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prison in Ishikawa. In all these new prisons a mixed system of separation and association is to be employed. The separate confinement cells will be one-third of the total number of cells in the prisons, the remaining two-thirds being still founded on the principle of the associate cell system. The windows will be specially large, to allow of plenty of air and light in all the cells.
Practically all the old prisons are constructed of wood, and are arranged on the associate cell system. The separate cell system is especially adapted for foreign criminals, and these are provided with clothes, beds, and other articles to which they are accustomed, while special attention is paid to their habits, so that they may not suffer from the different prison customs of Japan.
In 1889 a school was established for the training of prison officials. Unfortunately, however, unavoidable circumstances necessitated the temporary abandonment of the project, and the school was closed shortly after the first body of students had completed the fixed course of study. The great difficulty experienced by the Government in finding competent officers to carry out satisfactorily the improvements contemplated again prompted the establishment of a special training school for prison officials, and in 1900 a second attempt was made at Tokyo, which school is now rendering valuable assistance in the interests of education.
The students are chosen by local prefects from prison clerks and chief warders in their respective prefectures, and their term of study is one year. The course includes a general outline of jurisprudence, constitutional law, the Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedures, penalogy, prison hygiene, criminology, statistics, the Civil Code, and military drill. The figures given show that the students vary in number each year, fluctuating between eighty and one hundred; those graduating in February, 1903, numbered seventy-one.
While the training of upper prison officials has been the main object of these schools, yet the Government has not neglected the education of those occupying subordinate positions in the prisons. Before entering upon the performance of their duties the latter must, for more than two months after their appointment, undergo practical training in the prisons. Examinations are held at convenient intervals during this term of probation, and the minor employés under training are not allowed to retain the posts to which they have been appointed unless they successfully pass the final examination at the end of the term. As a rule, the training officers are selected from those prison clerks and chief warders who have previously passed through the entire course of special training.