Pennsylvania Prison Society

“ As a society—we know no party sect or section—we go for wholesome laws and for a prompt, even, and rigid execution of them. We look upon crime as a public calamity. To prevent it, and to counteract the temptations and provocatives to it, is a most wise and philanthropic work, in which we gladly co-operate. Where crime is consummated, however, and the guilty party is condemned in due course of law, it is a question of deep public interest, what shall be done with him? ”

“ Many wish to do good; they long to repress crime; they wish to diminish human sorrow; the poor look to them for help. Ready are their hearts to pity and their hands to bestow an alms. But they do not give wisely. Like Howard, they are full of compassion; unlike him, they have no system, no principle of action, no wise mode of dealing with the criminal, the ignorant, and the poor. ”

“ The true light in which Inspectors should regard themselves is, as protectors of the public against danger from such a source. They are appointed to superintend a process by which the ferocious passions of a man may be subdued—his vicious inclinations changed and right moral feelings and habits implanted. If the highest and best object of penitentiary discipline is attained, he who is received under it as a tiger, is discharged from it as a lamb. The infrequency of such a transformation might not be so striking if Inspectors executed their functions in a proper spirit. ”

“ The most important of them are, doubtless, the comparative inefficiency of our police in preventing crime, the comparative uncertainty of our courts in punishing crime, the neglect of our young vagrant population, and the vast number of disorderly groggeries, licensed and unlicensed, that have all the while, without restraint, been stimulating the passions and bad propensities of all the lower classes of our population. It is time that these matters should be seriously and earnestly looked at and cared for. Our streams of crime are increasing into torrents, and they threaten to overwhelm us. ”

“ But we shall greatly err if we attribute all the insanity in a separate prison (or indeed in any prison) to a peculiarity in its system of discipline. There will always be those who take ground against a system, no matter for what cause, and who, in their eagerness to maintain it, will press into the service not only whatever bears the semblance of truth, but many things which a little honest inquiry would show, have not even this to justify the use that is made of them. Insanity is found in a prison. ”

“ A foul and terrific murder has been committed—public feeling is excited to a high degree—every agency in the power of the government is put in requisition to detect the perpetrator and bring him to justice—no pains, stratagem or expense are spared to accomplish this end—perchance two or three false arrests are made—the ardor of pursuit is abated—and some new outrage or calamity catches the eye, and diverts the attention of the public. ”

“ It was a signal triumph of humanity over ignorance and selfishness, and opened the way for a series of efforts, the benign results of which have scarcely a parallel in the annals of benevolence.
If we imagine, for a moment, thousands of men and women, some confined like wild beasts in dens or cages, enduring the most cruel tortures at the hands of their nearest earthly friends, and doomed, for the remnant of their lives, to hopeless and unmitigated suffering ”

“ We do not advocate any course that shall mitigate, in the slightest degree, the legitimate severity of punishment. But we urge it as a matter of public economy, as the dictate of a sound policy, that where two methods of dealing with offenders are at the State’s election, one of which gives better promise than the other for the correction of the vicious dispositions and for the restoration to honest society of a single culprit, it should be chosen, whatever claim the other may show on the score of present expense. ”

“ We are aware, that in these times, when so many private and party considerations are allowed to mingle with questions of public interest, it will be no easy matter to secure a safe and liberal policy on such a subject as we are considering. But if so great achievements have been made by the good and wise who have lived and acted before us, it ill-becomes us in the light of their example, and with facilities for the work which were unknown to them,—it ill-becomes us to relax our efforts or to refuse any reasonable service or sacrifice, which will complete what they so nobly begun. ”

“ If we ultimately retain capital punishment in our code, the limitation of the charge of murder which we have suggested will cause the notion of deliberate murder and the scaffold to be associated together in men’s minds. They are not so associated at present; for, besides the chances of escaping conviction, it is notorious that condemned convicts rarely abandon hope even to the very last. Let us strive to get rid of the mockery of pronouncing solemn sentences of death in cases which are unfit for execution. ”

“ The most flagrant and thrice convicted offender is here associated with one who is presumed to be innocent, because not proved to be guilty; the old and practised thief with the novice in dishonesty—the forger and counterfeiter with the poor but honest debtor—while, at short intervals, there creep into this motley crowd, “the disgusting objects of popular contempt besmeared with filth from the pillory—the victim of the whipping post, with blood streaming from his lacerated body, the half naked vagrant and the loathsome drunkard.” ”

“ Honest men and law-abiding citizens have rights and privileges which are also to be respected. When professional ingenuity is tasked to discover some shift or subterfuge by which the results of a conviction can be avoided, and the ends of public justice defeated; the impression made on the public mind is, that the criminal is defending himself against the vindictive aim of the government. Instead of appearing like a thief who is convicted, and is dodging every way to elude his pursuers ”

“ But let us brace up our nerves and protect our senses while we return for a moment to the prison-scenes of a former day. It is the Lord’s day. The streets of the city are thronged with people wending their way to the various places of public worship, but who thinks or cares for the “gaol-birds?” Shut out from the light and air of heaven, polluted in body and mind, and given over to work all manner of wickedness greedily, the day which brings repose to the care-worn, and peace to the troubled in heart, is fraught with no good to them. ”

“ But no—hundreds and thousands of citizens unite to arrest the arm of justice, and to screen these desperate felons from the just reward of their deeds. Can any one fail to see the influence of such a proceeding, in relaxing the authority of the government, and bringing the highest sanctions of law into popular contempt? ”

“ There is something utterly revolting to every human sympathy, in the idea that a hospital for poor lunatics must be delayed till some political party has strength enough to venture on the expense, or that the adoption of a system of prison-discipline, or the establishment of a House of Refuge for juvenile offenders and vagrants, should be governed by so narrow a consideration, as its tendency to promote or defeat a transient political end! ”

“ Not that a man who is about to commit a crime considers very scrupulously either what measure of punishment is affixed to a certain shade of crime, or what are the chances for escaping detection; but there is a general conviction abroad in all communities on these subjects, engendered by observing from time to time the proportion of criminal acts that escape detection, and the proportion of criminal actors that evade merited punishment; and this general impression influences evil-disposed persons quite as much as any other class. ”

“ If there were nothing else to look at but the single institution known as the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, with all its wonderful agencies and appointments for ministering to the relief of the direst of all the ills that flesh is heir to, we should exclaim with gratitude to the Author of all good—How marvellous the change! ”

“ Now, without denying that imprisonment of all sorts is an unnatural state for any man to be in, and therefore likely to bring to light whatever latent proclivities to physical or mental infirmity may exist; or that there may be a neglect of hygienic laws, and a disregard of those precautions, which professional skill or common prudence may suggest for the counteraction of morbid agencies;—we confidently affirm that the separation of a convict from his fellows, has no tendency in that direction to make it an objectionable feature of prison discipline. ”

“ Now, as American citizens, we are surely all alike concerned in giving every child a good education, and in correcting as soon and as effectually as possible every vicious habit and propensity. Hence our common schools are public property, and should be not only out of sight, but out of hearing of the din of political strife or the roll of the “drum ecclesiastic.” ”

“ From that time, though by slow degrees, the penal discipline of the State has advanced in efficiency as well as humanity, and to see prisoners toiling in irons in our streets now, would be as incongruous to all our feelings and habits, as to see the most imposing mansions in our city converted into Indian wigwams, and savage council fires kindled in Independence Square. ”