702 



PRISON REFORM. 



came afterward the published works of John 

 Howard, whose philanthropic labors found 

 their best fruitage in the information that he 

 collected and arranged. But Howard's sug- 

 gestions only pointed to a remedy in external 

 conditions, to greater cleanliness and better 

 ventilation, to the better classification of 

 criminals, and to the abolishment of fees for 

 jail-delivery. His work called the attention 

 of European governments to the condition of 

 prisons, and during the first half of the present 

 century more information as to the actual 

 state of the prisons was gathered than during 

 the whole preceding history of the world. 

 The writings of the Hon. Matthew Davenport 

 Hill, the masterly reports of the Hon. Frederick 

 Hill, and the works of Buxton in England, 

 with the works of Livingston and Dr. Francis 

 Lieber in America, of Wichern in Germany, 

 and of De Tocqueville in France, all showed 

 an intelligent view of the real prison question. 

 Each suggested some new and radical change. 

 The solitary system had been tried, and the 

 severities of entire and idle isolation had been 

 found wanting in efficiency and productive of 

 grave evils. Transportation had been tried for 

 more than a century, and its evils were be- 

 coming more apparent. Then the key-note 

 of the most conspicuous reform known to 

 practical penology was struck in an utterance of 

 the Hon. Frederick Hill, Inspector of the Scot- 

 tish Prisons. He boldly declared himself for 

 the principle of indefinite or indeterminate 

 sentences. The sentence that Pope Clement 

 XI had written over the door of the Roman 

 prison of St. Michele, " Parum cst improbus 

 coercere posnd, nisi bonos efficias disciplina" 

 was becoming a generally recognized axiom of 

 penology, but so firmly were the old methods 

 of treatment grounded in custom that it had 

 little practical application. When the attempt 

 was made to apply it, it was found to be in- 

 consistent with existing systems. The length 

 of sentence having been determined by the 

 court, there was no incentive to improve- 

 ment in the possibility of an earlier liberation. 

 The retributive idea being dominant in the old 

 system, there was an unwillingness to make an 

 incentive by the introduction of any special 

 privileges that would ameliorate the condition 

 of the prisoner. 



Statistics show that by the old system the 

 primary object of imprisonment, protection of 

 society, was not efficiently promoted. It was 

 found, moreover, that the deterrent influences 

 of severe punishments had been vastly overrat- 

 ed. In spite of the vast machinery of criminal 

 courts, prisons, capital punishments, and police 

 organization, the world's criminal class was 

 increasing. The rotation of prisoners in the 

 prisons was noted. It came to be a popular 

 adage, " Once a criminal, always a criminal." 

 There seemed to be something radically wrong 

 in the whole system of penal procedure. By 

 the system of time-sentences, men were kept in 

 the prisons long after they were fitted to take 



their places as self-supporting and self-respect- 

 ing members of society, while criminals were 

 released on the expiration of time-sentences 

 who were as much members of the criminal 

 class as they were on the first day of their in- 

 carceration. The remedy for this condition of 

 things, as suggested by Frederick Hill, was to 

 transfer the decision as to the length of sentence 

 from the court to the managers and keepers of 

 the prisons the duration of the sentence to 

 depend on the evidences given by the prisoner 

 of his ability and intention to earn an honest 

 living and lead a law-abiding life. The mo- 

 ment the indefinite - sentence principle was 

 broached, a storm of discussion arose as to 

 whether the primary end of punishment was 

 the reformation of the criminal or the protec- 

 tion of society. Until the experiment was tried, 

 of purely reformatory prisons conducted on the 

 graded and indefinite-sentence plan, there were 

 no data to prove what has since been most 

 clearly demonstrated, that the highest protec- 

 tion to society was effected by the largest 

 reformation of criminals. In "The State of 

 the Prisons," by Rev. E. C. Wines, a view 

 of this discussion is afforded in the following 

 words : " Archbishop Whately entered the dis- 

 cussion, saying: 'We can not admit that the 

 reformation of the convict is an essential part 

 of punishment ; it may be joined to it inci- 

 dentally, but can not belong essentially and 

 necessarily to a penal system.' Abstractly, 

 this may be true; but prison discipline is a 

 very concrete thing. The real question is, 

 What class of agencies the reformatory or 

 the deterrent will be found most effective in 

 preventing crime, and so in protecting socie- 

 ty ? Mr. Clay, of Preston jail, maintained with 

 earnestness that reformation is a more essen- 

 tial element than even punishment, in any sys- 

 tem directed to these ends. He looked upon 

 the mass of prisoners as (to use his own phrase) 

 ' incidental offenders,' men who broke the law 

 on sudden impulse, and generally as the effect 

 of drink. These incipient criminals he con- 

 sidered the very men whom it was most pos- 

 sible to reform through a firm but kindly dis- 

 cipline, and especially through the regenerative 

 and purifying influences of religion. The real 

 problem (he contended) was to devise some 

 method of treatment that would combine de- 

 terrence and moral amendment, punishment 

 and reformation ; always, however, in view of 

 the protection of society through the prevention 

 of crime. This is the view now generally held 

 by the soundest students of penitentiary sci- 

 ence." The reformation of the offender as a 

 protection to society is now the aim of the 

 best penal systems. To keep him a ward of 

 the State till such reformation has taken place, 

 and to release him as soon as it has taken 

 place, is the practical problem involved. The 

 solution of this problem has occupied the at- 

 tention of the master minds of penological sci- 

 ence. No one has perhaps done more toward 

 this end than Sir Walter Crofton, who devised 



