Prison official

“ To effect this, and in order to be near the prison, I removed from our house and put up a small bamboo room in the governor's enclosure, which was nearly opposite the prison gate. Here I incessantly begged the governor to give me an order to take Mr. J. out of the large prison, and place him in a more comfortable situation; and the old man, being worn out with my entreaties, at length gave me the order in an official form; and also gave orders to the head jailer, to allow me to go in and out, all times of the day, to administer medicines, &c. ”

“ One hundred and thirty convicts with terms ranging from 2 to 15 years, too busy with their day’s labor or their evening’s sports to think of evil, are building the new penitentiary or tilling the soil. Only nine hours a day, that time allotted for sleep, are the prisoners under lock and key. They go about their various duties under the direction of a guard or overseer, but the shotgun or rifle, usually accompanying such officer, is conspicuous by its absence.
The prison gives promise of being the ideal penal institution of the world.
The site is ideal for the work to be accomplished. ”

“ The iron gates were opened by the governor of the gaol; in front stood the constable and another who had come to see if Peace was in the hands of the police, and in front were twelve prisoners doing “the circular drill.”
This is a performance best known to prison officials, and to those who have been “wanted.” It consists in this:—
If there is a prisoner in the establishment whose identity needs to be established, and there is anyone attending for the purpose of viewing them, the prisoner is placed amongst others, and they follow each other in circle. ”

“ The potentialities for organization given by the Act are almost unlimited. Any existing prison may be closed by order of the Lord-Lieutenant, new prisons may be built, and all prisoners, irrespective of their place of sentence, may be confined in any prison the government may select. ”

“ Where an inmate is believed to be exercising a bad influence, he shall be placed by the Governor in the Penal Class, for such time as the Governor considers necessary in the interest of the inmate himself, or others. ”

“ Section 2 provides that the superintendent of prisons of the Department of Justice and the warden and physician of each United States penitentiary shall constitute a board of parole for such prison which shall establish rules and regulations for its prodedure subject to the approval of the Attorney General. ”

“ Inside the gate, in the centre of an immense yard or walled sand plain, the Governor and Comptroller-General stood; and as the long line of convicts filed by, each saluted in military fashion, and passed on to the prison. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lawrence. The ordinary prisoner is usually allowed a visitor only after the first month of the sentence has expired.
The members of the Freedom League were in great excitement, expecting that their leader would be coming to prison that day and very likely be sent to hospital. She had been arrested at the head of a deputation when the other members of the Freedom League had been imprisoned, but her case had been remanded. ”

“ Before my detention, I had thought that a prison would be at least a place of repose, where I could give myself up to study; but this was not the case at all, at least not in those where I stayed. Every moment the keeper, the jailers, the turnkeys, the purveyors, etc., came in. We were made to go down to the clerk's office to attend to our commissions. I could not read one single hour without interruption. One thing which I have heard spoken of, and which I have certainly verified, is the habit prisoners have of being destructive. It arises from their standing in need of a thousand things. ”

“ It is not far from the Court House to the prison, a wholesomely situated building on a hill, made of concrete, with an attap roof. The whole building is one hundred feet long by thirty feet broad. There are six cells for solitary confinement. A jailer, turnkey, and eight warders constitute the prison staff. The able-bodied prisoners are employed on the roads and other public works, and attend upon the scavengers' cart, which outcome of civilization goes round every morning! ”

“ I had almost forgotten that I was expecting a visitor when, a couple of hours later, an undersized deputy-sheriff entered my office and reported that he had a prisoner in his custody for whom I had sent to the Tombs. Glancing up from my desk I saw standing behind his keeper a tall and distinguished-looking man in fashionably cut garments, whose well shaped head and narrow face, thin aquiline nose, and carefully trimmed pointed beard seemed to bespeak somewhat different antecedents from those of the ordinary occupant of a cell in the City Prison. ”

“ The mission of the prison is for this more than for the protection of the innocent. It is for the reclamation and restoration of the delinquent. Leaving such an institution, the ex-prisoner might truly say: “I came in a thief, I leave an honest man; I entered a murderer, I depart loving God and man. My conscience, which once made me a coward, now makes me a true man.” ”

“ The justice which, for the sake of society, restrains the freedom of the offender, yields entirely to the mercy that turns to that offender’s temporal and eternal good. This infliction, that separates him from his associates in felony, frees society from apprehension of his crimes.
We speak here of the infliction of the Penitentiary. The case of a convict in the County prison has in it much less of severity, and is proportionately therewith of less benefit to him and less advantageous to society. ”

“ In this department of the prison is found the best illustration of the vast difference of the influences upon the minds and character of the prisoners wrought by the separate and the social system of incarceration. It is true that all convicts are or ought to be separately confined ”

“ The external prison is surrounded by a high wall, and the gates are kept closed day and night. The prisoners in different apartments are of course never allowed to communicate with each other, and the deputy-governor of the prison and his family, consisting of a wife, niece, and one maid-servant, are described as people of unimpeachable respectability and veracity. As depositions regarding this affair were laid before the magistrates, it is on them I found my narration. ”

“ Time dragged its weary length along, the commandant of the prison was still granting daily paroles to the men to go out after boughs and limbs until four P.M., each man writing and signing his own parole. At four o'clock the parole was taken up, and the men turned back into the [Pg 51] prison by the officer of the guard. ”

“ The great, almost the only mode of serving the inmates of this part of the prison, is to induce them to enter some of the asylums in the city, and yield themselves to the gentle discipline of institutions founded for the good of those who have lost their self-respect and forfeited the good will of society. ”

“ Criminals are not sent to prison for punishment, as many seem to believe, but prisons exist for the confinement of prisoners for the safety of society and for the reform of the man or woman there. They should, if possible, be reformed and returned to society. ”

“ Sir Edmund Du Cane, the Chairman of the new Board of Commissioners, had been for some time [Pg 72] Chairman of the Board of Directors administering Convict Prisons, and his influence soon became predominant till his retirement in 1895. His great administrative powers were devoted to securing the objects which, in his opinion, the Prison Act, 1877, intended to secure, viz:— (1) the application to all Prisons of a uniform system of punishment: (2) the best possible method for carrying out the primary object of punishment, viz:—the repression of crime: and (3) economy in expense. ”

“ The whole aim of the parole system is to supervise the actions of the prisoner, without adding to his irritation or humiliation, but with sufficient strictness to guard him against temptation and to replace him in prison if he proves unworthy of the trust bestowed upon him. ”

“ The manner of meeting the prisoners is in a kindly spirit, approaching them not as convicts, but as men, the consequence of which is, that the entrance of a member of the Committee into a cell proves, with rare exceptions, a source of real satisfaction to the inmates; confidence being by this means established, an avenue is opened to their better feelings, and on being inquired of, they freely give a history of their past lives, and state what were the immediate influences under which the crime 25 was committed, which resulted in their being confined in a felon’s cell. ”

“ These State Institutions are under the control of the Prison Commissioners, and form part of the Prison administration. They are controlled by minute regulations, approved by Parliament, and their function is to reconcile, as far as possible, a strict custody and control with certain alleviating conditions and privileges for those who deserve them. Their population is however, relatively small, the average for the three years prior to the War not having exceeded nineteen Males and fifty-seven Females. ”

“ The prison is an incubator for those who are young in crime, a place of torture for those who possess the finer feelings of humanity, that is precisely the class of people, usually, who ought not to be sent to prison; but to habitual offenders, the confirmed recidivists, precisely the class of people on whom the prison ought to work as at once a reforming and deterring influence, it is simply a welcome and comfortable home. It is a well-known fact that the prison is preferred to the workhouse. ”

“ He afterwards writes again to the same Minister, from the Island of St. Margaret, “I promise to conduct my prisoner here in all security, without any one’s seeing or speaking to him. He shall not hear mass after he leaves Exiles, till he is lodged in the prison which is preparing for him here, to66 which a chapel is attached. I pledge my honour to you for the entire security of my prisoner.”126
St. ”

“ Unquestionably many of these prison wardens were at heart humanitarians, and gave to their prisons a distinctive atmosphere as the result of their personal characteristics, but they were all the victims of tradition as to dealing with convicts—tradition and precedent, the established order of prison management. ”

“ Sitting tonight in our lonesome cell, bounded on three sides by blank and barren walls of steel, through our two-by-six door, constructed of massive bars of iron, there comes to us the conversation of our fellow prisoners, as with head pressed close against the bars to catch the other fellow's words, we listen to the talk of the men "committed for crime"—men strong and healthy, who should be engaged in some honest labor, but, instead, are "doing time" for a broken law. ”

“ Here one man is judge, jury and witness.
There are a number of men here in close confinement. We can see them as they are taken out in the yard daily in charge of a guard. None of the other prisoners are allowed to speak to them. ”

“ The Agent’s Orders are to be strictly obeyed by all the Prisoners; and it is expressly forbidden, that any Prisoners should insult, threaten, illtreat, and much less strike the Turnkeys, or any other Person who may be appointed by the Agent to superintend the Police of the Prison, under Pain of losing Turn of Exchange, of being closely confined, and deprived of half their Ration of Provisions, for such time as the Commissioner may direct. ”

“ It was a way he had, albeit it is not the usual custom in convict prisons.
“Yes, sir,” returned Peace, who had passed on to make room for another of the batch.
When all were dressed as far as flannels, shirts, drawers, and stockings were concerned, the men were marched out and resumed the outer clothes which they had arrived in, and which had all been carefully examined by one or more of the prison attendants. Every pin a man had stuck in a jacket was removed. ”

“ Of course, there’s bound to be. No one would leave the bed of a stream clear for any one to navigate. Prisoners would visit each other in their cells, and that’s not allowed in any respectable prison. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have met him at all times and in all places, from the palace to the prison, striving to better the conditions of his fellowmen. At the same time serving our Lord in such a noble manner as to attract the attention of the least appreciative person. He has taken for his duty the task of working principally among the criminal classes that frequent our city prisons, and to my personal knowledge has done more to benefit the inmates than any other man of his vocation. ”

“ It would be true if a man were picked up on the street and taken directly to a penitentiary, but that isn’t done. He is first thrown into a dirty, lousy, foul-smelling cell in some city prison, sometimes with an awful beating in the bargain, and after two or three days of that nothing in the world can shock, stun, or humiliate him. He is actually happy to get removed to a county jail where he can perhaps get rid of the vermin and wash his body. ”