With the opening of the Ohio State Reformatory in 1896, the state legislature had put in place "the most complete prison system, in theory, which exists in the United States." The reformatory joined the Ohio Penitentiary and the Boys Industrial School, also central-Ohio institutions, to form the first instance of "graded prisons; with the reform farm on one side of the new prison, for juvenile offenders, and the penitentiary on the other, for all the more hardened and incorrigible class." However, even as the concept was being replicated throughout the country, the staffs of the institutions were faced with the day-to-day struggle of actually making the system work.

Excerpt from Historical Reminiscences of the Ohio Penitentiary: From Its Erection in 1835 to the Present Time Who can listen to a story of crime and not become interested? Who has ever visited the Ohio Penitentiary that can not, while relating the sights and the movements of the great body of prisoners marching through the prison grounds or working in the shops, fill the listener with awe and interest? Who has never had a desire to visit the great penal institution of the state of Ohio? Only a few ever obtain that privilege, owing to one prevention or another, and it is those who have not the opportunity that are most interested, and to give such persons an idea of its workings, I tender this brief but carefully and accurately compiled work, feeling that those who may read its pages will be fully satisfied with my effort. The task of writing this work was no light one, as the records of the prison, until within a few years past, are very incomplete, and in order to have all dates and happenings correct it required extra time and labor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.