Insanity and Nervous Breakdown of Prisoners
No defender of the silent system pretends that it wholly succeeds in preventing speech among prisoners. But be that as it may, a period of four months’ solitary confinement in the case of a female, and six months’ in the case of a male, and especially of a girl or youth, is surely a crime against civilization and humanity. Such a punishment is inexpressible torture to both mind and body. I speak from experience. The torture of continually enforced silence is known to produce insanity or nervous breakdown more than any other feature connected with prison discipline. Since the passing of the Act of 1898, mitigating this form of punishment, much good has been accomplished, as is proved by the diminution of insanity in prison life, the decreasing scale of prison punishment, and the lessening of the death-rate. By still further reducing this barbarous practise, or, better, by abolishing it entirely, corresponding happy results may confidently be expected. The more the prisoners are placed under conditions and amid surroundings calculated to develop a better life, the greater is the hope that the system will prove curative; but so long as prisoners are subjected to conditions which have a hardening effect at the very beginning of their prison life, there is little chance of ultimate reformation.