TWO SYSTEMS OF TREATING CONVICTS.
WE remember reading, some years ago, in a book of travels in Spain, an account of the Presidio of Valencia—a prison where kindness was made the agent of reformation, where the prisoners, gradually accustomed to act for themselves, acquired by degrees the habits of industrious men, and learned to love and respect the teachers who had given the lesson. The picture painted had some marvellous touches—the men really sorry to leave their prison- home, but too self-respectful ever to earn re-admission by crime ; the governor a father more than a gaoler ; the inmates in their final stage trusted as confidential employes with messages outside the prison—all reading like a story of a gaol in Arcadia. It was the old chiteau en Espagne in the form of a prison. The book at travels in which we read the account was not very striking other respects, and not hearing much more of this fairy tale oT prison treatment, it assumed a rather unsubstantial shape in our memory. When some loud man of iron voice, and bristling with facts, told us that the " criminal population, air," should be " repressed" and " punished," and when tenderness and kind- ness were scouted as morbid," we longed to be able to give the facts and dates and figures and results of our pet prison in Spain, but a book of travels is no authority, and we were silent. Our reticence has been rewarded. Within twelve hours of London,— in the full blaze of inspection by English critics and English rivals,—near enough to come within the keen ken of a Parlia- mentary Committee, prosaic enough to find record in blue-books, —an experiment is going on, and within the United Kingdom itself the influence of " loving-kindness" is making itself felt as an agent in restoring to the community its erring and offending sons. Leaving for a moment all sentiment aside, we will state the hard facts of the case.
A certain number of men break the laws every year. They commit offences or crimes which make their continuance amongst us as free men something which we cannot bear. It would not do to have burglars, thieves, and highway robbers, walking about— not even after they had suffered certain terms of punishment, for it was found that the punishment hardened their hearts, cut them off from honest society, and left them neither the will nor the power to live well. In the old time when England had waste lands all over the globe, the convicts were shipped off to the other side of the world, and when there released had in a new country a chance of beginning a new life—at all events, and this was the main point —they never troubled us again. When the Colonies became strong industrial communities they refused to receive our con- victs, and then arose the question, not yet satisfactorily answered in England, what is to be done with them ? They could not be kept in gaol all their lives at our expense ; they could not safely be turned out unchanged amongst the honest community ; the question then came, is it possible so to change their dispositions that they may take their places as honest workers in the great hive of English industry ? The present convict system in Eng- land is based on the supposition that by observing the demeanour of a man in prison, you may tell his fitness for free life ; and hence the many cases where by a course of quiet hypocrisy and observance of prison rules, unchanged criminals have imposed on overworked chaplains and won the tickets-of-leave which they too readily regard as licences to sin once more. In Ireland, a very dif- ferent system is pursued. The man before he is freed is fitted for the life of industry and self-restraint which alone will make him a useful member of the community. In England, the convicted criminal—fresh from all the wild, and to some minds fascinating, perils of a life of crime, with all its romance of risk and startling contrasts of luxury and want—is brought into the strict seclusion of a gaol, and there retained for two, three, or four years. His new life is thoroughly unlike his old; it is a severe punishment in in its strict regulation, its terrible monotony, and so far has at first doubtless a salutary effect on the man's mind. But he soon learns that a subdued demeanour, a minute obedience to all these irksome little rules, will purchase him a remission of the hated yoke, and the new hypocrisy is begun. The boy who was patient enough to learn the iiivet4-- ''Picking -poj learns the " dodge " - pockets now eceiving the chaplain. It is irk-
some work:. 4-.61t- a strong will does much and the criminal Pe ough his task, and masters the trick and slang °f_AWs-new life. It is a strange life ; as a change from a life eof crime it has its merit ; but in its repression, and iron rou- tine, and trust in rules, it is like no kind of life or society in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. It does not fit the prisoner for after intercourse with his fellowmen, for it teaches him no self-restraint, no self-reliance, -and insists ontheNexercise of no virtue but the one virtue--ex- cellent in a prison but only secondary in free life—of absolute obedience. From this life of rigid rule and cramping fetters, the criminal, with hypocrisy added to his vices, comes forth a free inancmce again among his old haunts, luxuriating in the ab- sence of the irksome restraints which but the day before harassed every step. He revels in the luxury of not being watched—he thinks with joy of spending his day in idleness, his night in dis- sipation—his old comrades are looked up, his old haunts revisited. If the chaplain's words and the fear of the gaol have any power, and if he tries to find work, he finds his ticket-of-leave the re- verse of a recommendation—the police " spot " him ; they suspect him, and he walks about a marked man. Still he knows there will be no new arrest except for a new crime, and his mind is at ease for the time. Once caught in a new offence—first, fourth, or tenth it may be after his release—he is again imprisoned, and the same old farce is again enacted. This system is wrong ; it must be reformed altogether. Our first duty in this matter—and this we think should be clearly kept in view—is to the community. No sympathy for criminals as such should for a moment be allowed to creep in to oust the uncriminal and heavily burdened community from our consideration. A man commits a crime. To guard the community in future from that man should be our first thought, and if in doing that it were necessary that he should " first be accurately well-hanged," as Mr. Carlyle has advised, we would hang him. But it is notnecessary. To reform the man is all that is neces- sary: and as we find it our best policy, we recognize with gladness that justice to the innocent can be reconciled with mercy to the guilty, and that the words of Him who willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live, can be printed without contrast in the same page with the sternest code of human law.
The Directors of Irish Convict Prisons adopt a system very different from that established in England. The first period of treatment is to a great extent the same. The convict is first taken to Mountjoy prison, near Dublin, where the silent system and the separate system are in full force. The chaplain ministers to him individually ; he occupies a solitary cell by day and night ; and though at periods of stated exercise he sees his fellow convicts, he -is not allowed to speak to them. This cutting him off from all communication with other men naturally gives the chaplain and the other officers of the prison much power over him, and much opportunity of noting his individual character. If he conducts himself properly he is removed after nine months to Spike Island, an island prison. Here he has comparative liberty—the shores of the island are by day at least his only prison bounds, and with his fellows he is mainly employed in outdoor work. By night he is in a separate cell, but he can talk to his neighbours at each side, though the warders of the prison are always within hearing. Books, secular as well as religious, and lectures of all kinds are freely given. If under this discipline the convict continues to show good conduct, lie is removed in two, three, four, or six months, (the better the conduct the shorter the term,) to another prison—where the whole life in its privileges and surroundings opens gradually into a greater resemblance to the pleasures and responsibilities of outer life. The capabilities of the convict are carefully considered. Whether he is found fitted to be employed on the public works in progress at either side of Cork harbour— or at Lusk, fifteen miles from Dublin, where there is an agri- cultural colony of reformed men, or at Smithfield, an institution for artisans—his character, capabilities, and tendencies are con sidered, and the opportunity of reformation is fitted to him indi- vidually. We here quote an account from the pen of an eye- witness :— " The men now are allowed a certain portion of their earnings : this sometimes amounts to half-a-crown a week. Each keeps a book in which the gradual increase of this fund is recorded. He is allowed to draw 6d. weekly, and spend it as he pleases, intoxicating drinks alone being forbid- den. The rest is reserved until his departure. When the men have ac- quired some self-control, they are sent out on messages, or work is procured for them at a distance from home. They pay the prison bills, and prepare to enter into a life of liberty again, but under fairer auspices than before. They are taught outlines of history, the benefits of emigration, the forms of government prevailing through the world, elementary science to extend their knowledge of common things, and even the principles of political economy. On Saturday evenings there is a species of competitive examina- tion in the school lectures of the past week. Preparations for the contest are going on every night. It is stated that the men's progress is wonder- ful, and that the alteration of their moral character singularly improves their external appearance."
What are the final results ? From these " intermediate '' establishments—with their wholesome rules and regulated liberty —559 convicts have been discharged on licences ; their conduct has been observed and regularly reported ; the authorities keep a friendly eye upon them; they report themselves once a mouth to the police, and the most trivial instance of misconduct is re- ported. Yet only 17 out of the 559 licences have been revoked. ric time unconditionally jischarged reports are also received
some have emigrated, carrying their newly-formed habits to an- other land; some have enlisted; and several are earn. mg wages in Dublin varying from 9s. to 11. 6s. a week. As an instance of the general economy of the whole scheme, it may be pointed out that the establishment at Lusk is more than self-supporting; it exhibited a clear profit of 2361. in the six months!
The whole facts of the question are, however, too large to be disposed of this week. We shall take an early opportunity of giving in detail the statistics of the results achieved in Ireland under a system the principle and leading features of which we have attempted to explain.
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