TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ENGLISH CONVICT-PRESERVES AND IRISH REFORMATORIES.
Tin question which has so long perplexed our Government and our Legislature, and which in England still waits for solution, has been, as our readers know, practically solved in Ireland by the Board. of Directors of Convict Prisons in that country. The system by which convicts are there made fit for freedom was devised by Captain Crofton, the Chairman of the Board, and has been in continual operation since the beginning of the year 1856. We have already reported fully upon the progress of the institution in all its branches ; but special reasons, induce us to recapitulate the main facts, in order that the reader may have the whole case before him. In England the repugnance of private employers against taking discharged criminals into their service, in reliance upon an alleged reformation under prison discipline, is notorious and all but universal. Previous to the year 1856 the same feeling prevailed with equal strength in Ireland, and had the effect, as it still has here, of conserving the criminal popula- tion as a distinct class in undiminished numbers, by rendering impossible their gradual absorption into the mass of the community. It was with a view to the extinction of this great social evil that Captain Crofton proposed a new class of "intermediate" esta- blishments, which should " act as filterers between the prisons and the community," and in which prisoners eligible for discharge should be subjected to a new stage of discipline eminently calcu- lated to confirm whatever improvement had been wrought in their natures, by strengthening their habits of self-control, as well as to test the genuineness of their reformation by proofs which the public could perfectly appreciate. The Government promptly accorded its sanction to this scheme, and it was put in opera- tion at Smithfield in Dublin, at Lusk Common fifteen miles from that city, and at Forts Camden and Carlisle on each side of Cork harbour. The prisons at the three lat- ter places consist of portable iron buildings, calculated for the reception of fifty men each, together with four officers, and costing only 3301. a piece. The inmates are employed on public works, and their labour more than defrays all the cost of their mainte- nance and supervision. Their condition is midway between con- finement and liberty, their so-called prison being rather a place of enforced residence than of custody. Their fare is coarse, and their labour hard, but it is cheerfully performed, for they know that they are working out their freedom. Already they enjoy a certain measure of that blessing, and with it they incur its at- tendant responsibilities, and have to overcome by the strength of their own will the same temptations as would assail them if they were living at large. They are each allowed to retain sixpence per week from their gratuity money to spend or save as they think proper. Men of the more advanced class amongst them are em- ployed in rotation on messenger's duty, and permitted to make purchases for the other prisoners, for which purpose they have often fifteen or twenty shillings at their disposal. The trust thus reposed in the messenger is quite voluntary on the part of his fel- low convicts, and in no instance was it abused during a period of twenty months, as we are expressly told, or subsequently as we have reason to infer. The probation in these intermediate estab- lishments is a continual exercise of self-discipline, prompted by the strongest motives, and kept in full tension by the most vigi- lant supervision, but otherwise left to its own spontaneous de- velopment. No penal discipline is there administered, but the prisoner who misconducts himself in the slightest respect is at once removed. Out of 1300 probationers, only twenty-six incurred this penalty during the first twenty months. Six others went back at their own request to the ordinary prisons ; these were ap- parently men of that incurable class, whose idle and vicious na- tures are incapable of sustaining them through so arduous a trial.
It cannot be doubted that the ticket-of-leave which is granted as a reward for exemplary conduct under such a system implies much more than the possession of those negative virtues which bloom so speciously in prisons, where men do right for want of opportunity to do wrong. This fact is so well understood by the public, that persons who at first had been induced to give the convicts on ticket-of-leave a fair trial have ever since been em- ployers of convict labour, and the demand for the services of dis- charged prisoners now exceeds the supply. Since January 1856 a thousand tickets-of-leave have been issued, of which only 52, or less than 6 per cent, have been revoked, and of these revoca- tions 17 were for irregularities and misconduct not of a criminal nature. Other statistics strikingly exhibit the general result of the intermediate system as regards the suppression of orime. In 1853, there were nearly 5000 prisoners in the convict !prisons ; now there are not more than 1900, although there has been no transportation to Western Australia from Ireland, nor have there hitherto been any patronage societies there to afford assistance, as there are in England.
In England, every ticket-of-leave bears the following endorse- ment— " The power of revoking or altering. the license of a convict will most certainly be exercised in case of his misconduct. To produce a forfeiture of the license it is by no means necessary that the holder should be con- victed of any new offence. If he associates with notoriously bad characters, leads an idle and dissolute life, or has no visible means of obtaining an honest livelihood, &c., it will be assumed that he is about to relapse into crime,. and he will be at once apprehended and recommitted to prison, under his original sentence." But this endorsement remains a dead letter. In Ireland, a simi- lar provision is vigilantly enforced. The ticket-of-leave man is required to report himself at stated periods at the district police station, and he is kept under strict surveillance by means of visitation or registration. The general results of this system are highly beneficial, and, being exercised openly and regularly, without vexatious espionage, it is not regarded as a grievance by those who are subjected to it, but rather as a safeguard against unfounded suspicions and accusations to which they would other- wise be continually liable. In England, when the police inter- fere at all with the industrial pursuits of discharged criminals, that interference is denunciatory and obstructive ; in Ireland, it is encouraging, and protective alike of the interests of the indi- vidual and of society. The controversy between Colonel Jebb and Captain Crofton, the respective champions of the English and the Irish systems, is still carried on. Its decision must be referred to the facts..
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