PENITENTIARY SYSTEM AND PRISON-DISCIPLINE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Sin—It is with inexpressible pleasure that I have observed the Government aroused to a sense of their duty and at last to a sense of justice ; and been in- dueed, thoiteli tardily, to build, as an experiment, a model-prison (which will be completed in three years) upon an improved system of the Penitentiary at Pennsylvania. Some time has laity elapsed since I drew the public attention to a series of observations which appeared in the Spectabw, on the obvious poliev of the Legislature enacting a law to establish the Silent system as S crimina1 punish- ment, in lieu of that of Transportation, which leas so long been suffered to re- main an incubus MI the national justice of this country. No Government, I contend, has at rOit to transport the surplus or criminal part of the population to a distant culony, there to inflict eternal injuries, sap and undermine the foundation of its prosperity, and breed a pestilence and disorganization among its inhabitants. Experience has taught us, after half a century, that the Transportation system has 'become an anomaly, and that it is supported at a vast expense, and remanis a dead.weight upon the revenue of this country, while it defeats its grand purpose—the ends of justice. As proofs of these re- marks, I need only neer your readers to my statements, which have appeared in this journal relative to the ellitiency of the Penitentiary system as now ex- isting in the United States, with complete success ; and also the working of the system in air own country, viz. in Glasgow and Gloucester, in which places it has been found to act most beneficially on the criminal. When once a prisoner has undergone the severe regimen of the Silent system, the circum- stance of the exclusion from Ids die:honest associates—being thrown upon his own thoughts—so affects hint morally, that he rarely, Weyer, returns to his criminal practices, but is anxious to resort to an honest course of life and be- come it useful member of society. There are two divisions of imprisonment—that before trial, and that after con- viction. Bethre the trial, its objects are, first, the safe custody of the prisoner ; and secondly, the prevention of his being corrupted by others. After conviction, it operates as a punishment for the suppression of crime, by its intimidating influence over the offender and the rest of society. Persons sentenced to a pe- nitentiary do require long hnprisonment : but how small a proportion they at present beam to the rest, appears front the facts, that out of 9,815 offenders sentenced to imprisonment at the Assizes and Sessions of 1835, 5,071 were sentenced far terms of six months and under ; 1,543 for one year and above six months ; 2tt1i for two years and above one year; and only II for three years and :Mitre two years, exclusive of th, . great number of Kt:ninety commitments. At Milbank, indeed, the term of imprisonment ranges from tltree to five years; but long imprisonments, like those of the United States, which for grave offences extend front too to twenty years, or for life, have hitherto formed no part of our penal system ; and %chile transportation continues the principal secondary pu- tikihment, a penitentiary can out). be used upon a very partial and limited scale. There is nothing in such a system to prevent an innocent man, of blameless life, who has the misfortune to he accused for the first time of felony, if he happens afterwards to be committed for a misdemeanour or for vagrancy, from cuiering into companionship with those whose offences scarcely involve any breach of morality, or whose poverty may be their only crime. The groundwork of the disaffection and disorganization of the mass of our surplus population springs from the foundation of the gross :anises of prison- diseipline as now enacted in our Metropolitan Prisons. The present injurious system has the most universal and dangerous tendency towards the criminal parts of the community. and more especially the juvenile offenders : it encourages crime in its most hideous form, defeats the ends of justice, and deprives the pri- soner of all improvement both mental and religi .. It appears that all the rules end regulations of the Gaol Act, 4th Geo. IV. have been Mr smite time infringed by the system of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City. I. The corrupting associations of prisoners of all ages and degree of guilt in one indiscriminate mass, and the utter absence of all employment. 2. The communication that goes on with people outside the prison. by which stipplies of spirituous liquors are obtained in defiance of the existing laws. 3. The slothful habit encouraged by the prisoners passing too much time in bed.
4. The dirt and closeness of many of the prisons, apatite dirty state of many the prisoners. 5. Thef'..TO•R; ignOrallee, mental, moral, and religious, in whic!t criminals ars now ;allowed to ism
8. Total laxity it ell discipline in admitting visiters, so that the worst cha- meters, including receivers of stolen goods. obtain easy acce:s to the prisoners, 7. Gists's imposition under the tint eof ward-dues and brief-drawing, and the admission of newspapers without restraint. S. The ieseenrity if the prisons giving frequent rise to escapes. 9. The I ieenrions diet in sine prisons. compared with the workhoure poor OT the honeat Lihourer out of prison. la. The insufficient diet of other prisoners.
11. The incompetency of man ,y of the keepers. and the immoral practice of Outraging, the decent rights of the female sex be permitting 'nab ,beers to attend upon female prisoners.
12. Al:,1 lastly, no difference made between the conv kited and unconvicted prisoners.
These are abuses that have charades:7M a great Metropolitan prison for a number of years past, in defiance of all decency. justice, or -humanity, and the expressed enactment of the existing laws. Suelt is the state of our Criminal laws', and the alm.scs of our prisons in the nineteenth cent ury.—evils thitt have been engendered through the lethargy of a Isaiah and trawl:ling Government and the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the Cite, anti to say the least, of the Corporation. the existenCe of which us a scandal and a disgrace to any rut of the kiimilom; but how III lleil 11107C SO to the Metropidis. the eel:tr.: of civilization, ihe distinguished seat of philanthropic institutioas of es cry description.
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