Life imprisonment

“ A distinguished professor in a law school has said: "If any person shall be a third time convicted of any crime, no matter of what nature, he should be imprisoned at hard labor for life." At a National Prison Congress in 1886 another eminent professor thus indorsed this sentiment: "I believe there is but one cure for this great and [Pg 47] growing evil, and this is the imprisonment for life of the criminal once pronounced 'incorrigible.'" Later the governor of my own State told me that he would consider no petition for shortening the sentence of an "habitual criminal." ”

“ As the demand for vital reality and effectiveness in social relationships grows, this fact is increasingly felt. We see exactly the same change among us in regard to the system of inflicting fixed sentences of imprisonment on criminals. To send a man to prison for five years or for life, without any regard to the unknown problem of the vital reaction of imprisonment on the man—a reaction which will be different in every individual case—is slowly coming to be regarded as an absurdity. ”

“ Thus, for instance, in the case of murders, especially by born criminals, the first crime should lead to an order for imprisonment for life. In the case of less serious crimes, such as rape, theft, wounding, swindling, &c., from two to four relapses should be necessary before the habitual criminal is sentenced to such imprisonment. ”

“ In order to save, as far as possible, first offenders from the contamination of prison life, and to prevent the formation of further evil companionships, and the recklessness which follows the loss of character entailed by imprisonment, we would offer, in the Police and Criminal Courts, to take such offenders under our wing as were anxious to come and willing to accept our regulations. ”

“ And since they will regard, as indeed all men raised above a brutish level do regard, a very long term of imprisonment as infinitely worse than death, as being, indeed, death with a living misery added to its natural terror, they will, I conceive, where the whole tenor of a man's actions, and not simply some incidental or impulsive action, seems to prove him [Pg 301] unfitted for free life in the world, consider him carefully, and condemn him, and remove him from being. ”

“ In criminal law the death penalty has been abolished, and the various modes of punishment consist of solitary imprisonment, exile, deprivations, suspension from public employment, ordinary imprisonment, and fines. ”

“ I believe I speak not from my own experience only, which has been limited to seven years, but from that of many of our oldest wardens, when I raise my voice against long sentences and in favor of a parole system. The long weary years in prison unnerve—unman, and often break a man down physically and mentally and there is no compensating good to be gained. The shame of detection—the disgrace of his trial and sentence with the humiliation of the first weeks of imprisonment constitute the man's greatest punishment. ”

“ This we have proven at last; that crime does not decrease in proportion to the severest punishment. Little by little we have ceased to raze the cities, to wipe out the families, to cut off the ears, to torture; and our imprisonment is changing from slow death and insanity to a form of attempted improvement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A short historical retrospect will show that it is only in comparatively modern times that 'Imprisonment' became the recognized method for the punishment of crime, and that prison reform, in the sense of moral improvement by imprisonment was formulated as a political duty, and became an earnest pre-occupation of statesmen and philosophers. ”

“ Society looks on complacently at the repeated sentencing of the habitual criminal and watches without alarm the never failing phenomenon of how each successive imprisonment only serves to deprave him more profoundly ”

“ Justice GRAY, 'that at the present day imprisonment in a state prison or penitentiary, with or without hard labor, is an infamous punishment.' That case is decisive of this, and the order appealed from must be affirmed. ”

“ I can conscientiously say, that the mere reading in the Times newspaper the account of your cruel sufferings, my poor countrymen of Kirkeaton, has given me more pain than a years' imprisonment would have done, if I could have known that you were enjoying a fair equivalent for your honest industry. Talk of imprisonment indeed! why it is a perfect Paradise compared with the wants and privations which you are doomed to endure. The situation of a prisoner in this jail, let him be confined for any thing less than high treason or murder, is heaven upon earth compared to your lot. ”

“ I have repeatedly asked prisoners under sentences of penal servitude for life whether they would prefer that sentence to being hanged. The general reply was "I would rather be 'topt' at once, and be out of my misery, than remain in prison all my days." "It's bad enough when I have the prospect of liberty in twelve years." "If they are going to keep men in prison all their days, and torture them besides, they'll commit suicide or murder in prison. ”

“ Almost inaccessible to the outsider is the heart of a convict, or the criminal's point of view of life. In fact their hearts and their points of view differ according to their natures and experiences. But to think of our prisoners in the mass—the thousand or two thousand men cut off from the world and immured in each of our great penitentiaries—is to think of them as the Inarticulate. The repression of their lives has been fearful. All that was required of them was to be part of the machinery of the prison system; to work, to obey, to maintain discipline. ”

“ Any person connected with a big penal settlement will tell you that there is never any certainty as to the moral result of a term of imprisonment on any given prisoner.
To some natures, the punishment may be both a deterrent and an excellent lesson, while to others the educational value may be great and the deterrent effect almost nil; but in one class of prisoner—the class to which Eva Herrick belonged—imprisonment wakes only the worst and basest of all emotions, a desire, perforce stifled during the period of punishment, for revenge. ”

“ The effects of the imprisonment are to vitiate its inmates, to extend their acquaintanceship with each other, to corrupt the prisoner charged with an offence of which he may be innocent, and to confirm in guilt the young and inexperienced offender. ”

“ There was another point which I vividly realized since the very first weeks of my imprisonment, but which, in some inconceivable way, escapes the attention of both the judges and the writers on criminal law—namely, that imprisonment in an immense number of cases is a punishment which strikes quite innocent people far more severely than the condemned prisoners themselves. ”

“ Branding but cauterizes the wound, and it mortifies, and what is the end? You stamp the crime for life on the criminal; you make two friends of them, two companions — inseparables. The convict prison is a blister which spreads far worse matter than ever it extracts; and as for the sentence of death, when carried out it is a barbarous amputation. Therefore, branding, penal servitude, and sentence of death are all of one class; you have done away with the branding, banish the rest. ”

“ In any case the days are long when spent in a separate cell, awaiting judgment, the nights dark and often sleepless 169 and interminable. We have authentic assurance that the end of it all, the very worst,—conviction, sentence, the heaviest, the extreme penalty of the law,—comes as a distinct relief, and although a certain, shameful death is now before him, the condemned prisoner sleeps soundly on his final return from court. The prisoner condemned to death is generally worn out with the struggle for life. ”

“ If, holding this lamp, we turn to our prison, we see at once how incompatible with such an attitude is the system of determining beforehand the exact period of the delinquent’s detention. Many a man imprisoned for life, to his own misery, the ruin of his family, and the cost of the State, might with absolute safety to the community be liberated to-day; it is unnecessary to speak further of the thousands for whom society, inside or outside prison, has done nothing, and whom it liberates, with full knowledge that they proceed at once to prey upon itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The peculiarly horrid manner in which the crime was committed, and the audacious style in which the criminal appears to brave justice, will, it is thought, prevent any extenuating circumstances being pleaded, as is usually done, for the purpose of commuting the punishment of death into imprisonment with enforced labour. ”

“ When he arrives in prison, it is not the hardships of prison life, it is not the hard labour, the coarse food, the shaven head, the convict’s dress, that weigh on his spirit; nor does he feel remorse for his crime. ”

“ For beside the hindrance and restraint of liberty, it hath many more displeasures and very sore griefs knit and adjoined to it.
ANTHONY: That is, cousin, very true indeed. And those pains, among many sorer than those, thought I not afterward to forget. Howbeit, I purpose now to consider first imprisonment as imprisonment alone, without any other incommodity besides. For a man may be imprisoned, perdy, and yet not set in the stocks or collared fast by the neck. And a man may be let walk at large where he will, and yet have a pair of fetters fast riveted on his legs. ”

“ In conclusion, permit me to call the attention of all benevolent and pious minds, to the deplorable condition of those whose crimes have justly cut them off from the sweets of liberty and the endearments of social life, and consigned them to a living death within the gloomy walls of a State Prison. With an emphasis that might pierce the soul, they say to you,—"Have pity upon us! ”

“ I knew that if I said a word and went into court fresh from the penitentiary I would certainly be hanged, and I had not reached a point when I was ready to sacrifice my life for a stranger.
"In the feverish life I led in the short time out of prison I forgot all about this, until I found myself here for ten years and then I thought: there is a man in this prison doing hard work, eating coarse food, deprived of everything that makes life worth having, and suffering for a crime of which he knows as little as the dust that is yet to be created to fill these miserable cells. ”

“ No one who lays any claim to enlightened opinion upon subjects of this character believes any longer that arrest and incarceration in a penal or corrective institution is a final answer to the social obligations of the community in behalf of the so-called casual vagrant, the wandering citizen, the itinerant wage-worker, or petty criminal, as they are miscalled. It may be true, perhaps, that a three or six months’ imprisonment is the only present available means for “straightening up a drunk” or getting some “evil spirit” out of a young man’s heart. ”

“ The proposition put forward by counsel, that, if the court has authority to inflict the punishment prescribed, its action is not void, though it pursues any form or mode which may commend itself to its discretion, is certainly not to be tolerated. Imprisonment might be accompanied with inconceivable misery and mental suffering, by its solitary character, or other attending circumstances. Death might be inflicted by torture or by starvation, or by drawing and quartering. ”

“ Especially am I sensible of the claim upon me of those voiceless fellow men of mine still behind the bars, who cannot help themselves, who have honored me with their tragic confidences, who have believed that I would do my utmost to let the truth be known and show the world what penal imprisonment really means. ”

“ To be sure, imprisonment for ninety days is not, in the abstract, a punishment which is either cruel or unusual. But the question cannot be considered in the abstract. Even one day in prison would be a cruel and unusual punishment for the 'crime' of having a common cold. ”

“ These offenders immediately acknowledge their crime, with unassumed remorse, frequently so keen that they instantly commit, or attempt to commit suicide. When convicted—as they seldom are by a jury—they are always repentant prisoners, and amend their lives, or do not become degraded, so that in this way they encourage superficial observers to affirm as a general fact, and one possible in all circumstances, that ameliorative effect of imprisonment which is really a mere illusion in the case of the far more numerous classes of born and habitual criminals. ”

“ I have seen some curious things in my wandering life, and some very curious and saddening sights are to be seen in jail. To see men right in the prime of their manhood going to a living tomb, to actually bury themselves for years, is a sight not easily forgotten. [Pg 105] Oh, the misery, the shame, and the degradation of it all. It is no wonder that some of the unfortunates weep. The sight of so much misery seen at one time is enough to melt the heart of the most hardened criminal. ”