Incarceration

“ CHAPTER LXXXVII. PEACE’S DISCHARGE FROM PRISON—​THE RETURN HOME. We must pass over the period of Peace’s incarceration as a convict, and take up his history from the time of his discharge.
As the long looked-for day began to approach the prisoner, as is usual in such cases, was permitted to grow his hair.
Three months’ permission is given for this purpose; the regular once-a-week “clip” is no longer insisted on, as the prisoner has become what in common parlance is termed “a permission man.”
As the weeks pass by the hair grows. ”

“ He releases hundreds of innocent persons, every year. He restores to family and friends those who have been detained for insignificant offences. He calls from the cells of the prison such as may have done acts that would have lead to a criminal life, and he gives them their freedom before association with the bad has weakened their moral perception,—before they can have formed resolutions to revenge upon society the offence of their incarceration. ”

“ When I say that every State prison is to be a reformatory, I except, of course, from its operation, those sentenced for life for murder, or other capital offenses, and those who have proved themselves incorrigible by repeated violations of their parole. ”

“ If in the wisdom of the members of the legislature the crime calls for imprisonment in the penitentiary, then the ordinary sentences run one, two, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years, and life, according to the hazard of the legislature, the whim of the court, the gamble of the jury, or the feeling and means of expression of the unthinking and pitiless crowd who awe courts and juries with their cries for vengeance.
Neither does punishment affect any two alike; the sensitive and proud may suffer more from a day in jail or even from conviction than another would suffer from a year. ”

“ How far a convict sentenced by a court of the United States to imprisonment in a state prison or penitentiary, and not in terms sentenced to hard labor, can be put to work, either as part of his punishment or as part of the discipline and treatment of the prison, was much discussed at the bar, but we have not found it necessary to dwell upon it, because we cannot doubt that at the present day imprisonment in a state prison or penitentiary, with or without hard labor, is an infamous punishment. ”

“ Suppose a man to be convicted of a crime of which he is innocent. As he has been convicted, the evidence, though fallacious, is overwhelming. He is sentenced to a term of imprisonment—say penal servitude. He serves his sentence and is in due course discharged. He is now free; but the conviction stands against him. He is a discharged convict. His name is in the prison books, his photograph and his finger-prints are in the Habitual Criminals’ Register. He is a marked man for life. ”

“ What rights does the State take from the criminal in imprisoning?
She takes from him the right to live and act outside of prison walls, to be a master to himself inside, and to receive his earnings as his own. ”

“ The punishment prescribed for violating this law was fine and imprisonment in a penal institution at hard and painful labor for a period ranging from twelve years and a day to twenty years, the prisoner being subjected, as accessories to the main punishment, to carrying during his imprisonment a chain at the ankle, hanging from the wrist, deprivation during the term of imprisonment of civil rights, and subjection, besides, to perpetual disqualification to enjoy political rights, hold office, etc., and, after discharge, to the surveillance of the authorities. ”

“ Did the law ever suppose that the court, after having sentenced a man to eight hundred years’ imprisonment, or even to two hundred and eighty years’ imprisonment, should go on, and sentence him to twenty years, or even to seven years more?—when the court must know that it would be imposing sentences to be executed centuries after the prisoner would be dead, and after he would have left his prison, not to return to this world, but to go to another. ”

“ The statutory basis of the punishment is found in an Act, 3 Edward I. (1275) , c. 12:—
“It is provided also, That notorious Felons, which openly be of evil name, and will not put themselves in Enquests of Felonies that Men shall charge them with before the Justices at the King’s suit, shall have strong and hard Imprisonment (prison forte et dure) , as they which refuse to stand to the common Law of the Land: But this is not to be understood of such prisoners as be taken of light suspicion.” ”

“ It is far less costly to the State than keeping them in prison, and often leads to the establishment of an honest life. [4]
Jails and Prisons: Every community has some kind of jail for the detention of offenders. Those who come in contact with the law are often the poor and the friendless who cannot get bail. Even innocent persons may be held some time awaiting trial, or the action of the grand jury. Young girls are often detained, sometimes as witnesses, sometimes pending investigation of their own cases, sometimes as runaways from home. ”

“ If the subsequent crime is such that, upon a first conviction, the offender might be punished, in the discretion of the court, by imprisonment for life, he must be sentenced to imprisonment in a state prison for life. ”

“ Any man, whatever may be his place or his employment, other than those to whom the law gives the right of arrest, who shall give, sign, execute or cause to be executed an order or arrest for a citizen, or anyone, who, even in the case of arrest authorised by law, shall conduct, receive, or retain a citizen in a place of detention not publicly and legally designated, and any custodian or jailer who shall contravene the provisions of articles 14 and 15 above, shall be guilty of the crime of arbitrary imprisonment. ”

“ In a state prison, almost every action of the prisoners, not particularly mentioned in the By-Laws, is either a crime or not, according to the whim that happens to be in the breast of the keeper at the time it is done. ”

“ It not unfrequently happens that, for trivial omissions upon some useless observance of forms, the victim is incarcerated in a prison, and, after enduring all the horrors of these dens of thieves, expires in want, disease, and apparent infamy! ”

“ The convict is placed in a public place of punishment, common to the whole state, subject to solitary imprisonment, to have his hair cropped, to be clothed in conspicuous prison dress, subjected to hard labor without pay, to hard fare, coarse and meager food, and to severe discipline. ”

“ In the main we treat all criminals alike if guilty of the same offence, though the same act denotes very different degrees of culpability in the different men, and the same punishment is attended with quite opposite results. Two men commit similar crimes, we sentence them both to the State Prison for ten years. At the expiration of one year let us suppose that one man has thoroughly reformed, and has made strict and solemn resolutions to pursue an honest and useful life. ”

“ The terms of the parole in each and every case was a regular report every month, that the prison officials, representative of the power and supervision of the State, might know exactly the situation of each convicted person who has been liberated upon obligation to keep the State informed of his movements.
“Some of these persons have never rendered a single report. Others have reported for a time, and then ceased to trouble themselves about the matter. In very many cases their whereabouts is unknown. ”

“ DESIGN OF PENITENTIARIES IN RESPECT TO THE TREATMENT OF CONVICTS, ACCORDING TO THE VIEWS OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE CONNECTICUT STATE PRISON, WITH REMARKS. "Upon the subject of the general treatment of the convicts, and the discipline of the institution, we would remark that the State Prison is designed to be, and emphatically is, a place of PUNISHMENT. The feelings of humanity and mistaken mercy should not be suffered to interpose, to disarm its punishment of that rigor due to justice and the violated laws of the land. ”

“ Where a person is convicted on indictment of an offence for which he is liable to be sentenced to penal servitude or imprisonment, and it appears to the court—
(a) that the person is not less than sixteen nor more than twenty-one years of age; and
(b) that, by reason of his criminal habits or tendencies, or association with persons of bad character, it is expedient that he should be subject to detention for such term and under such instruction and discipline as appears most conducive to his reformation and the repression of crime ”

“ I often wonder if the busy world ever gives a thought to the men incarcerated in places made for the punishment of crime and reformation of criminals, but often failing of reaching the desired result. Why is this failure? It must be from defect in the law or prison discipline. Some think perhaps the rigid enforcement of the law in its severest way is right, and that the prisoner should be shown no mercy. ”

“ Under these conditions the jail will become what it ought to be, a humane place of detention for persons awaiting trial, bearing in mind that such prisoners are presumed to be innocent in the eyes of the law until the courts find them guilty and determine the question of their subsequent treatment. ”

“ Only those imprisoned for the smaller offenses of a single incidence of petty larceny, receipt of felons, or accessory to a felony, or some other trespass not punishable by life or limb shall be let out by sufficient surety. Prisoners who were outlawed or escaped from prison or are notorious thieves or were imprisoned for felonious house-burning, passing false money, counterfeiting the King's seal, treason touching the King himself, or other major offenses or have been excommunicated by the church may not be released. ”

“ Every person who shall hold, or attempt to hold, in this State, in slavery, or as a slave, any person mentioned as a slave in the sixth section of this act, or any free person, in any form, or for any time, however short, under pretence that such person is or has been a slave, shall, on conviction thereof, be imprisoned in the State Prison for a term not less than one year, nor more than fifteen years, and be fined not exceeding two thousand dollars. ”

“ If it is a principle of our criminal jurisprudence, that the guilty should escape rather than the innocent suffer, it appears equally a principle, in the infliction of punishment, that every regulation connected with it, from the first committal of a prisoner to gaol to the termination of his sentence of transportation, should be characterized rather by an anxious care for the health and convenience of the criminal than for anything which might even by implication appear to bear on him with undue severity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We look upon this simplification of our penal operations as an advantage; and we are by no means disposed to favour those inventive gentlemen who would devise new punishments, or revive old ones, for the purpose, it would seem, of having a variety of inflictions corresponding to the variety of offences. A well-regulated prison, where the severity of the taskwork, the nature of the diet, the duration and the strictness of the confinement, all admit of apportionment to the offence, seems to include all that is desirable in this matter of punishment. ”

“ Make the prison a place of reformation, one of improvement as well as punishment, and instead of increasing crime you will reduce it, which should be the aim of all having the good of their fellowman at heart, and society will be the gainer. I would give a prisoner who would show by his conduct a spirit of reform a parole after half of his time, with conditions attached, as is done in the Minnesota state prison, so that, should he fall back into his old way of living, he would be returned to prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence. ”

“ Criminals of the worst class—murderers and the like—are not admitted here. Those who have life sentences have no business among those who are going out. About 75 per cent. of the convicts pass through the Intermediate Prison,—the other 25 per cent. consisting of the excluded class and of those whose health, commutation of sentence, or other circumstances interfere. Almost all, however, who are found in that establishment are grave offenders, and old offenders—often punished, but never before in the way of restoration as they are now. ”

“ The hope of permanent amendment is further sought by the fact that a situation, generally with good wages and congenial work, provided by the authorities, awaits every inmate at the time of his discharge. The inmates, selected from a very large class, are first offenders, but guilty generally of criminal offences, which include manslaughter, burglary, forgery, fraud, robbery and receiving. The exact measure of reformation achieved can never be exactly known, from the absence of authentic statistics and the difficulty of following up the surveillance of individuals when released on parole. ”

“ Let our prison discipline be severe in proportion to the enormity of the crimes of those on whom it is exercised, and let its strictness be such as to deter others from a similar course of iniquity, but let us ever aim at the diminution of crime through the just and happy medium of the reformation of criminals. ”

“ THE word prison connotes crime; a place of punishment and detention where misdeeds are expiated and penalties enforced. A certain sense of shame attaches to all who have been committed to durance; for according to the old law, the “natural inherent right of liberty cannot be surrendered or forfeited unless by the commission of some great or atrocious crime.” ”