LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PRISON DISCIPLINE. ALTHOUGH the Commissioners appointed to
inquire into the go- vernment of the Gaols at Birmingham, Leicester, and perhaps we should add Winchester, have not made their report, and it is im- possible to pronounce judicially upon the allegations made against the management of these prisons, it was equally impossible for the public altogether to abstain from discussion. Whatever may be the explanation to exonerate individuals or extenuate the objec- tions to the system here or there it is not denied that practices have been disclosed in these gaols, not only inconsistent with en- lightened views of prison discipline, but repugnant to the common feeling of the English people at the present day. So far as we can judge from the very imperfect reports which have hitherto been made,' it appears to have been the practice in Birmingham to co- erce prisoners by rendering their food dependent upon their labour; in Leicester a system of strict rigour was enforced; and in Winches- ter, it is said on the authority of a circular ascribed to the Chaplain, jointly with some of the oldest abuses of prison manage- ment there has been in use an instrument of torture not unlike the rack in its operation. One of the most ingenious and practical of prison-reformers, whose main idea has received the sanction of men distinguished for legal experience and judgment, was, that the comfort of the prisoner,including his food, should to a certain extent depend upon his labour; i a dependence not only bringing the prisoner under the screw of a mild coercion, but also calling into play one of the most healthy and restorative of human exercises —that of industry. But after Captain Maconochie was dismissed from the governorship of Birmingham Gaol, his idea was pushed to the extreme of reducing prisoners by starvation—a totally differ- ent idea. In Leicester the facts are less decisively known; • with the one exception, that the Visiting Justices, who ought to have -seen to the proper administration of the gaol, and who were responsible for applying the proper cheeks to any abuse in that administration, appear to have been totally uninformed on the most important points. The story with regard to Winchester is the most surprising, however; • and although it is published through an irregular channel, and has met with a vague general contradic- tion from a titled Magistrate, it has all the look of an authentic and specific statement.
The Chaplain explains, in a circular to the Visiting Justices, why he had not before denounced the instrument of torture. His principal motive seems to have been the wish that he might not be the means of causing the Governor to be dismissed. The tortur- ing apparatus consists of a form of leather and iron, fastened round the body of the prisoner, with iron sockets at the hips, into which are insetted iron uprights, like crutches, the top of which may be raised or lowered. When the instrument is applied, the arms of the prisoner are forced down over the crutches, and stretched to the waist; the raising of the crutch tending to strain if not to dis- locate the shoulder-joint. The mere description of such an instrument is sufficient; but there is an evil much worse than the use of such an apparatus in a particular gaol. How cornea it that at the present day we have to inquire into the existence of such practices ? How comes it that the treatment of criminals in some of the principal gaols of the country is found to depend upon the superintendence of Visaing Justices who do not visit, or visit only after the fashion of a morn-
ing call, in which it would be unpolite to be too inquisitive ; or upon the fluctuating notions of a Town-Council, like that of Bir- mingham; or on the caprices of a Governor, like that at Winches- ter, who had already confessed to great irregularities ? It is bad to find that women are tortured at Winchester, and men are starved at Birmingham ; but how much worse to find that, with all the boasted improvement of the present day, there is no better control over prisons than that of Chaplains who do not denounce the rack because they yield to Christian forbearance, of Visiting Justices who visit without effective inquiry, or of Town-Counoillors who ex- change governors and systems without kr -sling what they are about?
Nothing can be better than the principle of local self-govern- ment for local affairs ; but the affairs which are left to such au- thority should be those which have their rise and termination in local interests. Where imperial interests are at stake, imperial authority should preserve its control unconstrained. The liberty of the subject, the right even of the prisoner not to be tortured, or put to death except by sentence of law, are things too sacred to be Ieft at the mercy of any Town-Council or individual Governor. The proper custody and management of prisoners can never be a purely local affair, in a country where the whole community is brought together by such perfect facility of transit and such in- .
numerable ties of connexion. The ;Whole country is interested in obtaining the best custody and the best treatment of prisoners in all parts. We have great respect for the intelligence which resides in the people of Birmingham ; but, without at the present moment raising a question as to the capacity of that Town-Council for con- triving and arranging a model system of prison discipline we may suppose that the most complacent Birmingham Town-Councillor will admit that the average Town-Councils of the kingdom are not the best qualified, by training, experience, habits of thought, or any other qualification, for legislating on the prison discipline of the United Kingdom. It is a subject that transcends the facul- ties or opportunities of Town-Councils, and it ought not to be left at their mercy. But if the original dispensation should not be abandoned to local bodies, still less should the super- vision of the administration be left to amateur supervisors. The Great Unpaid have often been ridiculed for their bad law and lu- dicrous judgment, but never perhaps has the inefficiency of the whole body, and its want of adequate motives for the performance of its set duties, been more completely exposed than in these dis- closures at Birmingham and Winchester. The standing reply of the Justices, titled or untitled, County Magistrates or Borough Magistrates, to the 9uestion of the Commissioners, may be reduced to one—that they did not know anything about the point in ques- tion. We have appointed Prison Inspectors, and we have effected many gaol reforms, but the time has come when we ought to rescue even the remains of our prison system from this amateur supervision and this local legislation.
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