Crime and Its Causes Part 5

Work in solitude means that the prisoner is shut up in an apartment by himself which is called his cell. Each cell is provided with an adequate supply of air and light, and is heated in the winter up to a sufficiently high temperature for health and comfort. The cell contains a bed and other personal requisites; it also contains a copy of the prison rules. Before the prisoner is finally allocated to a certain cell he is seen by all the superior officers of the prison. His state of health is inquired into, so as to determine the nature of his work, and if he is not too old to learn, and has received a sentence of sufficient length to make it worth while instructing him, his educational capabilities are specially tested. The seclusion of the cell is varied by a short service in the prison chapel every morning and an hour's exercise in the forenoon. It is further varied in the case of young boys by daily attendance at the prison school.

The cellular system is an application of the old monastic system to the treatment of criminals. The first cellular prison was built in Rome by Pope Clement XI. at the commencement of the eighteenth century; its design was taken from a monastery. The idea pa.s.sed from Rome to the Puritans of Pennsylvania; and it has now taken root in all parts of the civilised world. The believers in the cellular system say that it prevents prisoners from contaminating each other; it prevents the hardened criminal from getting hold of the comparative novice; according to this system, although the offender is in a prison, the only persons he is permitted to speak to are those whose lives are free from crime. A prison system which has the negative value of hindering men from becoming worse is worthy of high consideration, and if the chief object of imprisonment is the punishment of criminals the cellular system will not be easily surpa.s.sed. On the other hand, if the purpose of imprisonment is not only to punish but also to prepare the offender for the duties of society, the system of solitary confinement will not effectually accomplish this task. On this point let me refer to the words of M. Prins, the eminent Director General of Belgian prisons: "Can we teach a man sociability," he says, "by giving him a cell only, that is to say, the opposite of social life, by taking away from him the very appearance of moral discipline; by regulating from morning till night the smallest details of his day, all his movements and all his thoughts? Is not this to place him outside the conditions of existence, and to unteach him that liberty for which we pretend he is being prepared?... a.s.suredly, let us not forget that prisons contain incorrigible and corrupt recidivists, the residuum of large towns who must undoubtedly be isolated from other men; but they also contain offenders resembling in great part men of their own cla.s.s living outside.... If it was a question of making these men good scholars, good workmen, good soldiers, should we accept the method of prolonged cellular isolation? And how can that which is condemned by the experience of ordinary life become useful on the day some tribunal p.r.o.nounces a sentence of imprisonment? The physiological and moral inconveniences of prolonged solitude are evident in other ways; and attempts are made to combat them by great humanity in external things. So much is this the case, that for fear of being cruel to the good, the bad are also pampered by an exaggerated philanthropy which reaches absurd heights."

A compromise between the absolute seclusion of the cellular system, and the system of free a.s.sociation, is now being advocated by some students of prison discipline. Prisoners, it is contended, should be carefully cla.s.sified according to their previous character and the nature of their offence, and also according to the disposition they manifest in prison. Prisoners sentenced to a term of imprisonment ranging from three months to two years should during the first three months remain in solitary confinement for purposes of observation as to diligence and character. At the end of that period a man, if he showed fitness for it, would be placed in a.s.sociation during his working hours, and in his cell during the remainder of the day. In this way his social instincts would not be so completely stifled as they are at present; he would not be so entirely left to the vacuity of his own mind; he would not be so readily led to the indulgence of disgusting vices ruinous to body and mind. In countries where prisons are on a large scale such a system as this might easily be adopted, and it would, if properly managed, be productive of beneficial results. In small prisons it would be applicable on a limited scale, the smallness of the prison population preventing proper cla.s.sification.

But all prison systems, however excellent in theory, are comparatively useless unless conducted in an enlightened spirit by competent and sagacious officials. The best of systems if worked, as sometimes happens, by a mere martinet, with no horizon beyond insisting on the letter of official regulations, will be productive of no good whatever, and, on the other hand, an indifferent system will achieve excellent results with a competent person at the head of it. This was admirably pointed out by the head of the Danish Prison Department at the Stockholm Prison Congress. "Give me," he said, "the best possible regulations and a bad director, and you will have no success. But give me a good director, and, even with mediocre regulations, I will answer for it that everything will go on marvellously." In a recent handbook on prison management by Herr Krohne, an eminent prison director in the German service, the qualifications requisite for successful prison work are clearly laid down.

The successful management of a prison, he says, "demands special knowledge and ability. This knowledge should first of all consist in a comprehensive general education, so that the head of a prison may be able to form a competent opinion in all those branches of knowledge which bear upon the punishment of crime. He thus stands on a footing of equality with his subordinates. If he is deficient in this knowledge he will not be able to carry out the sentences of the law efficiently, and the maintenance of his official authority will be enc.u.mbered with difficulties. He must also possess an understanding of the economic and social causes of crime as well as of its individual causes. An understanding of its economic and social causes supposes that he should be acquainted with the principles of sociology and political economy; an understanding of its individual causes supposes that he should know something of psychology. The historical, philosophic, and legal aspects of criminal jurisprudence as well as its formal contents ought not to be unknown ground. In the domain of prison science he should be thoroughly at home. He ought to be acquainted with the historical development of punishment by imprisonment, as well as with the nature of the various prison systems in existence among modern civilised communities. He ought to have a clear understanding of the aim and object of imprisonment, and be thoroughly cognisant of the legal and administrative arrangements by which it is effected, more especially those of his own State. He should possess a competent knowledge of all matters and regulations bearing upon prison administration, so that his own arrangements may be based upon a ripened judgment.

"This knowledge in the head of a prison should show itself in his manner of dealing with prisoners. This task demands a high degree of pedagogic skill, and a force of character which is able, easily and quickly, to bend the will of others to his own. He should also possess the power of setting every branch of the administration to rights whenever anything happens to have gone wrong. He must have a quick eye for all that is being done; he must see everything; he must hear everything; nothing should escape him; and still he ought to leave independence and initiative to every officer in his own department. He should respect and bear with the individual characteristics of every officer, especially the superior officers, so that they may be able to perform their duties with pleasure. In this way all officers will be able to do their work in his spirit rather than according to his orders. In order to succeed in this, the head of a prison should consult with the other officials on all important matters; a daily conference is best for this purpose. He should hear and weigh their opinions even when the ultimate decision rests entirely in his hands. Above all he must understand how to keep peace among the officials, so that through their harmonious co-operation the objects of a prison may be more certainly attained.

"A good prison chief," Herr Krohne continues, "is not matured or educated, but discovered. On this account, the selection of persons ought not to be narrowed down to any definite cla.s.s or profession. Experience has shown that able prison governors have been drawn from all callings; from the law, from public offices, from the army, from medicine, from the Church, from trade, from agriculture, from merchants and manufacturers. From each of these occupations a man may bring knowledge and ability which makes him suitable for the position. His preparatory studies will teach him much, but he will learn most from actual practice, and he will never finish learning, however experienced he may become. But the root of the matter which can never be taught is a heart for the miserable; a determination in spite of failures and disappointments to despair of no man and nothing."[46]

Italy up to the present time is almost the only country in which prison officers receive any preliminary training for their duties. As a result of this, it not infrequently happens, as Mr. Clay has shown, that an inexperienced person suddenly placed in absolute charge of a number of prisoners will in a few days destroy almost all the reformative work of months and perhaps years. The late Baron von Holtzendorff was of a similar opinion, holding that one man can in a short time undo the work of ten. So much has this been felt, that Dr. von Jageman and several other eminent prison authorities on the Continent maintain that no man should be placed in charge of prisoners till he has had some previous training in the nature of his duties. It has been truly pointed out that the value of imprisonment depends to an enormous extent on the qualifications of the person placed in immediate charge of the convicted men. Others are with them occasionally, he is with them all day long, and unless he comes to his task with a full knowledge of the delicate and difficult nature of the duties he has to perform, he will probably exercise a mischievous and irritating influence on the prisoners committed to his charge. On the other hand, a well-instructed officer can work wonders in the way of good, while insisting with inflexible firmness on the rules of discipline, he is able at the same time by tact and kindliness to diffuse a moralising atmosphere around him. Some men can do this by instinct, but the majority require to be taught; it is therefore most essential that every person entrusted with the control of prisoners should have some previous theoretical instruction in his duties. After all, those who can do most real good to prisoners are the warders immediately in charge of them. Visits from persons outside who take an interest in the outcast and fallen, are, according to French experience, comparatively worthless.[47] These visits are well meant, but they are not paid by the cla.s.s of people to which the prisoner as a rule belongs; the gulf between the visitor and the visited is too great for the establishment of that inner sympathy on which the permanent success of moralising efforts so greatly depends, and it is easy for such a visitor to do more harm than good. On the other hand, if you have a competent and well-instructed cla.s.s of warders, if you have these men trained to regard their duties from an elevated point of view, you possess in them a body of men who are not separated from prisoners by impa.s.sable barriers; you have comparatively little in the way of social antecedents to estrange the prisoner from the person in charge of him: such being the case it is easy for the two men to understand each other, and is, therefore a relatively simple matter for the one to influence the other for good.

What is to be done with offenders when their term of punishment has expired? This is a question which modern society finds it exceedingly difficult to solve. What is the use of punishing a delinquent for offences against the law if, the moment his sentence is completed, he is sent back again into the surroundings which led to his fall. So long as his surroundings are the same, his acts will be the same, unless his mind has pa.s.sed through a revolution during detention in gaol. The latter event, it must be admitted, sometimes does happen, although it is not easy in these days to get the world to believe it. And when it does happen it is marvellous to see how men, through their own unaided efforts, will redeem their character and wipe out the blot upon their life. But many offenders pa.s.s through little or no change of mind, and unless delivered from their surroundings they will continue to fall. Here, however, comes in the difficulty. Many of these people love their surroundings; they have no desire to change; a life of squalor among squalid companions is not distasteful to them; on the contrary, they will refuse to leave old haunts no matter what inducements are offered them elsewhere. It is hardly possible to do anything with these offenders, and they unfortunately const.i.tute at least one fourth of the criminal population. Such persons return again and again to prisons; and the manager of an important Prisoners' Aid Society in a great northern city, says, that to aid them "is a mere waste of money, if not an encouragement to vice."[48] How to deal with persons of this description is a most tantalising problem. More vigorous methods of punishment are sometimes advocated as the proper manner of deterring these habitual and incorrigible offenders, but if we consider the const.i.tution and antecedents of most of them, it becomes perfectly certain that such means will not effect the end in view. As a matter of fact, most of them are not adapted to the conditions of existence which prevail in a free society. Some of them might have pa.s.sed through life fairly well in a more primitive stage of social development, as, for example, in the days of slavery or serfdom, but they are manifestly out of place in an age of unrestricted freedom, when a man may work or remain idle just as he chooses. A society based upon the principle of individual liberty is a society of which the members are supposed to be gifted with the virtues of prudence, industry, and self-control; virtues of this nature are indeed essential to the existence of such a form of society. Unfortunately, a certain portion of its members do not possess them even in an elementary degree, and no amount of seclusion in prison will ever confer these qualities upon them. Imprisonment, to be followed by liberty, however rigorous it is made, is accordingly no solution of the difficulty; the only effective way of dealing with the incorrigible vagrant, drunkard, and thief, is by some system of permanent seclusion in a penal colony. All men are not fitted for freedom, and so long as society acts on the supposition that they are, it will never get rid of the incorrigible criminal.

It has also to be remembered that a considerable proportion of incorrigible offenders are not only mentally but also physically unfitted to earn their living in a free community. Almost always without a trade, and very often the children of diseased and degenerate parents, the only kind of work which they can turn to is rude manual labour, and this is exactly the kind of work they have not the requisite physical strength to perform. It is only in skilled trades that the physically weak have a chance at all, and if a feeble person is not a skilled artisan he will, unless possessed of superior mental gifts, find it rather a hard matter to earn a comfortable livelihood. Should it be the case that such a person is below the average in body and mind, to earn a livelihood becomes almost an impossibility. Now, this is exactly the position of many habitual criminals, and more especially of that large cla.s.s of them which is being continually convicted and reconvicted of petty offences. What can be said of them, except to repeat that they are unfit to take a part in working the modern industrial machine; what can be done with them except to seclude them in such a way that they will be no longer able to injure those who can work it.

Outside the ranks of the incorrigible and incapable there exists a large cla.s.s of offenders who are perfectly able to earn a honest living in the world. In many cases it happens that such men require no a.s.sistance on their liberation from prison; they can resume work immediately their sentence has expired. All that is needed is to send them back to the district they were tried in, and this is what is always done if a man cannot reach his destination by mid-day on the morning of his liberation. But in a certain number of cases discharged prisoners require more than this; they require tools, or clothes, or property redeemed from pledge, or a lodging, or to be sent a long distance home, or to be emigrated. In each and all of these cases, persons who are not incorrigible criminals are a.s.sisted to the best of their ability and the extent of their funds by Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies. One or more of these admirable inst.i.tutions is attached to every Local Prison, and every year a vast amount of quiet, conscientious work is performed. These societies are voluntary agencies formed for the relief of discharged prisoners. Their funds are derived partly from private subscriptions and donations, partly from ancient bequests, and partly from a small sum annually voted by Parliament. They are conducted on the most economic principles, the gentlemen who form the committee or who act as secretaries and treasurers being mostly magistrates and men of substance, who gladly give their time and services for nothing. The only person who has to be paid is an agent whose duty it is to see that the recommendations of the committee with respect to a.s.sisting the discharged prisoners are carried into effect.

A glance at the work of one of these societies will be the best way of forming a conception of their usefulness as a whole. For this purpose let us select the Surrey and South London Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society. In the prison in which the work of this excellent society is conducted, 17 per cent. of the prison population applied for aid in 1887, and 10 per cent. were a.s.sisted, the 7 per cent. refused a.s.sistance were habitual offenders, and had often been previously helped. Of the number a.s.sisted, consisting of 969 persons, 54 were sent to sea, 2 were a.s.sisted to emigrate, 913 were a.s.sisted in the way of redemption of tools, purchase of stock, purchase of clothing, and so on. In 1888, 929 persons were a.s.sisted, 54 were sent to sea, 4 were helped to emigrate, and 871 aided in other ways. In 1889, a.s.sistance was rendered in 1009 cases of these 36 were sent to sea, and 973 otherwise aided. The average cost per head of sending cases to sea is three pounds, fourteen shillings; the average cost in other cases is half a guinea.

What is being done by the Surrey Society is only a sample of the a.s.sistance rendered to discharged prisoners all over England. It ought also to be stated that some of these Aid Societies undertake to look after the dest.i.tute families of persons committed to prison, and cases innumerable might be mentioned in which prisoners' wives and children have been a.s.sisted and kept out of the workhouse until the release of the bread-winner. Other societies again provide permanent homes for dest.i.tute offenders on their discharge from prison. All that is required of persons making use of those homes is, that they shall earn as much as will cover a portion of the expense of providing them with food and shelter. For this purpose work is always provided for them, or if they prefer it, they may find occupation outside and make the home a sort of temporary resting-place. It is hardly necessary to add that Prisoners' Aid Societies could effect much more if they were better supported by the public. The organisation is there; the men to work it are there; the only impediment to their labours is a lack of funds. If the possession of adequate funds enabled all the Prisoners' Aid Societies to establish Homes for discharged prisoners, those inst.i.tutions might be made of the greatest service to the cause of justice generally. It would then be easy to get a return from them of the number of persons whose criminal life was due to sheer indolence, and magistrates would have far less hesitation in dealing with them than they do now. At the present time, it is sometimes difficult to know whether an offender is willing to work if he had the opportunity, but the existence of prisoners' homes would soon solve the question. Reference to a man's record in one of these inst.i.tutions would at once place the magistrate in full possession of the facts, and he would be able to give judgment with a knowledge of the offender he does not now possess. In this way many cruel mistakes might be avoided; and, on the other hand, many hardened offenders dealt with in a more effective manner.

The difficulty sometimes encountered by discharged prisoners in finding employment, as well as many other evils inseparable from imprisonment, has, in recent years, led an increasing number of jurists to the conclusion that every other method of punishment should, when the case at all admits of it, be exhausted before the gaol is resorted to. "The very first principle of enlightened penology," says Mayhew, "is to endeavour to keep people out of prison as long as possible, rather than thrust them into it for the most trivial offences." In many instances it is quite sufficient punishment for a first offender in a petty case to be publicly rebuked in the police court. Such a rebuke preceded, as it generally is, by a night's confinement in the police cells, is just as effective as a deterrent and far less likely to do permanent harm than a sentence of imprisonment. It was something of this kind which Bacon had in view, when he says, respecting criminal courts: "Let there be power also to inflict a note or mark; such, I mean, as shall not extend to actual punishment, but may end either in admonition only, or in a light disgrace; punishing the offender as it were with a blush."[49] A certain amount of progress has been made of late in this direction, but there is still ample room for more. On the other hand, experience has shown that light punishments are of no avail against habitual offenders. For the last few years this system has been in operation in the borough of Liverpool, with the result that the number of known thieves apprehended for indictable crimes has almost doubled within a comparatively short period. According to the Chief Constable's Report, the numbers were, in-

18851886188718881889 377470533596731 These figures show that habitual criminals will not be deterred by light sentences, but rather emboldened in their sinister career.

THE END.