Jail Deaths

General Information: Allegheny County Workhouse

The Allegheny County Workhouse and Inebriate Asylum were created by Act of Assembly on February 1st, 1866.  The law provided that when "any person or persons shall be convicted by the Court of any offense, the punishment whereof, by existing laws, is or may be imprisonment in the County Jail, the said Court may sentence such person or persons to either the Jail or Workhouse, at its discretion; and all committing magistrates in said County thereafter shall sentence to the Workhouse all persons convicted of vagrancy, drunkenness, or disorderly conduct, or of any other offense for which they may now be sentenced to be imprisoned in the County Jail."  Persons sentenced to not more than two years in jail by a State Court could also be sent to the Workhouse instead.

 A perhaps surprising number of deaths are persons who were sentenced to the county work house.  The cause of death is often listed as typhoid fever, tuberculosis or "alcoholism."  These individuals were usually not sentenced for more than two years, often serving as little as 60 days. They had also usually been found guilty of offenses such as "vagrancy" or "drunkenness."  While it might not be unexpected that alcoholics serving time for public intoxication might die due to alcoholism-related disease, the number of typhoid fever and tuberculosis deaths indicates that the building suffered from poor sanitation and probably overcrowding.

1920-1925

Accidental deaths in prison also occurred, and sometimes in tragic ways.  One report from 1924 documents the death of an inmate at the Western Penitentiary who was killed while playing baseball in the prison yard.  He was struck in the head by the ball and died.  One does not usually think of deaths like this happening at prisons; violence and disease are more typical causes.  This man was simply taking part in one of the few pleasures he could while serving his sentence, and found himself on the wrong end of a throw.  Although this man was certainly in jail for a reason, it is hard not to feel sympathy for the unfortunate way in which he met his death.

JN 2007

Yesterday I had a case file involving the murder of a convict in the Western Penitentiary. The prisoner was shot by a guard while in prison. While the file did not go into the details about what had actually occurred, it was ruled a self-defense shooting. I guess this is more of a stereotypical prison death than the baseball one.

I also had another case file in which man who was arrested for acting crazy. Not long after he was arrested he died of lobar pneumonia and emphysema. That makes me wonder if he was acting crazy if he was crazy or because he was dying. Either way, it is a sad case.

SH 27 Sept 2007

1938

A 45-year-old man was sentenced to Allegheny County Workhouse for about two weeks. While he was there he committed suicide by lashing a shoelace to a spoon and strangling himself to death. His brother said that he saw no other reason for his brother’s death except that he was sentenced to the workhouse.  No note was left with the body.

AS 24 Oct 2007