EVIL SOCIETIES.
The experience of visitors with some of this class is of a very interesting character. Occasionally are heard, in the out-break of passion, resolves of the avenging upon the world, the wrong inflicted by the first incarceration. It cannot be denied that these resolves are frequently carried out, and a life is consecrated to crime, in revenge for punishment—and the cell of the prisoner is the first degree in that education which terminates in a full graduation in the State Prison, or on the gallows. Of course, far back of this first imprisonment lies the evil; neglected education; want of parental direction, or the evil influence of pernicious parental example; evil associations at the corners of the street; and especially, and to be particularly noticed, COMPANIONSHIP IN SOCIETIES formed for mischief before the initiates understood the nature and tendencies of their confederacy. The prison and the penitentiary of our city have been made populous by members of these societies, whose object and origin are often emphatically set forth in their abhorrent names. Thousands of lads have thought they were honored in their position by being admitted to fellowship with those who had become a sort of terror in their neighborhood; and others have gratified a pugnacious inclination, by associating with vulgar heroes, who were bound to protect them from assault, and assist in gratifying their malevolence. It is no argument against the evils of these societies that there are in them very few persons of mature age. Alas! the ranks are crowded with those who have the vigor of nascent manhood, without the restraints of a sense of responsibility. Plans of evil, which if proposed to men, even young men, would have been voted down from the danger which the actors would incur, are adopted with acclamation by grown-up boys; and the quiet of neighborhoods is disturbed, property destroyed, personal safety jeoparded, personal injury inflicted, and sometimes human life wantonly taken.
In this class of prisoners, however, as we have already remarked, are often found the proper objects of the visitors’ most hopeful attentions. The young man or young woman, who by the error, we will not say the accident, of bad associates, is arrested for an offence of which he or she is only partly guilty of the act, and innocent of intention, after a few weeks’ confinement begins to hear with interest the voice of friendship “breathed through the lattice,” and though shocked at a new contact with the innocent, yields soon, not merely attention but confidence, opens up the heart to the friend at the cell door, receives the proffered book, accepts the offer of frequent visitations, and in time, not at once, shows that deep sense of degradation which is the beginning of true repentance. The visitor finds himself depended on, the confidence begets protection, and the punishment for the first offense or for the first detection becomes the means under Providence of permanent amendment.
In this department of the prison the separate system is practised as far as can be done consistent with the plans of employment, and, with regard to the effect of the system, even with the limited advantage which it has in this place, favorable reports are made. One instance is mentioned by a visitor, who is most faithful to the duties he assumes and whose regular labors are almost entirely limited to convicts, and to those of a particular gallery, so that he may not by diversity of labors, or a multitude of objects, lessen the good effects of his visits or diminish the means of a close intimacy with the minds of those whose good he seeks. He has within a short time received letters from two soldiers in the Army of the Potomac, both of whom had been under his moral dealings in the County Prison at one time, and both were members of the ——th regiment, both returned thanks for the valuable instructions and kindness of the visitor, both professed to have derived the most important benefits from his care, yet neither of them knew that they had occupied adjoining cells in the County Prison, and neither of them was acquainted with the fact that the other was addressing their common benefactor. Instances of this kind, if not frequent, do at least occur sufficiently often to strengthen the hopes of the Society that the labors which its visitors perform in the name of benevolence and under the direction of the Association, are fruitful, in individual and social benefit. Fruitful in that good which was contemplated in the formation of the Society.
One other instance of the effect of zealous, affectionate kindness and watchful care in this department may be mentioned. A visitor who has for twenty years been constant in the discharge of his voluntarily assumed duties, found in a cell a lad who had by bad association and repeated crimes deserved and received a sentence for many years imprisonment. He was one of those impressible persons who yield to circumstances and follow out fully the course into which they may have been conducted. Notwithstanding the effect which several years’ bad conduct had produced on the perceptions of the youth, separate confinement had afforded him a means of preparing himself for that species of mental hostility to the world which the young convict is likely to entertain, and when the visitor entered his cell and asked for a statement of the circumstances of his short but miserable career, the voice of affection and the tone of deep, almost of parental interest with which the prisoner was addressed, secured his confidence, and his tale of wrong doing was readily told. In time the unfailing attention of the visitor became almost necessary to the existence of the prisoner, and the prescribed devotion was performed. The Scripture lessons were well studied, and all that could be required of the inmate of the criminal cell seemed to be so well done that the “visitor” felt authorized to second the wishes of the prisoner for Executive clemency. A full pardon was obtained, and in a short time afterwards, the released convict was seen occupying a place of peculiar trust, where his own word was all that could be demanded as a statement of cash received. The many failures and disappointments which pain and mortify the visitors in their labor of love, are not recorded. But such an instance as we have noticed above, will serve as a reward for many years of toil, as compensation for many hundred disappointments, and as encouragement to future exertions, and especially to careful studies as to the best mode of improving the means of usefulness. We are not to forget that the labors of the visitors are low down. In other callings it is a comfort to know that the good have been made better by well sustained efforts. The mission of the Society’s Visitors is to those whom the world deems already lost. To snatch even a few from the many, very many, of those who constitute the class of depraved and criminal, publicly exposed, is a work in which the laborers must find much of their reward in the sense of suffering mitigated, and the feeling of kindness gratified. Their highest boast must be that God has accepted the services for the permanent benefit of even a few.
In making an annual report of the doings of the Society for the Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisons, we might be justified in multiplying our statements of favorable results of the labors of the members of the two great Committees. For these are the fruits of all our plans, the result of all our labors. If the great object to many is to secure the adoption of the separate confinement of prisoners, this separate confinement is only to ensure the moral improvement of the individual prisoner. If the Society puts forth its efforts to create and multiply auxiliary institutions, it is only that there may be a greater concurrence of zeal and talents to make our State Penitentiaries and our County Prisons the schools of reform of individual prisoners; and the Society for Ameliorating the condition of Prisons, while it rejoices in the adoption of its views by institutions in other States of the nation, and by governments abroad, rejoices not as having triumphed merely in extending a knowledge of itself, and as having secured an adoption by others of what it deems its peculiar plans, but as having conciliated the prejudice of other benevolent associations, and secured their co-operation in the work of promoting the good of society, by multiplying the means of improvement of individuals.
We shall have occasion to speak more extensively of the nature of the labors of the Prison Committee, each one of whom is a “Visitor,” when we come to consider the labor in the female department of the County Prison. And that, too, will afford opportunity to notice the operation of the primary judiciary system of the city, and its effects on prisoners and on society.