Show convicts learn to make living aitho ut pistols in prison inmates study trades learn skills in n occupations JOLIET ILL althis this la is the first ITS prison I 1 have ever seen where any body showed me how to mak money without a gun it was a 37 year old penitentiary inmate talking het hes spent 16 years behind prison walls walli in half a dozen states he cami cam here three and a half years ago ot 01 a five to 15 year sentence for armed arme robbery now he Is one of about 2500 con evicts out of a population of al ai Stat eville and the old jollet joliet here who ere are fitting themselves foi better lives hes learning to be 8 printer he plans to use his nes nem skill when he gets out A guy can make more money li it three months operating one of thesa machines than I 1 got in all my robberies he says and he have to spend 10 years behind walls walli for it afterward printing is one of 37 trades whick convicts can learn at the prison vocational cat ional school they are lear learnine to repair radios watches typewriters shoes auto bodies and ten fen ders the system says warden joseph ragen is based chiefly on the idea that many men reach the prison because they lack sufficient academic or vocational training gives prisoners A cliance chance for one reason or another the have not had a chance to develop their ability to make an honest living iving in g he says we try to tit fit men to compete on an honest basis when they are outside again A man can study everything given in the average high school course except physics and chemistry the warden says we dont don want a student to comeux comee up with a homemade bomb convicts who complete work get eighth grade and high school diplomas recognized by the state department part ment of public instruction warden ragen Is optimistic about the chances for his graduates to find lobs jobs when they leave he has a list of 35 large industrial plants to in the chicago area which are willing to hire all trained men the parole board can send them do they make good topnotch master mechanic we had one fellow who came in here with a fifth grade educe education t on the warden recalls he completed elementary school and then learned the machinists trade when he was paroled he went to work to in chicago today he is a master mechanic tor for one of the largest in industrial d us plants in the united states prison farm training has even turned some city men into farmers we got one fellow in here who know one end of a cow from the other ragen says he spent three years in the prison dairy the owner of a string of dairy farms called me up to ask if we had anybody capable of operating a farm I 1 recommended this fellow and when he was paroled he went to work tor for this owner today he is in charge of a large dairy farm he ha gets a month his house and other oher incidentals free land and 5 per cent of the forms farms profits some time later I 1 saw the farm owner and asked how this parolee was getting along he told me the fellow was the best farm manager he had |