C. Equipment: Purchase cost of major depreciable equipment.

(b) Special repairs and improvements.-Major repairs and improvements of a nonrecurring nature, including additions, extensions, alterations, and improvements of existing facilities which are not provided for as a regular maintenance expense.

3. Support of United States prisoners in Alaska.-Maintenance and operation of Federal jails in Alaska, including salaries of jail personnel, and support of Federal prisoners in non-Federal jails in Alaska.

4. Medical services (allocation to Public Health Service).-Detail of commissioned officers and civil-service employees, including expenses incident to change of stations.

5. General administration.-Expenses of the central office in connection with the overall direction, coordination, and management of the system.

BUREAU OF PRISONS

POPULATION

Following is a table showing the increases, actual and estimated, for the fiscal years 1949-56.

Statement of average daily population (workload), penal and correctional institutions, actual 1949 through 1954

CHANGING CHARACTER OF FEDERAL PRISON POPULATION

SELECTED OFFENSE GROUPS CONFINED IN FEDERAL PRISONS JUNE 30, 1941, 1945, 1953, 1954,
AND ESTIMATED FIGURES FOR JUNE 30, 1955 AND 1956

19,733

SELECTIVE SERVICE

GENERAL STATEMENT

Senator KILGORE. Go ahead, gentlemen, and tell us all your troubles. Mr. BENNETT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I feel very fortunate in coming here this afternoon and talking to you because you have taken the time and effort to familiarize yourself personally with some of our problems by going to visit Atlanta, Leavenworth, and several of our other institutions.

Senator KILGORE. May I say, before I finish my tour of duty I expect to visit all of them.

Mr. BENNETT. We certainly appreciate that.

Senator KILGORE. We cannot do anything better than to go right down to the ground and see what they are up against.

Mr. BENNETT. You and Mr. Merrick have been very helpful to me as well as informing yourselves about our needs and our problems. I do not think it is necessary, Mr. Chairman, to go over the whole program in detail, but I would like, with your permission, to file a general statement for the use of the committee and then, if you will permit, go into some of these in detail.

PREPARED STATEMENT

Senator KILGORE. All right.

(The statement referred to follows:)

The Federal Prisons System is composed of 27 institutions of different types located in widely separated points in the United States, the Federal jails in Alaska and the small central office here in Washington. In addition, we must care for the people awaiting trial and those serving very short sentences in a number of city and county jails. We have some 4,600 employees primarily engaged in taking care of the men and women law violators and keeping them in a secure place and under control for the duration of their confinement.

POPULATION

The present population is very high with a total of more than 20,300 and this does not include the 1,000 narcotic addicts in the Public Health Service hospitals at Fort Worth and Lexington. The proportion of serious offenders, murders, bank robbers, automobile thieves, counterfeiters, and racketeers has continued to increase. As a result, most of our institutions are overcrowded and the larger penitentiaries, such as Atlanta and Leavenworth, are especially so because it is there that we must keep the more hardened criminals. Because of the high population it was necessary to reactivate the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island, Calif., and we plan to keep about 600 men and 75 women there. This institution will take care of a large number of violators from the west coast area and should alleviate the overcroweded condition of our Reformatory for Women at Alderson, W. Va. We expect the prison population in fiscal year 1956 to average 21,400 and we feel sure that the upward trend will continue to increase in the following years. For this reason we must plan to expand and estimates for the construction of the two new institutions have been submitted to the Bureau of the Budget.

INMATE MORALE

Despite the fact that the institutions are overcrowded and personnel shortages exist we have maintained good inmate morale. There have not been many escapes and none in recent months from the maximum custody institutions. There have been no riots and the troublesome prisoners, such as the Communists and other notorious persons, have been handled without too much extra attention. The murder of William Remington in the Lewisburg Penitentiary last fall was the only one in the system during the year, and the average has been less than 1 per year in the past 10 years. We have a minimum amount of trouble, I