PUNISHMENT AND CRIME.
LTO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR, —I have read with very great interest the article upon this subject in your issue of April 9th, which has just come to my hands. Will you allow me, as an ex-convict who served a four years' sentence in England, to make a few remarks
If the quotation you give from the Act of 1776 had been acted upon as the keynote of the treatment of those sent to penal servitude, my experience leads me to the belief that real good might have been done in the reformation of convicts. But what are the facts ? Let me take them in order :-
(1) Solitary imprisonment. I, like the writer in the Hibbert Journal, pleaded guilty to wrongfully dealing with money and property. From the Old Bailey I was taken to Wormwood Scrubs, and endured a month of what was truly the most terrible experience of my life. I saw the assistant- chaplain for a few moments on the morning after my arrival, when he sat in a small room with one of the schoolmasters to decide if any " education " was necessary ; and after medical examination, &c., I was lodged in a cell and set to work, and for fourteen days was engaged in picking oakum. Then for the rest of my sojourn at that prison I had to pick coir. The oakum kept me employed all day, but the coir I could well do in half-a-day, and the allotted amount was given me twice a week. I had no books except a Bible, Prayer-book, hymn- book, and the "Narrow Way," and thus for four weeks was I left, with an hour's exercise on weekdays and none on Sunday. At the end of the four weeks I found, upon returning one morning from exercise, a book upon my table, "The Highland Cousins." I was subsequently taken to Chelmsford, where I had to do needlework, making pidow-cases and men's underclothing and mailbags and hammocks. Sometimes my daily task was completed before noon; but I had plenty of books to read, which helped me to endure the solitary confinement, which I cannot describe as conducive to reformation.
(2) As to well-regulated labour, the very term " labour " makes one who has undergone a sentence inclined to smile. The whole system of labour as I saw it at Portland is child's- play. I must not take up your space by describing the work, but will just say that time after time I was told by an officer not to work so hard as I had three years to finish the job in. I believe in some of the quarries men lost marks if the task was not complete ; but such was not the case in the party in which I worked ; my chief occupation was sweep- ing up the shed. The time allotted for work is from 7.30 to 10.45 and from 1 to 5.30 during six or seven months of the year, and shorter hours during the remainder.
Lastly, as to religious instruction. During the greater part of my imprisonment there was none. The Sunday services were cut down to an hour's duration ; the then chaplain read sermons, sometimes printed ones, and I heard some of his sermons more than once. His theme for a communicants' preparation service on one occasion was an article from the .Daily Mail on the " Awakening of China." He was promoted shortly afterwards, and his place was taken by a priest who at once began systematic visiting, and, as far as the restrictions of the prison rules allowed, endeavoured to give real instruc- tion. I have been told that he started a Bible-class.
There is much in your article to which I should like to allude, but I fear my letter is far too long. I am convinced that there is a great work which could be done in the way of reforming men, if more individual interest could be taken. I know that the articles in newspapers which I have seen written for the purpose of satisfying a morbid craving for details of a prisoner's life, do no good, as they are obviously exaggerated ; but I believe that a sober statement of facts as they are experienced might help to arouse a healthy agitation for the improvement in a right direction of prison treatment. The whole matter deserves the closest attention, and must begin at the giving of sentence and be carried on until the man is fairly started in life again. I have not been
able to read the article in the Hibbert Journal. My experi- ence was that, although some prison officials are doubtless " inhuman " and " depraved," yet there are many who are quite the reverse, and one has to bear in mind that officials are sometimes what prisoners make them.
I have never come across a man, either as an official or prisoner, who pretends that the prison system is reformatory.
Once the man is sentenced the official mind seems solely con- cerned as to how he shall pass his time. Religion, which is the only thing which will work a deep-seated reformation, does not receive much, if any, attention. A chaplain is
fettered by rules. If a man feels ill, he can see the doctor at any time of the day or night, but should he want to see the
chaplain, he must put his name down first thing in the morning or overnight, and then daring his next dinner-time a schoolmaster or warder comes to see what is wanted, and then perhaps that evening or next day the chaplain comes ; but the only times a chaplain has for visiting or instruction are during dinner-time or after sapper, when the day's "labour" is done.
One Sunday when the Bishop of Salisbury held a confirma- tion, and the service was prolonged, the afternoon service was shortened to make up for the time. I wanted to make my confession, and the Scripture reader stood aghast and told me that they " were not high enough for that." I asked that I might see the chaplain, but having waited for days—I think three weeks—and no chaplain coining, I again put my name down, and was told when I renewed my application that he could not grant my request. However, he came himself a few days afterwards and said that the assistant-chaplain would minister to me. I always thought that this change was brought about through the Bishop, who had in the meantime visited the prison.
Then, again, a man is liable to be lost through the lack of due and proper care on the part of those who pretend to care for discharged prisoners. I spent five months in a refuge home, where the food, lodging, and surroundings were far worse than in prison. Surely, Sir, something might be done to remedy all this. One wonders how many men are lost through despair when they return to the world and find that world cold and unsympathetic, and the friends of pros- perous (?) days turning their backs upon them.—I am, Sir, &c., E%-CONVICT.
[If imprisonment is to be as deterrent as we believe it ought to be, it must be severe. Imprisonment which was not painful, and hardly disagreeable, would be the purest of farces, and had better be given up. No doubt imprisonment, besides being deterrent, should also be reformative. Indeed, this is the prime condition. But here, again, it will not be reformative if it is too easy. The crux of the whole question is, no doubt, the reinstatement of the ex-convict in civil life. Here, unfortunately, the conditions are almost entirely beyond the control of those who have to punish with a view to reform. The public is weakly sentimental on one side, and mercilessly severe on the other. We weep tears over the cruelty of solitary confinement, and treat a man who has "done time" as a leper.—En. Spectator.]
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