets ever washed? Is your clothes ever washed? Do the rats build nest in the mattresses you sleep on? What do you have to eat for breakfast? for dinner? for supper? How much do you have? Do you get enough? Do you have the same diet all the time? Do you get water more than twice a day from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.? Are there any venereal diseases in a bad state among the prisoners? Do these prisoners drink water from the same bucket with other prisoners? Eat from the same pans? Wash their faces and hands in the same pans? If you are sick do you get proper medical attention? If the attending physician gives you medicine and orders you to stay in from work, does the Jailer or the Sheriff make you go out and work? Do you ever have any trouble about your mail? Do you Write letters, some of them important, and trust them to Jailer to be mailed, that never reach their destination?
If conditions at the Sullivan County jail are such as these suggested questions are presumed to indicate, these conditions are disgraceful. No doubt there are prisoners at Blountville as elsewhere who would complain in any circumstance, but the question whether Sullivan County prisoners have just cause for complaint. Are conditions at jail sanitary or notoriously insanitary? Are the prisoners properly treated and properly fed? In short, is the institution conducted on a humane plan?
Evidently, the prisoners desire an opportunity to answer these questions. The opportunity should be given them, but it should not be necessary to bring the situation to the attention of the Prison Relief Society at Washington. There are organizations or authorities nearer who could and should investigate conditions at the jail.
