THE PRISON SYSTEM
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In spite of the frequent macabre descriptions of prison life given by ex-convicts who have not proved too apathetic on returning to the outside world to tell of their experiences, and of the many interesting articles of the type of that in your last issue by Mr. Mark Benney that have appeared in the Press regarding its psychological aspect, very little progress has been made in this field in recent years.
I recently spoke to a man who had just completed a four years' sentence of penal servitude and whose chief grievance (which seemed to me to be both feasible and reasonable) against the Authorities was that although they so often smugly asserted that the primary object of the imprisonment of an offender was reformative, in fact the whole routine of ;prison life tended to cause it to assume a solely punitive aspect.
He complained of the long monotonous periods of solitary confinement and of the fact that the work allotted to the prisoners was dull and uninstructive. He said that reading matter was scarce and totally inadequate for any prisoner of average intellectual capacity and that the news sheet, for the most part, contained such items as the announcement of a new birth in the elephant house at the Zoo.
All these facts, and many more besides, have been common knowledge for some time, but do not seem to have stayed the retrogression of the system. Our ideas in this respect seem to be no less stupid than those of the Erewhonians of Butler's famous satire. One day we will, perhaps, realise the futility of herding offenders against our social system into a common prison, irrespective of the type of offence they might have committed, and of leaving them in the care of warders who seem often to have been chosen from the very dregs of society.
Perhaps one day we will evolve a more rational treatment, for instance, for political prisoners, who are at present treated as criminals, for are not the political criminals of today the martyrs of tomorrow ? Or, again, when we chuckle at the absurdity of the Erewhonian Judge passing a heavy sentence on a consumptive because of his " criminal " indisposition, we might remember that our own treatment of sexual perverts is hardly more rational. It is hopeless for us to look forward to an ideal reformative . system, by the mere slight amelioration of the buildings or routine, whilst we entirely ignore the psychic element which often impels the commission of a crime and which no more calls for punishment than would a physical deformity.
If we are to tackle this most important sociological problem in a civilised way and if we are sincere in contending that our aim is to reform the erring citizen, it is imperative for us to remember that, wherever possible, medical or educational treatment should receive preference to mere punishment in our treatment of offenders.—Yours faithfully, BERNARD S. ADLER.
88 Manor Road, N.1.6.
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