Moral Effect of Harsh Prison Regime
Have you ever tried to realize what kind of life that must be in which the sight of a child’s face and the sound of a child’s voice are ever absent; in which there are none of the sweet influences of the home; the daily intercourse with those we love; the many trifling little happenings, so unimportant in themselves, but which go so far to make up the sum of human happiness? It commences with the clangor of bells and the jingling of keys, and closes with the banging of hundreds of doors, while the after silence is broken only by shrieks and blasphemies, the trampling of many feet, and the orders of warders.
In the winter the prisoners get up in the dark, and breakfast in the dark, to save the expense of gas. The sense of touch becomes very acute, as so much has to be done without light. Until I had served three years of my sentence I had not been allowed to see my own face. Then a looking-glass, three inches long, was placed in my cell. I have often wondered how this deprivation could be harmonized with a purpose to enforce tidiness or cleanliness in a prisoner. The obvious object in depriving prisoners of the only means through which they can reasonably be expected to conform to the official standard of facial cleanliness is to eradicate woman’s assumed innate sense of vanity; but whether or no it succeeds in this, certain it is that cleanliness becomes a result of compulsion rather than of a natural womanly impulse. Also she must maintain the cleanliness of her prison cell on an ounce of soap per week. After I left Aylesbury I heard that the steward had received orders from the Home Office to reduce this enormous quantity. If true it will leave the unfortunate prisoners with three-quarters of an ounce of soap weekly wherewith to maintain that cleanliness which is said to be next to godliness. The prisoners are allowed a hot bath once a week, but in the interval they may not have a drop of hot water, except by the doctor’s orders.