The new penitentiary at Lewisburg is expected to be ready soon, Director of Prisons Sanford Bates said yesterday.

“Attorney General Mitchell will announce a formal opening date just as soon as contractors inform us the penitentiary is ready for occupancy, possibly within several weeks,” Bates said.

“Many worthwhile savings have been made in construction of the penitentiary which will be given an impressive opening,” Bates said.

The new prison will accommodate about 1,200 prisoners now serving sentences at Atlanta, who will be moved to the prison when it is opened. Most of these men will be given the opportunity to work on prison farms or in prison industries. Metal furniture will be a featured product it is understood.

The new prison will feature the newest European prison architecture. It departs from the old conceptions of how a prison should be constructed. It will have little in common with the early Pennsylvania type of prison which consisted of a series of cells with an adjoining courtyard into which prisoners were isolated for years without ever seeing or communicating with fellow prisoners, prison bureau officials said.

“The prison,” according to a Justice Department statement, “is planned to facilitate the proper segregation and classification of the federal prisoners according to their character, the nature of the crime they have committed, and their mental condition will be provided.

The most modern facility for diagnosing the prisoners’ mental and physical ailments will be provided.

The cost of the penitentiary will be saved in a few years by the reduction of the cost of transportation of prisoners for long distances. At present most prisoners convicted in the north are sent to either Atlanta or Leavenworth. A distance of 900 to 1,200 miles.