Deer Island Prison

Deer Island Prison
Location Deer Island
Coordinates Coordinates: 42°21′12″N 70°57′43″W / 42.35333°N 70.96194°W / 42.35333; -70.96194
Status Closed
Closed 26 December 1991
Managed by Suffolk County Sheriff's Department

The Deer Island Prison (c. 1880–1991) in Suffolk County, Massachusetts was located on Deer Island in Boston Harbor. Also known as the Deer Island House of Industry and later, House of Correction, it held people convicted of drunkenness, illegal possession of drugs, disorderly conduct, larceny, and other crimes subject to relatively short-term sentencing.[1] When it closed in 1991, some 1,500 inmates were being held at Deer Island.[2]

History

House of Industry

Originally, Deer Island's House of Industry (est. 1853) was an almshouse. It was one of several efforts on the island to accommodate poor children and adults. However, by around 1880 "without any change in the legal appellation 'House of Industry,' that term has come to be understood as designating its penal character."[3]

An article in the national Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine (1884) described the prisoners on Deer Island in the 1880s: "they in the main are from the lowest stratum of the cosmopolitan society of New England's metropolis, embracing representatives of almost every nationality under the sun, and from the shortness of the sentences, many being confined for 10 days only, for nonpayment of one dollar and costs for drunkenness, and none for more than a year."[4]

House of Correction

Prior to 1896, the Suffolk County "House of Correction was located in South Boston. ... By Chapter 536 sec. 15 of the Acts of 1896 ... all the prisoners sentenced there were transferred to the former House of Industry on Deer Island. ... The last inmates were transferred from the South Boston facility by October 1902."[5]

In the 20th century, the prison was administered by the Penal Institutions Department (c. 1941) and the Penal Commissioner of Boston (c. 1990).[2] In 1991 about 880 inmates were transferred permanently to the Suffolk County House of Correction in South Boston.[6] The Deer Island prison buildings were razed in 1992 to prepare for the construction of the Deer Island Waste Water Treatment Plant, an outcome of the Clean Water Act.[7]

Noteworthy inmates

References in literature

In Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar, the protagonist, Esther Greenwood, visits Deer Island Prison.

Alternative names

Images

References

  1. ↑ "In love, blue blood's daughter follows handless addict to jail". Jet Magazine. 1959.
  2. 1 2 R. Tenaglia Jr. (1992). Court Commitments to Massachusetts County Facilities During 1990. Mass. Dept. of Correction.
  3. ↑ Justin Winsor (1881), The memorial history of Boston, Boston: Osgood
  4. ↑ "The Boston Institutions at Deer Island". Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine. 15 (3). 1884. Retrieved 21 January 2010.
  5. 1 2 "Guide to the House of Correction records". City of Boston Archives and Records Management Division, Patrick T. Collins. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
  6. ↑ "Facilities". Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department. Retrieved 2012-05-08.
  7. ↑ Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.), December 29, 1991; p.A10.
  8. ↑ Tim Weiner (2012), Enemies: A History of the FBI, NEw York: Random House, ISBN 9781400067480, 9781400067480
  9. ↑ Douglass Shand-Tucci. The crimson letter: Harvard, homosexuality, and the shaping of American culture. Macmillan, 2003; p.241.
  10. ↑ Clarke, Roger (2000-08-03). "Mark Wahlberg: The bad boy who rode the storm - Profiles - People". The Independent. Retrieved 2012-04-19.
  11. ↑ http://www.unionparkpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/DrinkingBoston_Sample.pdf
  12. ↑ Michael Jacobson-Hardy. Behind the Razor Wire in Massachusetts Jails and Prisons. Massachusetts Review, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Spring, 1996).
  13. ↑ "738 F2d 530 United States v. P Rendini". OpenJurist. Retrieved 2012-04-19.
  14. ↑ "935 F2d 345 Associated Builders and Contractors of Massachusetts/rhode Island Inc v. Massachusetts Water Resources Authority". OpenJurist. Retrieved 2012-04-19.

Further reading

Published in the 1900s-1930s
Published in the 1960s-1980s
Published in the 1990s
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