Pennsylvania Prison Society

“ But besides and independent of these cases, we have among us a large population, numbered by thousands and tens of thousands, who live by outrage and depredation; to whom crime is an employment and profession; who are brought up to it; who have no other teaching, no other vocation, no other resource; to whom the respectable and industrious portion of society is the oyster they have to open; who prey upon the community, and sometimes hate it also. They are simply the enemies of society ”

“ Divested of all complications, our task is to defend ourselves against the criminal population,—the professional criminals; to guard society against their outrages and depredations in the most prompt, effectual, and enduring fashion we can devise. ”

“ We view labor, in connection with the prisoners, in a two-fold light. The possession of it is a positive good, not only as a comfort and companion in their solitary hours, but also as a reformatory agent. And the want of it is not only a negative, but a positive evil, especially with those of a low order of education and intelligence, who, being unable to read, and possessing very little matter for reflection, have no resource with which to occupy and interest the mind, and consequently there is danger that by constantly preying upon itself, it may become diseased. ”

“ So far as we are acquainted with the actual condition of the various countries of the civilized world, we are compelled to the painful and humiliating conviction, that there are individuals amongst their inhabitants who are prone to, and actually will interfere with, and depredate upon the rights of others, unless they are subjected to moral or physical restraint. This fact has made it necessary that measures should be adopted to protect the general mass of society against the wrong-doing of these evil-disposed persons. ”

“ How is the legislator who awards, or the judge who pronounces, to ascertain the weight and bearing of any given sentence upon any individual culprit? The same penalty which to one man would be almost too lenient for a theft, may, to a differently organized and differently trained offender, be too severe almost for a murder. ”

“ While at large, plotting or practising mischief and crime, labor has appeared to them repulsive, and never having enjoyed its rewards, they have shrunk from it,—but when their evil career has been thus suddenly brought to a close, and social intercourse of every kind with their fellowmen is very much restricted, and that with their former associates is wholly cut off, labor is soon sought after, and is found to be such an alleviation to their present condition, that they cherish it as a blessing. ”

“ The reason why it should not seek to punish them, in the strict and proper meaning of that word, is, that it has not the knowledge requisite for the just discharge of that function. It cannot possibly apportion the penalty it inflicts to the guilt of the offender, which apportionment constitutes the very essence of punishment. Neither the wisest judge, nor the most patient and enlightened jury, nor the most omniscient police officer, can do more than form a plausible conjecture as to the moral criminality of any convict ”

“ We believe that all reflecting men must be convinced that the reformation of criminals, besides being a question of expediency, in which the community has a deep stake on the score of self-protection, is one, the promotion of which, so far as is in our power, is of the highest Christian obligation, in reference to both the temporal and eternal good of those who, having by their criminal conduct, forfeited the liberty enjoyed by the common mass of their fellow men, have, for the security of society, been committed to prison. ”

“ From the thorough isolation maintained, we think it must be evident, that no prison under it can ever become a moral pest-house, where the depravity and wickedness of one prisoner may be communicated to another, or, as it were, prove contagious, and thus spread moral corruption around him. As neither the words, countenance, nor gestures of one can be heard or seen by another, it is clear, that those committed are not subjected to such influences whilst in confinement, as will make them morally worse on leaving, than when they entered. ”

“ We are aware that in some countries, in framing their penal laws and discipline, the only object appears to be to prevent the continued perpetration of offences by the imprisonment of those convicted as offenders, and by the severity of their punishment to deter them from a repetition of their crimes after their discharge; the example of which punishment, it is desired, shall also operate to restrain others from entering upon and pursuing an equally criminal course. ”

“ By the aid of humanity, their undue and illegal sufferings may be prevented; the links which should bind the whole family of mankind together, under all circumstances, be preserved unbroken; and such degrees and modes of punishment may be discovered and suggested, as may, instead of continuing habits of vice, become the means of restoring our fellow-creatures to virtue and happiness. From a conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles, the subscribers have associated themselves under the title of “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.” ”

“ Instead of being a school of reform, through whose influence the number of those from whom outrages might be apprehended would be lessened, if it does not actually increase them, it at least makes life-long criminals of the most hardened character, of a large proportion of those subjected to its discipline, who, at the time of their first commitment, were by no means steeped in wickedness ”

“ Criminals, the moment we look at them closely and analytically, divide themselves into two distinct categories—the casual and the habitual. Many of the more trifling, and some of the most heinous offenders, belong to the former class. Temptation there will always be; and this will be liable to increase with the progress and complexity of civilization, as long as some are poor and some are rich, and as long as the appliances of wealth are spread out in the sight of the struggling and needy. Defective moral natures there will always be—natures weak to resist and prone to fall ”

“ Any man, in any rank, of violent or malignant temper and ill-disciplined mind, may, in a moment of provocation or of fury, be guilty of manslaughter; or, if he be thoroughly bad and licentious, may outrage a defenceless woman, or murder one whom he hates, or whose possession he desires. Crimes and criminals of this sort, however, are not those that embarrass our police, and perplex our rulers and philosophers; they do not constitute the social problem we have to solve. ”

“ In this record of the first institution of the office of the magistrate, and the qualifications considered as requisite in the man to fill the position, we have a lesson that it becomes us diligently to consider at the present day. If there has been degeneracy of the world since the days of Moses, in no respect perhaps has it been more forcibly felt, than in the mode of administering justice, (or as it would be more properly termed injustice,) at the present day, by the police or committing magistrates. ”

“ After the prosecutor had done this, he went to the alderman and sued her on the charge above named. This he did to secure himself from being prosecuted by her for assault and battery.
Let the community arise! Let our City Councils and our State Legislature act, and perfect such legislation as will remedy this crying evil, and rid our beautiful city, so distinguished for progress in arts, science, and benevolent institutions, of this polluted sore. ”

“ The instinct of self-protection would naturally, and even properly suggest, that the first object should be to secure the community against a repetition of the wrong-doing, by placing the individual who has committed a serious offence under such physical restraint as to make it impossible for him for a time to continue his evil course. This object may be secured by a close confinement of the culprit in a prison or penitentiary. ”

“ In some instances they are content with the fees established by law, but there is ground to believe that extortion is not unfrequently attempted to be practised, and sometimes with success. The mode of compensating the aldermen, by fees to be derived from the individual cases in which they act, gives them an interest in thus oppressing the helpless, and has long been a crying evil. Under this system, and in actual practice, there is good reason to fear, that much of the 18 income of many of them is not merely “the gain of oppression,” but that of extortion also. ”

“ In countries where the magistrate is appointed by the head or ruling power for his qualifications, and is independent of the people over whom he presides, this feeling or sentiment, as a general thing, has been justified. The people living under the administration of such, lay themselves down and sleep in peace, and arise and go to their avocations, feeling that their rights, their property, and their lives are secure, because the righteous magistrate dwells in the land! ”

“ Whilst the latter system, where silence is imposed, though certainly a step in advance of the former, as it cannot so extensively propagate criminality, yet from the fact that the prisoners cannot be approached separately, and that this system of silence and non-intercourse amongst them, under the strong temptation to the indulgence of their social propensities when placed in the presence of each other, is only maintained by harsh and severe discipline; reformatory agencies can hardly be brought to bear upon them, and efforts in this direction, very rarely, indeed, produce the desired effect. ”

“ The various officers of the Penitentiary, by their general kindness and good temper in their care of and intercourse with the prisoners, evidence their fitness for their position, and as “like begets like,” similar deportment is reciprocated by the prisoners towards them. This is one of the excellent features of our System, which rarely, if ever, calls for the exercise of harshness by the keepers, and, consequently, instead of vindictive or bitter feelings being excited towards them, on the part of those under their control, a mutual feeling of sympathy is frequently brought into action. ”

“ Systems compared.—It may be thought that we have dwelt long enough on this branch of the subject; but as its discussion has in some measure brought into view our particular prison system, that of the entire separation of the prisoners from each other, day and night, during the whole term of their confinement, and by inference, if not directly, contrasted it with the “Auburn” or “Silent” System, where they are separated only at night and at their meals, but at other times are congregated in their workshops, &c., under a peremptory rule of silence. ”

“ All “fees” or charges, being the penalty for breaking or infringing the laws, should be collected and paid over to the public treasurer by the magistrate, leaving him free to act uninfluenced by them, as the impartial agent of the law, as between the ruling power or sovereignty of the people and the accused, and enable him to act as a peacemaker, or reconciler of difficulties. ”

“ They are thus qualified, upon again going forth into the world, to take a reputable position in society, and secure a livelihood without resuming their depredations on the community. Estimating the value of labor for the prisoners as we do, it is gratifying to us to know that they have recently been pretty fully supplied with it. It is the intention and direction of the Law, that it shall be thus supplied; and we believe, as will be seen by our foregoing remarks, that it is a valuable adjunct in the Pennsylvania or Separate System of Prison Discipline. ”

“ If this is the practical effect of the Law, it is plain, that it is not only a boon to the prisoner, but that the community is equally interested in its operation, as fewer of the prisoners will resume their depredations on society after their discharge. Besides, is it not the part of wisdom 5 at least, if not of duty, in framing laws for the temporal government of society, to follow the example of the Divine Law-giver? We do not find his code to be a system of punishment only, but also largely one of reward. ”

“ For a long time back, in spite of ceaseless warning, and ignoring all the lessons of experience, physiology, and common sense, we have done little to repress crime and much to encourage it. Our plans of dealing with it have been based upon no clear understanding and no settled principle; the changes we have introduced from time to time, have been either inconsistent nibblings or mutually destructive fluctuations; we have neither aimed at felling the tree, nor at cutting off the nourishment from its roots ”

“ Many of them have been convicted several times, never dream of adopting an honest mode of life, and could not do so if they wished. In a word, we have among us an army—very active, very well trained, tolerably organized, very resolute, and in part very desperate—of internecine enemies and spoliators, as numerous as the troops of most European kingdoms, and more numerous than the military and police forces in our own country combined. This is the evil we have to deal with. It is an evil, in some degree and in some form, incidental to every large and populous community ”

“ The consequence was, that many philanthropic and well meaning persons beyond the limits of Pennsylvania, became prejudiced against it to that degree, that there was no opening in their minds to hear the truth, and on merely naming the system to them they would almost turn from you in disgust. ”

“ If we seek for the influence which it exercises on the intellectual faculties of the prisoners, we must recognize, that far from disturbing their reason, it produces on their minds the most salutary results. In proof of this, I may mention, that not a single case of insanity has occurred in the prison, and that many who have been condemned for a term which require their removal to the Maisons Centrales, solicit as a real favor, the permission to complete their imprisonment in their cell. ”