420 



PRISONS 



offeree which might be punished by seven yean' 

 trans|wirtation. In carrying out this act pCWMMfl 

 were allowed to gain remission of a portion of these 

 short sentences as well as all the others. 



About thin time very warm discussions were 

 being carried on on the subject of |ienal systems, 

 originating' partly no donbt in the great change 

 necessitated by the gradual abolition of trans- 

 portation ; and alx>ut 1861-62-63 those who 

 attacked the system which had actually been intro- 

 duced were able to point to a recent increase 

 of crime as a justification of their attacks on it, 

 more particularly on the ticket-of-leave system. 

 Great point was given to this feeling, and it was 

 much intensified, oy an outbreak of crimes of vio- 

 lence in the metropolis (garrotting), of which the 

 number rose to eighty-two during the six months 

 beginning June 1K62, having been only sixteen in 

 each six months from the beginning of 1860 to 

 June 1862. The result was that a Royal Commis- 

 sion was appointed to report on the Penal Servi- 

 tude Acts and the system adopted to carry them out. 

 In consequence of the report of this commission 

 in 1864 another Penal Servitude Act was passed, in 

 which the government did not fully adopt the rec- 

 ommendations of the Royal Commission as above 

 set forth, but they raised the minimum term of 

 penal servitude from three years to five years, ex- 

 cept in the case of those who incurred a second 

 sentence of penal servitude, in whose cases seven 

 years was the minimum term permitted. This 

 latter provision was repealed by tne Prevention of 

 Crimes Act, 1879. 



A review by the light of later experience of the 

 grounds on which the recommendation of the Royal 

 Commission was made cannot but lead to the 

 opinion that the experience of the Act of 1857 had 

 been too short to justify the formation of any 

 sound opinion of its effects. As regards the out- 

 break of violence in the metropolis, this was without 

 doubt, as subsequent events showed, the work of a 

 small number of men who adopted that form of rob- 

 bery ( a very common feature in the history of crime ) , 

 and when these men were arrested and received 

 exemplary sentences the crime ceased altogether. 

 The remarkable feature of the figures for 1856- 

 63 was not that they were especially high in 1862- 

 63, but rather the extraordinarily low level to which 

 they had suddenly fallen in 1860, and from which 

 they 1 rebounded. 



The directors of convict prisons in their recent 

 annual reports had more than once referred to the 

 anomaly j>eculiar to the Tinted Kingdom by which 

 no sentence was possible between two yearswhich 

 was practically the limit of a sentence of imprison- 

 ment and five years, which is the shortest legal 

 sentence of nenalservitude, and hud expressed their 

 opinion tlmtitwasdesirahletore-introduce the power 

 of sentencing to penal servitude for terms as low as 

 three years, which existed from 1857 until the Act of 

 1864, and was abolished by that act in consequence 

 nf tin' rejMirt of a Royal Commission, founded, as 

 the directors showed, on erroneous deductions from 

 imperfect data. In 1801 an act was passed to 

 allow of the sentence of three years being im- 

 posed in future. By the Act of 1837 power was 

 given to the Secretary of State to release convicts 

 conditionally before the expiration of their sen- 

 tences. This system, known as the ticket-of-leave 

 system, was at the time strenuously attacked, 

 under the erroneous imposition that it first intro 

 duced a system of releasing prisoners before they 

 hail serveil their full sentences ; but this, as has 

 been already stated, they never actually had done. 

 On the contrary, under the ticket-of-leave system 

 they were in point of fact detained to serve in 

 prison a larger part of their sentences than had 

 been customary before. Moreover, under the new 



system, instead of being absolutely pardoned when 

 released, they were subject to revi>cation of their 

 licenses if they did not conduct themselves well, 

 by which their abstention from crime was materi- 

 ally guaranteed. 



The principle on which the system of punishment 

 is founded is that those who are subject to it should 

 suffer discipline of such degree of severity as may 

 act as a deterrent to them and to others who might 

 be tempted to become criminals, hut that they 

 should at the same time be brought under the 

 reformatory influences of religious teaching, good 

 example, and such training in self-control as can 

 be given by offering certain advantages to industry 

 and good conduct, as well as inflicting suitable 

 punishment for the reverse. Every etWt is made 

 to prevent that mutual contamination which was 

 such a serious blot on prisons of the old type, ami 

 those prisoners who have not been previously con 

 victed and are on inquiry found clearly to be only 

 beginners in crime are formed into a separate body, 

 who, from the badge by which they are distin- 

 guished, are called the Star class, and who are 

 kept strictly apart from all others. The mode of 

 carrying out the sentence of penal servitude is as 

 follows : Every convict who receives this sentence 

 is placed for the first nine months in a prison 

 in which his whole time is passed in a separate 

 cell, except, of course, the time devoted to public 

 worship, necessary exercise, &c, ; but at all times 

 he is so far as ]x>ssible isolated from his fellows. 

 The remainder of his time in prison is passed 

 in one of the large establishments in which useful 

 work is carried on in a regulated association, 

 and he is able by industry combined with good 

 conduct to earn a remission of nearly one-fourth 

 of his sentence, besides gaining certain privileges 

 in regard to letter-writing, visits from his friends, 

 and such like indulgences, and a gratuity to be 

 paid to him on his discharge. The practice which 

 existed until 1864 of encouraging industry and 

 good conduct by certain increases in the diet was 

 discontinued from that date, as it was held that 

 to allow a prisoner more or better diet than alwo- 

 lutely necessary led to undesirable contrasts with 

 poor but honest folk who could afford no such 

 indulgences; and it will easily be seen that this 

 principle, which is of course applicable to other 

 things besides diet, makes it very difficult to devise 

 a suitable system of rewards for prisoners while 

 retaining the necessary penal or restrictive condi- 

 tions of prison life. 



At the head of every convict prison is the gover- 

 nor, whose duty it is to administer and supervise 

 all branches of the prison. He is assisted by a 

 staff who have to control ami regulate the dis- 

 cipline and employment of the prisoners, and a 

 stall" of clerks, who keep a record of all matters 

 relating to the prisoners and their sentences, their 

 conduct, &c. ; and also by a steward or storekeeper, 

 with astaff of clerks, who has tin-charge of storesand 

 accounts. The chaplain conducts divine service, 

 visits and advises the prisoners. He has under 

 him schoolmasters, who conduct their education. 

 A Roman Catholic priest is appointed to some 

 prisons, and in them are collected all the prisoners 

 of that communion. The medical officer has charge 

 of matters relating to the health of the prisoners. 

 The hospital is constructed on the most modern 

 principles, and provides accommodation for some 

 patients in separation and for the association of 

 those for whom the medical ollicer thinks it, 11. 

 sary. Tocontrol ami supcrv isc these convict prisons 

 a body called the Directors of Convict Prisou 

 was created for England and Wales by statute in 

 1850, whose ]M)\vers unite those of visiting justices 

 of ordinary prisons with those of various IxMlies 

 which had licen created by parliament from time 



