Arthur George Frederick Griffiths

“ Besides this, convict labour has been usefully employed in the erection of prison buildings at new points or in extension of those at the old. In all cases the bricks have been made, the stone quarried and dressed, the timber sawn, the iron cast, forged and wrought by the prisoners. The great merit of this system is the skill acquired in handicrafts by so many otherwise idle and useless hands. Convict mechanics are rarely found ready made. It is a fact that a large percentage of the total number employed at trades learnt them in prison. ”

“ Prison Industries.—It is an axiom in prison science that enforced labour cannot easily be made productive. No doubt the problem has been in a measure solved in England by that useful incentive to industry, the mark system. But the more substantial returns cannot always be expected with the sedentary employments and single-handed effort inseparable from the régime of cellular imprisonment. England for many years past, in adopting the principle of Public Works Prisons after a certain short period spent in separation, has pronounced in favour of open-air employment in association. ”

“ It must be at once admitted that the system of isolation has produced no remarkable results. Solitary confinement has neither conquered nor appreciably diminished crime, even where it has been applied with extreme care, as in Belgium, and more recently in France, where it obtains strict and unbroken for long terms of years. Cloistered seclusion is an artificial condition quite at variance with human instincts and habits, and the treatment, long continued, has proved injurious to health, inducing mental breakdown. ”

“ Dietaries are everywhere the same; they are calculated with great nicety according to the time of durance, and afford variety and ample nutrition without running into excess. In a word, as regards discipline, labour, treatment, exactly the same system obtains in the “local” prisons throughout the United Kingdom.
Where the sentence passes beyond two years it ceases to be styled imprisonment and becomes penal servitude, which may be inflicted for any period from three years to life. The prisoner becomes a convict and undergoes his penalty in one or more of the convict prisons. ”

“ There is an enormous mass of so-called crime in England which is not crime at all, and still is perpetually penalized by ar. infliction of imprisonment for such short periods as to be perfectly futile. ”

“ Although the system still has many hostile critics its value cannot be contested. It has been said by a trustworthy authority [1] “We are convinced also that severe labour on public works is most beneficial in teaching criminals habits of industry and training them to such employments as digging, road-making and brick-making-work of a kind which cannot be carried on in separate confinement.” A good proof of the value of the system as remunerative and healthful, morally and physically, is seen in the growing desire of other countries to follow our lead. ”

“ A special class was formed in 1880, in which all convicts “not versed in crime,” first offenders and comparatively innocent men, are now kept apart from the older and more hardened criminals. The committee last quoted gave it as their opinion that “penal servitude as at present administered is on the whole satisfactory; it is effective as a punishment and free from serious abuses . . . a sentence of penal servitude is now generally an object of dread to the criminal population.” ”

“ In some states economic considerations have carried the day; in others the stringency of labour laws under the pressure of labour associations has paralysed all prison industry. In the first mentioned, the contract system, by which a contractor hires the prisoner’s labour from the state, has proved very profitable, but at the sacrifice of discipline and neglect of reformatory processes upon the individual. ”

“ The cellular system has been adopted in all British colonies with various modifications, and prisons built on modern principles are to be found in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Cape of Good Hope. India retains association as the system most suitable for its criminal classes, with other methods generally abandoned in Great Britain, such as the employment of well-conducted prisoners as auxiliaries in prison discipline and service; deportation is still the penalty for the worst offences and is carried out on a large scale and with satisfactory results in the Andaman Islands. ”

“ In 1831 a select committee of the House of Commons went into the whole subject of secondary punishment and reported that, as the difficulties in the way of an effective classification of prisoners were insurmountable, they were strongly in favour of the confinement of prisoners in separate cells, recommending that the whole of the prisons should be altered accordingly and the expense borne by the public exchequer. There can be little doubt that this committee was greatly struck by the superior methods of prison discipline pursued in the United States. ”

“ A slow death may be defended indeed on moral grounds if regeneration has been compassed, but it is only another form of capital punishment. Still the measures introduced in the United States and the action taken upon them fill a large page in prison history and must be recorded here.
Several states in the Union followed the lead of Pennsylvania. That of New York built the great Auburn penitentiary in 1816 to carry out the new principles. There every prisoner was kept continuously in complete isolation. He saw no one, spoke to no one, and did no work. ”

“ There is a minimum of ten years, but the individual may elect to continue in separation, or be transferred to partial association. A new school of Belgian criminologists has been headed by M. Prins, the chief of the prison department, who has protested that to hope the vicious, hardened offender, after a long detention, “surrounded with every attention, soaked with good counsel, will leave his cell regenerated,” is a Utopian dream. ”

“ In Italy a comprehensive scheme has been drawn up so that cellular imprisonment may become a general rule. In Belgium, where penal administration has received the closest attention for a number of years, the régime of cellular imprisonment has been long carried to its farthest limits, and solitary confinement ranging over ten years and in some cases much more has been strictly enforced. ”

“ The “cell” scheme of individual separation holds the ground, and countries which can afford the outlay have built or are building cellular prisons. France has made steady progress in this respect. Great additions have been made to La Santé prison in Paris, and a new prison on gigantic lines has been opened at Fresnes les Rungis, on the outskirt of the metropolis, to replace the obsolete Mazas, and to give cellular accommodation to the large numbers always on hand in Paris. Germany has embarked on penitentiary reforms with the provision of several new prisons ”

“ Movements similar to that which Mrs Fry headed were soon set on foot both in England and on the Continent, and public attention was generally directed to the urgent necessity for prison reform. Stimulated by the success achieved by Mrs Fry, the Prison Discipline Society continued its labours. Hostile critics were not wanting; many voices were raised in protest against the ultra-humanitarianism which sought to make gaols too comfortable and tended to pamper criminals. But the society pursued its objects, undeterred by sarcasm. Many of these are now accepted as axioms in prison treatment ”

“ The “B” division indicates the worst penalties to be inflicted upon habitual criminals. There is no recognition whatever of the principle of the indeterminate sentence. The law merely prescribes the forfeiture of all remission. The convict is not eligible for release or licence, but when the time of conditional liberation would have formerly arrived the case is submitted to the authorities and dealt with on its merits. Early release depends upon the reports on industry and conduct, and the prospect of his keeping straight if set free. ”

“ Sir George Grey sought to deal with the difficulty as a. whole, and to provide for all classes of criminals, the most heinous deserving severe correction and the minor offenders in the earliest stages of misconduct. For the first there was some urgency, the latter was still the business of the local jurisdictions. The system now introduced consisted of three principal parts: (1) of a limited period of separate confinement in a home prison or penitentiary, accompanied by industrial employment and moral training; (2) of hard labour at some public works prison either at home or abroad ”

“ As for penal servitude, the punishment reserved for the gravest offences, great changes had been introduced. We left this branch of the subject at a parliamentary inquiry. The verdict given was in the main satisfactory; but doubts were expressed as to the severity of the discipline inflicted, the principal features of which were moderate labour, ample diet and substantial gratuities. The first was far less than the work free men did for a livelihood, the second larger, the third excessive, so that convicts often left prisons with thirty, forty, , even eighty pounds in their pockets. ”

“ The federal government has no influence or control except for offences against the federal laws, regulating coinage, postal service, the revenue and so forth. Prison management is essentially a local concern, but some general features are common to all states, such as the rule that while petty offenders and prisoners awaiting trial are under county and city jurisdiction, the state takes charge of all persons convicted of serious crimes. The state prisons receive by far the largest proportion of the criminal population, more than half the general total being imprisoned therein. ”

“ At one end of the scale are the numerous bad county gaols and the horrors of the convict lease system in the southern states, now nearly extinct; at the other such modern and well-equipped reformatories as Elmira and Concord (see Juvenile Offenders) . The worst feature is the indiscriminate association sometimes seen of all inmates, bond and free, the convicted and accused; even witnesses against whom there is no shadow of a charge are sometimes imprisoned among felons. ”

“ Throughout the sentence the prisoner has the advantage of religious and moral instruction; he attends divine service regularly, and whatever his creed is visited by a chaplain professing it, and receives educational assistance according to his needs. His physical welfare is watched over by competent medical men; close attention is paid to the sanitary condition of prisons; strict rules govern the size of cells, with their lighting, warming and ventilation. ”

“ The indoor manufactures followed in British prisons are not so varied as the foregoing and have been limited by the protests and objections raised by free or outside labour against alleged unfair competition. Accordingly, the production of goods has been largely curtailed for the open market and prison labour is restricted nowadays to supplying articles required for current use by public departments-such as the navy, army, post office and, of course, all prison establishments. ”

“ The progress made can only be realized by considering what prisons once were. The shocking picture drawn by John Howard of the state of prisons at the latter end of the 18th century will last for all time. They were for the most part pestiferous dens, overcrowded, dark, foully dirty, not only ill ventilated, but deprived altogether of Howard’s Reforms in England fresh air. The wretched inmates were dependent for food upon the Caprice of their gaolers or the charity of the benevolent ”

“ Meanwhile prison discipline in the elementary stage, as inflicted on lesser offenders, was continually discussed. The subject was referred to many committees for inquiry, and it was shown that there was a lamentable want of uniformity in the enforcement of legal penalties. The processes and treatment varied with the localities. Dietaries differed, here too ample, there meagre to starvation. The amount of exercise allowed varied greatly; there was no universal rule as to employment. In some prisons hard labour was insisted upon, and embraced tread-wheels or the newly-invented cranks ”

“ Very similar operations have been carried out in Austria-Hungary, where large tracts of land have been brought into cultivation, and watercourses have been diverted successfully despite serious difficulties, climatic and physical; in Russia convict labour has been largely used in the construction of the Trans-siberian railway; the military operations in the Sudan were greatly aided by convict labourers engaged in useful work at the base and all along the line; Italy passed a law in 1904 enacting outdoor labour for the reclamation and draining of waste lands by prisoners under long sentence ”

“ Yet the legislature was alive to the need for prison reform. Besides the building of Millbank it had promulgated many acts for the amelioration of prisoners. Gaol fees were once more distinctly abolished; the appointment of chaplains was insisted upon, and the erection of improved prison buildings was rendered imperative upon local authorities. But these, with other and much older acts, remained in abeyance. Thus an act which provided for the classification of prisoners had remained a dead letter; even the separation of the males from the females was not a universal rule. ”