Mary Belle Harris Biography

Introduction

Mary Belle Harris was born on August 19, 1874, in Factoryville, Pennsylvania and was the only daughter of John Howard and Mary Elizabeth. She began her college work in 1890 and graduated with a music degree in 1893, and earned a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indo-European Comparative Philology from the University of Chicago, 1900. Her infamous career did not start until she was nearly 40 years. She was engaged in teaching music at Bucknell University and taught Latin in Baltimore and Chicago between 1900 and 1910. Later in 1912, she traveled to Europe, where she taught at the American Classical School in Rome, Italy. While at Chicago, Harris became a friend to Katharine Bermet Davis, who changed the direction of Harris' life form classical studies to prison service.

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She eventually returned to the United States in 1914. Mary Belle Harris was a prison reformer and penologist in the early 20th century and was one among the female administrators in the United States prison system. She began her career in prison administration that would make her famous when she was offered the position of superintendent of women and deputy warden of the then Workhouse on Blackwell's Island, despite her inexperience in corrections administration. This corrections facility was a depressingly grim place marred by congestion with over 700 confined women served sentences ranging from three days to six months for drug offenses, alcoholism, and prostitution and were crowded in small cells with little to do. She remained in Workhouse for over three years till she resigned following the defeat of mayor John Mitchel. Harris went ahead and continued her impressive work as the superintendent at the State Reformatory for Women in Clinton, New Jersey, where she instituted a system of self-government in exit clubs, dairy run by inmates and their student officer, and cottages for women preparing for parole. This provided inmates with some responsibility and freedom for institutional management, a strategy which became a trademark in her service in the correction facility.

Harris love for reformation among confined women saw her join the War Department Commission On Training Camp Activities. She was tasked with dealing with women detained in camp areas where she set up health facilities and detention homes in cities in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and Florida. She later joined the State Home for Girls in Trenton as the superintendent. This juvenile institution was known for its dangerous inmates, but Harris saw this as an opportunity to reform the young detainees by successfully establishing a self-government (Commire and Klezmer 13). She was praised by the local press for her revolutionary changes which gave terrific results, and this became an image that she retained throughout her career in corrections and her entire life.

After several years of dedicated service to correction of inmates, she retired in 1941in Pennsylvania where she worked on the state Board of Parole until it was scrapped in 1943. She settled in Pennsylvania where she lectured, wrote about her devotion to female incarceration, and served as a Bucknell University trustee. Harris embarked on a tour to North Africa and Europe in 1953. After visiting Cyprus and inspecting prisons in Libya, she came back to the United States in 1954 and died of a heart attack on February 22, 1957.

Mary Belle Harris shared with penal reformers the belief that prison should have a classification system objectively geared to meet the talents and needs of its subjects (Bosworth 30). She held the view that inmates should go through a system where it allows a re-education process to take place at the pace of the inmate as well as being trained and educated on employable skills. In her career, she also allowed inmates to exercise and participate in outdoor activities which led to the development of mental and physical discipline. If Harris were alive today, she could have contributed to discipline in corrections facilities because imparting skills in inmates is essential.

Harris leadership is needed in the prison system to work with other women to bring significant changes. When she was appointed the superintendent of the Women's Workhouse, she managed to salvage it as the worst institution of correction. Harris worked at Clinton, New Jersey in different capacities and then moved to Alderson, Virginia as the superintendent of the new women's federal prison until her retirement in 1941 (Bosworth 67). Under her leadership, the facility was considered a model institution with low, serious disciplinary actions and no escapes (Sicherman and Green 316). Many people admired and applauded Alderson for its modern and innovative features such as the absence of massive surrounding walls, individualized classification system, the promotion of educational and vocational training, and extensive farming. Her achievements were significant, and if she were alive, she would bring changes to the corrections community.

Mary Belle Harris would have advocated for the freedom in the correctional facilities. During her tenure as the first superintendent for the federal industrial institution for women, she worked with architects in ensuring that prison was a place for education inmates. She would have contributed to the promotion of prison as a model institution with innovative features that would promote education and vocational training in the American prison system. This is because she spoke openly about the need for reforms in penal institutions for women such as leaning unemployable skills that women could use after their release so to enhance self-dependency. She could be a powerful and tough administrator in the prison system of the United States because of her positive contributions to penal reforms.

Furthermore, she could be a source of inspiration to different women in the prison system in the United States because she was firmly fixed on women working together under the guidance of other women. She spoke openly about the need for women to build a wall of respect within themselves and learn critical skills in life. This is because she believed that women become criminals because of psychological or economic dependence on men, and therefore should be trained and educated by other women (Rogers 5). She was uncompromising about the importance of running Alderson with principally female staff and used her power and political weapons to achieve this.

Mary Belle Harris could have contributed to the decongestion of the prison system because she believed that women who overcrowded led to grim conditions. Through her efforts, she created libraries, permitted women to play card, allowed daily exercise, and knit in cells to alleviate boredom. Through her efforts, she fenced off the prison yard, renovated the dining room and lounge for staff. Harris also humanized staff contacts with inmates (Mays, Winfree and Winfree 285). Besides these direct benefits for confined women, her policies released matrons from the enforcement of petty rules which contributed to tension and boredom. She would earn a reputation for this because prisoners are subjected to limited freedom.

Mary Belle Harris advocated against maximum security institution for women and believed that such would let down correction if such a facility was proposed. This would be instrumental in the current correction community where women are confined in maximum prisons. She believed in the reformation of women prisoners irrespective of the crime committed. She could be in the forefront in advocating for reclamation of women in prisons and the corrections communities because she believed that desperate and incorrigible women deserve to be corrected without being confined in steel cells overseen by armed guards. Imprisoned women could be allowed to mingle with the people in the society because she held the view that steel doors and armed guards should not stand in between the women and the society.

Lastly, Harris would be influential in the current correction facilities in empowering women in prison to start an organized political power within the facilities where they are incarcerated. This is because she believed that correctional facilities should be well-conducted institutions where women should be independent and be able to govern themselves as well as knowing their rights and responsibilities as citizens. She would argue for inmate self-government as she was aware of the teaching of human being in captivity to live a life of free men hence having own government in correctional facilities is essential (Zaitzow & Jim 42).

Conclusion

In conclusion, Mary Belle Harris was a notable woman in the correction system of the United States. She brought a lot of changes to the correction of confined girls and women. She believed in the power of correcting a woman through education and training that would boost her to the level of independence from men and the community. Harris made numerous achievements in her career, and if she were alive today, she would be instrumental in bringing changes to the corrections community.

Works Cited

Bosworth, Mary. Explaining US Imprisonment. Sage, 2010. Print.

Bosworth, Mary, ed. Encyclopedia of Prisons and Correctional Facilities. Vol. 1. Sage, 2004. Print.Commire, Anne, and Deborah Klezmer, eds. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 17. Gale/Cengage Learning, 2002. Print.

"Harris, Mary Belle (1874-1957)." Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia.com. 31 Mar. 2018, https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/harris-mary-belle-1874-1957.

Mays, G. Larry, L. Thomas Winfree Jr, and Latham Thomas Winfree. Essentials of Corrections. Cengage Learning, 2004. Print.

Rogers, Joseph W. "Mary Belle Harris: Warden and Rehabilitation Pioneer." Women & Criminal Justice 11.4 (2000): 5-27.

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period: A Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press, 1980. Print.

Zaitzow, Barbara H., and Jim Thomas, eds. Women in Prison: Gender and Social Control. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003. Print.