PRISON DISCIPLINE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.

London, 28th January 1840.

SIR—The Inspectors' Reports for the year 1839 an the state of our Prisons, especially those of the Metropolis, are full of the must instructive, but also of the most alarming matter.

They show that even in the very heart and centre of the Metropolis, in the city of London itself, the most prominent evils—evils of association of pri- soners and the mutual contamination to which such association gives rise—are still suffered to exist in our 'Metropolitan Gaols, in defiance of the protest of the Inspectors against such abuses, which the last four years have failed to re- move.

Newgate is represented as a place where offenders of all ages and crimes are mingled in one mass of moral contagion. For nearly twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four, the prisoners are locked up ; during whirls no officer is sta- tioned in the ward with them. The uninitiated and the hardened in guilt are thus confined in the same apartment ; and having no employment, are neces- sarily thrown into close companionship. The mischiefs of gaol-association, which have been demonstratively proved by the Inspectors of Prisons to be the fruitful source of all the abuses and irregularities which have so long disgraced Newgate, are not only permitted to exist in this prison, but prisoners are thrown into closer contact than before, and companionship is directly facilitated ; their mutual acquaintance is more perfect; their knowledge of each other's habits is more readily acquired, and more mischievously brought to bear against the interests of society. What but irretrievable mischief can be expected from locking up prisoners—the innocent and less guilty with the hardened and depraved—from morning to night with- out intermission or change, in utter idleness (in numbers varying from eight to fifteen in each ward); the worst characters—adepts in crime—compelled gesso- elates with men differing widely in their habits, some perhaps innocent of the imputed charge, and for the first time inmates of a prison ? In order to show the disorganized state in which the prison of Newgate re- mains from the mismanagement of the Court of Aldermen, I will extract from the Punishment Journal a few passages, where it will be seen that bad lan-

guage, improper behaviour, gaining, stealing in fellow-prisoners, and fight- ing, are still offences of frequent occurrence n the men's wards.

G. W., aged twenty-one; untried—locked up in 34 Ward, for robbing one of his fellow-prisoners of his bread, and using improper language to the officer. J. C., aged twenty-eight; J. C., twenty-five; W. J., twenty-one ; W. B., twenty-one ; F. B., thirty-five ; B. B., twenty-nine; all untried—locked up in 32 Ward, for cutting their waste-paper up and making playing-cards of the same.

G. L., aged twenty-one; tried prisoner—locked up in a condemned cell, for striking one of his fellow-prisoners in 29 Ward. J. S., aged sixteen; H. R., thirteen ; W. F., fifteen ; J. B., thirteen ; J. B., fourteen ; R. R. A., thirteen ; W. C., thirteen ; D. G., eleven ; J. C., fourteen; W. D., thirteen ; G. R., fifteen ; all untried (juvenile) prisoners—were put on bread and water, for noisy and disorderly conduct in No. 5, 6, and 7 Wards. C. R., aged fifteen ; and J. C., fourteen; tried—locked up in their cells, for sleeping together.

J. P., aged twelve ; R. C., fourteen; J. P., fourteen ; J. B., thirteen ; G. A., fourteen ; D. B., thirteen ; T. F., eleven ; C. C., sixteen ; W. A., fifteen ; J. R., sixteen ; all untried—put upon bread and water, for gambling with buttons in No. 5 and 8 Wards.

D. J., aged sixteen ; C. B., sixteen ; tried—were locked up in their cells, for indecent conduct in No. 5 Ward.

J. S., aged nine; tried—locked in a cell, for stealing three allowances of bread.

D. M., aged sixteen ; E. M., thirteen ; and J. AV., sixteen ; all untried— locked up in their cells, for fighting.

Jew boys, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years of age; all untried—put upon bread and water for two days, for scoring the tables, and gambling with buttons in No. 10 Ward.

R. S., aged sixteen ; and J. H., sixteen; fried—locked up in their cells in irons, for acting indecently towards each other. Here is a precious sample of prison-discipline enacted within the walls of the Corporation Gaol of Newgate. We find mingled together, boys from nine to eighteen years of age, and from ten to fifteen in each ward, without any re- gard to classification ; where thievery, gambling, fighting, and indecency of conduct, are the preeminent characteristic of a great metropolitan prison.

Such is the mass of confusion exhibited in the prison of Newgate, that it is a disgrace to the nineteenth century, the age of improvement and reform, and a standing reproach to the Government that allows such important duties to fall into the hands of men who are incapable of managing the various prisons under their charge. The Governor, in his examination before the Committee of the House of Commons, admits the infringement of the Gaol Act of 4th Geo. IV., by the mismanagement of the Court of Aldermen ; that discipline is habitually vio- lated; and that all the rules and regulations are simultaneously rescinded by them. A prison should be a place of suffering : those who mismanage a prison so as to make it a desirable asylum, neglect an important duty they do not understand, and become practically abettors of crime. The mischief of rendering a prison, either from ignorance, wilful neglect, or mistaken humanity, a desirable residence, "a thieves' home," was never more strikingly illustrated than by the Annual Returns for the last four years from 1836 to 1839.

Of the numbers who could neither read nor write, and of the state of instruc- tion of the adult and juvenile offenders that are annually imprisoned in New- gate, some estimate may be formed from the following statement, from the re- ports of the Inspectors of Prisons—

There were confined in the course of the year 1836 .... 3,413 Ddto ditto

Ditto ditto 1837 .... 33;334159

Ditto ditto 1839 .... 3.558 Total Age of Prisoners.

1836. 1837. 1838. 13,635 1839.

Under twelve years of age .... 36 24

35 95 Twelve and under fourteen 103 87

115 305 Fourteen and under seventeen. 351 34L

332 1.074

Seventeen and under twenty-one

844 902 851 947 3,514 Twenty-one and under thirty.. 952 975 1,025 1,056 4,008 Thirty and upwards 865 896 875 976 3.562

Total

12,588

State of Instruction.

1836. 1837. 1838. 1839.

Can neither read nor write 933 869 756 949 3,507 Can read or write, or both im- perfectly

ZOS1

1,600 1,087 1,396 6,134 Can read only . . 281 373 457 1,111 Can read and write well 167 406 554 709 1,836

Total

12,588 Thus, in the four years, the number of prisoners committed to the Gaol of Newgate exceeded 13,000; and in the last year (1839) there has been an in- crease in the numbers over and above those of the same period in the preceding years: 5,000 were under twenty-one years of age, 7,000 were under thirty years of age and upwards : the state of instruction is in a most neglected condition, for it appears that there were 1,100 who could neither read nor write, and 6,134 could only read and write imperfectly. If we make an estimate of the following prisons, viz.— Giltspur Street at 2,500 Bridewell 2,000 Borough Compter 1,500 6,000. This will make a total of 18,000, or nearly 5,000 annually, of offenders incarcerated in the gaols of the Metropolis, who may be said to have been deprived of almost all moral aid from education. But heavy indeed is the responsibility of that neglect, and many are the sufferers that may justly reproach their country in the words of the condemned son, who, we are told in .sop's fable, cat off the ear of his mother when she came to embrace him on the point of execution, with this bitter reproof, " Mother, if you had done your duty by me in my youth, you would have spared yourself the trouble of coming to take leave of me on the gallows." The deplorable state of the Metropolitan Prisons, the crying injustice exhi- bited within them, the gross violation of the statutes, and the irretrievable mischief enacted against the criminal, calls loudly for Parliament to interfere with the present system of prison-discipline ; for though much has been done, much remains discreditable to this enlightened nation. It is hoped that when prison-discipline has so justly attracted the attention of the public, the Government will direct their attention and promote the im- provement of our gaols.