Pennsylvania Prison Society

“ If he borders on that state of imbecility which would exempt him from moral responsibility, the shade of guilt in which he is involved will be scarcely perceptible, and the punishment would of course be proportionably light. If on the other hand, the character and method of his crime indicate ingenuity in contriving and vigor in executing his criminal purposes, though he may be below par in his intellectual capacity, he must take his chance with other offenders, who may be better able to endure the retribution than himself. It is so all the world over. ”

“ So in families, schools, and larger communities, general laws are established which operate unequally, but are on the whole salutary and wise; and so must it be in the discipline of every prison. The same degree of restraint, 111 privation or punishment bears much more severely on some than on others, and while humanity requires us to alleviate, as far as possible, the miseries of public prisons, it can hardly expect us to forego the eminent advantages of a system of discipline, because it does not adapt itself to every grade of intellect and education. ”

“ It is a trite argument now, that the reformation of one child, while it is far more hopeful than the reclamation of one old offender, is many degrees cheaper than the punishment of that one. Experience proves that there is scarcely a single case out of a thousand where the incipient disease of vice has not yielded to the ameliorating treatment of kindness, and the removal of the cause—poverty. Cheaper; because directly diminishing pauperism, it, in the first place, reduces the amount we, as a community, pay for its support ”

“ Some are very credulous, and look upon the worst rogues as quite reclaimable under the influence of personal kindness and Christian counsel. We apprehend that if the probability of prison-reformation may not be determined precisely by the degree to which the offender is separated from criminal associations and suggestions, it depends mainly upon it. And it is our deliberate and long-settled conviction, that (other things being equal) the best appointed system of discipline will be of very little avail in its reformatory power, where convict-association, in any form or degree, is tolerated. ”

“ The tendency to generalize, and to mistake resemblances which are easily seen after a contrivance has become familiar, for the real succession of ideas by which a reformer was led to his discoveries and plans, has always had the effect to conceal from posterity the true difficulties of any achievement in their behalf. Hence the influence properly attributable to the intervention of an individual in the affairs of society, cannot be accurately judged, unless there be first considered the state of the case as it appeared to his immediate predecessors, and his contemporaries. ”

“ But it is certain, that, from the juvenile depravity of which the truancy of the school is both a sign and a cause, grows a large part of the suffering and crime of society. It is rare to find in our prisons those who were well cared for as children, and trained in regular habits of useful industry. An active child can be kept out of evil only by giving him something good to do; and when idleness has thoroughly corrupted the earliest years of life, what can we expect from riper years, but a maturity of vice, greater as temptations become stronger, and opportunities for crime are enlarged? ”

“ A severer discipline in an institution that should receive them at an earlier stage of their career, might often check their criminal propensities, and put them upon a praiseworthy course; but when they become reckless of life, and property, and public peace, and boast themselves in feats of iniquity which matured convicts would scarcely attempt to excel, we should be slow to relax the rigour of punishment, except in cases of manifest infirmity of body or mind. ”

“ The completion of a State Lunatic Asylum, it is to be hoped, has removed the last obstacle to a course already long approved of by every one, and urgently demanded by all the material and moral circumstances concerned in the case. For the object of prisons, if I understand it, is the punishment and prevention of crime, and, possibly the reformation of criminals. But the mischief that irresponsibles may do, is not crime, nor are they criminals: they may be restrained, but not punished. ”

“ Few evils arise, under any system of government, for which there is not a choice of remedies; and if it is made evident that under the application of a sound principle of prison-discipline, cases occur in which the legitimate ends of punishment are defeated, or at least not answered, the first question would be whether these cases are numerous and important enough to impair our confidence in the principle ”

“ On the contrary, free, vigorous and timely “out-of-door exercise,” which is perfectly compatible in any form and degree with the principle of our system, is clearly in his opinion, the grand panacea for prison-ills. The gardener and waggoner, at the Eastern State Penitentiary are accustomed to employ as assistants, such convicts as need exercise in the open air, and an officer is specially appointed to “attend invalid convicts, and give to them at least one hour daily of out-of-door exercise, combined with improving social intercourse.” ”

“ So in the reports, the same distinction would be made between the convicts proper, who are undergoing the process of punishment, and those who from alienation of mind, antecedent or subsequent to their reception as prisoners, are not proper subjects of penal suffering, though they are proper subjects of personal restraint, and, as such, have a lodging within the prison walls. In a word, if our penitentiary must be used for the detention or custody of lunatics whatever their character or grade, let it have due credit as a hospital, and not suffer undeserved reproach as a penitentiary. ”

“ Is our community doomed to stand quietly by and see these streams of social corruption rising and swelling? Is there no arm long enough and strong enough to reach the fountain and check, if not suppress, its issues? ”

“ Notwithstanding the simplicity and unity of the principle on which the Pennsylvania system of prison discipline is based, there is often a vagueness of opinion and a looseness of expression concerning it that surprises us. ”

“ Without relaxing in any degree the radical principle of separation, or rendering the penal feature of the discipline any less severe, the moral and physical well being of the convicts has been greatly advanced, and the claims of the worst of them to kind and humane treatment have been recognised with a distinctness of which they are, for the most part, happily conscious. ”

“ Our Houses of Refuge are intended to receive those who have entered, or are just entering upon a course of life, which ordinarily ends in the penitentiary; and they have doubtless saved scores of youth from the convict’s infamous doom, and returned them to their families and to society, with every prospect of usefulness and respectability. ”

“ The punishment which many sins carry in themselves, does not adapt itself very nicely to individual constitutions and temperaments. One slave of the intoxicating cup may have far greater powers of resisting the temptation to indulgence than his comrade, yet they are found wallowing in the same gutter. Men of limited capacity have a much harder struggle for their daily bread than their more capable neighbors, but in the event of their feloniously taking what does not belong to them, we do not find special laws are enacted to meet their case. ”

“ The roof indeed is not lathed and plastered, but there is all the more ventilation. Everywhere, although things are homely enough, there is an air of perfect cleanliness. Two or three excellent maps hang across and divide the apartment, in one end of which are the boys, in the other the girls. Let him look at either class, and what a strange study for the physiognomist or phrenologist are the faces and foreheads of the pupils. Some have countenances on which the traces of very early hard life are still visible; the lines of misery are scarcely yet effaced. ”

“ Those who shall hereafter witness signal triumphs of benevolence and skill, to which his labors have opened the way, may—and if the fortune which has awaited even the most eminent of reformers shall not be reversed, probably will—fail to conceive the full measure of his contributions towards the crowning result; but while a tradition survives amongst his associates in prison reform, and their successors in Pennsylvania, his name will not cease to be mentioned with honorable distinction. ”

“ The English government at a great expense, and with a generous liberality of encouragement, of which there was no parallel in the United States, procured a series of experiments upon the ventilation of large buildings, and upon the fitness of various kinds of walls for the necessities of our discipline; and authorized the construction of a model prison, upon which were lavished the best science and art within reach of the commissioners; and the result was naturally an improvement in the details of contrivance, as well as in the material execution of these. ”

“ If, after due experience, it is found that the employment of the convict is not adapted to his strength or capacity, the fact is reported to the warden, and intelligent suggestions offered as to his future treatment. If the prisoner’s moral conduct proves perverse, he is subdued by kind remonstrance, when for similar breaches of discipline he would formerly have been punished; and if symptoms of insanity, or physical disease portend, the deepest interest is felt, and every possible exertion made to avert the threatened evil. ”

“ There are also in these institutions a few, who, from their peculiarly dangerous character, and the utter hopelessness of benefiting them by treatment, can never with propriety become inmates of the hospital. To protect the community and the ordinary insane from the dangerous propensities of these individuals, it would be necessary to introduce into our wards, intended for the treatment of disease, all the most repulsive features of a prison, or that a separate building, having strictly a prison character, should be erected upon the grounds. ”

“ The moment it becomes manifest that he has, through the visitation of God, lost the control of his intellectual faculties, so as to be exempt from the ordinary responsibilities of a reasonable being, all his relations to society are changed. The government which stood ready to charge home his guilt and demand his punishment as an offender, offers him protection and sympathy as a sufferer. ”

“ Convict-life is, and of right ought to be a life of privation; and the wise disciplinarian takes advantage of this period to cross the prisoner’s vicious inclinations at every point, and thus connect the process of punishment with the process of reformation. Dr. G. has seen “a strong stubborn man beg for tobacco with tears in his eyes.” We have seen such a man beg, in like manner, for a drink of grog, or the means of escape from prison. ”

“ Others would confine the use of such an asylum to the detention and treatment of all lunatics of criminal disposition, whether they have actually committed a crime or not. Some would completely separate criminals who have become insane after conviction, from those who have committed crimes under the influence of insanity—the former, of whom only would be properly called insane convicts. The distinction is obvious, viz., that an insane person cannot become a convict, though a convict may become insane. ”

“ The British government meditating a change of penal discipline, and the French and Prussian governments with a like design, sent commissioners to the United States, to examine the penitentiaries. Those gentlemen had previous knowledge of prison architecture in Europe; and they visited the prisons of greatest reputation in America; and they found our discipline administered with a success unparalleled. When they returned to their respective governments, the plans which they reported for adoption, were essentially the same with that of the Eastern Penitentiary. ”

“ Would they advance as directly and as boldly to the application of the remedy as they do to the exposure of the evil?
It is obvious from the language of the report, that the Suffolk Grand Jury have a much clearer idea of the disease than they have of the cure. The class of persons to whom they refer as “committed for first offences” are nevertheless “convicts,” and nothing can remove the “mark of the penitentiary” but an executive pardon. And whether there is “an apparent opportunity for their reformation,” is not an easy question to determine. ”

“ Boys and girls of twelve or fifteen years of age, in a majority of cases, choose their own pursuits, receive the whole or a part of their earnings, to be expended at their pleasure; and with these elements of independence it is not difficult to connect a contempt for all authority, parental and magisterial, and this soon breaks up the foundations of society. ”