Art. III.—STATE PENITENTIARIES.

I. The Twentieth Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Eastern State Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, transmitted to the Senate and House of Representatives. March 1849, pp. 36.

II. Report of the Board of Inspectors of the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, for the year 1848, with the accompanying documents. Pittsburg, 1849, pp. 21.

III. Report on the condition of the New Jersey State Prison, embracing the Reports of the Joint Committee, Inspectors, Keeper, Moral Instructor and Physician. Trenton, January 1849, pp. 44.

IV. Documents relating to the State Prison. Senate of Massachusetts, Document No. 5, pp. 24.

I. The first document in the above list is worthy of a much more extended notice than our limits allow us to give. We shall notice its constituent parts in their order.

(1.) In their report the inspectors refer with natural interest to the opening of the State Lunatic Asylum, which is expected to be completed as early as January 1851. For want of it, “instances have occurred in which the sheriff has been the medium of a message from the judge who pronounced the sentence, to the chief officer of the prison, informing him that the prisoner was insane, but that no other mode of providing for the case existed.”

The subject of pardons occupies a prominent place in their report. It appears that but a fraction over six per cent. of the pardoned have been recommitted; and the percentage of pardons in relation to number, sex and color, cannot be so well set forth in any other way as by transferring the table to our pages.

Table showing the whole number of pardons granted from the establishmentof the prison in 1829 to 9th July, 1848.
Year.Whole number in confinement.No. of pardons.Annul
average
per
centage.
Whites.Colored.Total,
both
colors.		Whites.Col’d.
M.F.Tot.M.F.Tot.M.F.Tot.M.F.Tot.
183175752542910411
183290902743112144
18331291294144517422
1834189189812832728811
18352618269155111664351010442.38
18362781128917919198487213
1837320832819919218546415
183833311344199222215651010
1839241624715016166413221.26
to Jan. 15th.
18393359344214302445889911
18403318339203312345731919
18412936299171322035021111211
18422985303153211744772020213
18433196325146161624871515
184433212344136171534973939437
184523010240971110834823124225.37
to Jan. 21.
1845305153201131612944955
1846321143351101612646124125
1847297930611313126432202055
1848245825397121033566174.08
to July 9th.

During the year 1848, there were received 121 convicts, viz., 88 whites (two females), and 33 colored (three females), and 128 were discharged. Of these, 83 served out their time; 13 were pardoned; 11 discharged by order of law; 15 died from disease, and one was a suicide. The whole number of convicts in confinement during the year was 415, viz., 299 white and 116 colored. Of the 16 deaths, 10 were whites and 6 colored.

(2.) The warden’s report shows that of the 121 convicts received, 32 were foreigners, and 56 were natives of Pennsylvania. Ninety-one were under middle age; 96 were of intemperate habits; 76 could read and write; 60 were unmarried. Only 14 were bound and served their time out; 13 were bound and broke their indentures; and 96 were never bound.

Some curious facts appear in the various summaries which these details embrace. For example, of the 2,421 prisoners received into the institution from its opening in October 1829, 619 could neither read nor write; 2,020 were addicted to the use of intoxicating drinks; 460, or more than one-sixth, were foreigners; and of these last, Ireland supplied 199 and Germany 112. Seventeen hundred and twenty-nine were first convictions; 1,451 were never married; and 18 had been married and separated; 1,631 were whites (48 females) and 790 colored (86 females); 467 broke their indentures, and 1,569 were never bound. Of the 2,421 crimes, 2,000 were against property.

(3.) Next in order is the physician’s report, in which special reference is made to the inordinate length of sentences, when the nature of the discipline is duly considered. Dr. Given thinks the coloured prisoners as a class, suffer a double burden, inasmuch as their sentences are longer and the enervating influence of imprisonment is more severely felt by them,—and he furnishes the following items on this subject.

Whole number of white prisoners,1631
Whole number of colored prisoners,790
Average length of sentences of white prisoners,2 y., 8 ms.,2days.
Average length of sentences of colored prisoners,3 y., 3 ms.,14days.
Whole number of pardons of white prisoners,253
Whole number of pardons of colored prisoners,25
Whole number of deaths of white prisoners,73
Whole number of deaths of colored prisoners,141

The Doctor is disposed to vindicate the exercise of the pardoning power, even to a still greater extent than heretofore, unless the need of its exercise is taken away by a proper adjustment of the penal code to the penal discipline of the State. We are not prepared to say how far it would be safe to entrust the executive with power to remedy the errors or supply the defects of the Legislature, but if it is given, its extent should be clearly defined, and its exercise closely watched. We do not make this remark with any reference to the past. It is suggested by the idea, advanced in the report before us, that the pardoning power must needs be freely exercised, to compensate for the undue severity of the sentences. It is easy to see where such a doctrine would lead if followed out. We do not doubt the correctness of the statement, that the sentences at present prescribed by our laws, are quite too long and too indiscriminately inflicted, if we take into consideration the nature and efficacy of the discipline under which they are to be worked out; but in our haste to remedy the evil, we need to be cautious, lest we incur another and even a greater, because a more general and radical one. We hope this distinct call of attention to the subject, will awaken our legislators to early and efficient action. Where crying injustice is now done under color of law, a double wrong is inflicted on society. The agent and the instrument, become alike odious.

Dr. Given seconds the movement of the inspectors towards some relief from the commitment of insane convicts. He speaks of it not as a thing happening now and then, but as “A PRACTICE to send thither as criminals, persons notoriously insane or idiotic.” He also suggests the importance of some more suitable provision than now exists, for those who may become insane during their imprisonment.

Of the 15 deaths by disease, eleven were more or less diseased on admission. The mortality for 1847 and 1848, gives a mean of 4 per cent., which is the usual average. In respect to insanity, Dr. Given’s researches show, that of the 121 commitments during the year, 30 have had insane relatives;—10 cousins, 10 uncles or aunts, 5 parents, 4 mothers or sisters, and 1 grandparents.

Ten cases of insanity are reported, 5 whites and 5 blacks, average age, 25. Four were in imperfect health when admitted; one has an insane uncle, and two have an insane brother; 5 are stated as cases of dementia, and 5 as cases of monomania.

(4.) The moral instructor’s report informs us, that 288 sermons have been preached in the prison, which is an average of 48 to each corridor, and nearly one service for every Sabbath of the year. The whole number of visits recorded as having been paid by this officer to the convicts, in the course of the year, is 3,385.

II. The condition of the Western Penitentiary, is exceedingly gratifying. The inspectors allude briefly to the animadversions which have been made upon the Pennsylvania system; but they express their confidence, that the happy results which have attended its administration in that institution, will excite in the public mind the same confidence in the advantages of that system over all others, which long experience and personal observation has excited in theirs.

The number of convicts received during the year 1848, (all males,) was 55—discharged in the same time, 52. Of 1,286 prisoners received from the opening of the prison, July 1826, only 22 have been white females; and only 215 colored convicts, of whom 37 were females. Of the 115 in confinement January 1, 1849, 88 were addicted to intemperance; 44 were natives of Pennsylvania, and of the 55 received during the year, 32 were unmarried. In respect to occupation, 42 of the 115 were laborers, 15 boatmen, 6 blacksmiths, 5 tailors. Of the 55 received during the year, 38 were under middle age.

The physician’s report shows, that among 167 prisoners in confinement during the year, only 4 deaths have occurred. Two of the four were thoroughly diseased when admitted, a third was of a consumptive family and died of consumption, and the fourth was sixty-one years old, of intemperate habits and died of apoplexy. A complete table is presented by the physician, showing the color, sex, duration of imprisonment, and state of health on reception and discharge of each prisoner, released by expiration of sentence or by pardon, from which it appears, that, with one exception, they were all received and discharged in good health. Among these there were eleven, one or both of whose parents died of consumption, two who were intemperate, and one very intemperate, and their average term of imprisonment was eighteen months. Six were in better health when discharged than when admitted, and one, who was partially insane when admitted, was discharged in good health.

As a striking illustration of the healthfulness of the institution, the physician states that between sixty and seventy different convicts have been employed during the year in the shoe department, and forty-eight or fifty on a daily average; “of this number only four have failed in consequence of indisposition, to perform their full task of work. Throughout the year every other than the four referred to have performed their regularly allotted task.” We are not surprised that the medical officer thinks it proper to italicise a record of so remarkable a measure of health.

From the moral instructor’s report, we extract a single, but very sensible paragraph.

“It is not unfrequently the case that subjects which have been presented in the ministrations of the Sabbath, are called up by the prisoners themselves during the daily visitation in their cells, and thus the opportunity is furnished of impressing upon their minds, when alone, that heavenly truth which may ultimately bring them to repentance and to God. In this feature of the separate system, one of its principal excellencies consists. The prisoner, by himself, separated from all vicious influences, is far better prepared to receive and retain wholesome instruction than when surrounded by men of a moral cast like his own. If the reformation of convicts be accomplished at all, it must be done, as a general rule, by those moral influences which are made to reach him, when and where intercourse with the vicious is cut off. In this situation he will listen, reflect and reform.”

III. The New Jersey Penitentiary, at Trenton, received 108 convicts during the year just past; and had 176 in confinement December 31, 1848, which is 23 more than at the close of 1847. Of the 85 discharged during the year, 71 had completed their sentences, twelve were pardoned, (two on the day before their sentence expired,) and two died. Of 176 in confinement at the date of the report, 99 were received in 1848, and 38 in 1847. Eighty-six were for crimes against property, 142 for a first offence, 127 were under middle age and 42 were foreigners. In respect to color, 123 were whites, (114 males and 9 females,) and 53 were colored, (one a female.) Sixty-six had no trade or occupation. The available means of the prison, at the close of the year, were upwards of six thousand dollars.

The physician’s report states, that “but one death occurred during the year and that a suicide. From diseases contracted within the prison, (where there are under discipline 260 persons,) do not average one a year.” The physician says, that “all experience has proved steam to be the best carrier of heat, and by far the most certain and economical.”—p. 43.

The report of the Rev. Mr. Starr, (the moral instructor,) is quite a valuable and intelligent document. We cannot refrain from copying a single paragraph, touching the advantages of separation as an element of prison discipline, especially in its relations to moral and religious instruction.

“The chances of amendment under the separate system, duly sustained, must be incalculably greater than where companies of men are congregated in their workshops. The plan is severe; but, to use a paradoxical phrase, it is a mild severity. The less abandoned are shut out from association with the hardened, who may have spent years in familiarity with crime. Each man has his books and his thoughts and his conscience for companions. His keepers, his physician when in sickness, his moral instructor, the superintendent of his daily labor, he soon learns all are his friends. A great deal is in their power, through the pleasant look, the friendly salutation, and the kind interest manifested in those little alleviations which in no degree interfere with the strictest and most wholesome discipline. The prisoner’s self-respect will thus be encouraged and cultivated, as he sees that he is not by all the world regarded in the light of a hopeless outcast. He may be inspired with the noble ambition of regaining his character, and leading in future a reputable life. Such like benefits can be extended with four-fold advantage in the separate plan of imprisonment, while its solitude is relieved by the kind offices of a sympathizing friendship.”

IV. The inspectors of the Massachusetts State prison at Charlestown, make a very favorable report of the health of body and mind of the convicts under their care. “The favorite system of congregate labor and lenient discipline, established in our prison,” they say, “has fully answered the high expectations of its most zealous advocates. Every year brings with it new proofs of its practicability, and of its great superiority over any and every other that differs from it.”

None will dissent, we presume, from the remark of the inspectors, that “it should be remembered by all those who are intrusted with the high prerogative of administering punishment, that the convict in the prison is sentenced by the law to expiate his crime by confinement and hard labor, and that every degree of punishment beyond what is needful for the due execution of this sentence, and the attainment of the best ends to be answered by it, is excessive, is beyond the sentence and intention of the law, and is without law or justice.”

The number of convicts received during the year ending September 30, 1848, was 122; number discharged during the year 129; remaining, 281. Of those discharged, 94 were by expiration and 27 by remission of sentence, 2 were removed to the lunatic asylum, 2 escaped, and 3 died. Of the 281 in prison, 22 are negroes, and 8 mulattoes, 203 are below middle age, and 228 are for crimes against property! Seventy-one are foreigners, of whom 30 are from Ireland. Of the employments, 72 are stone-cutters, 20 blacksmiths, 69 cabinet-makers and upholsterers, 21 brush makers, 9 “solitary prison-sweepers.”

The report of the warden concerning the twenty-seven who were (during the year) pardoned, is very encouraging. “All but one are doing well—are obtaining a livelihood by honest labor, and are becoming respected citizens in the communities where they reside.” Forty volumes have been purchased during the year for the use of the prisoners, among which we notice the Autobiography of Goethe, Bushnell’s Christian Nurture, and Vestiges of Natural History.

The warden is of opinion that the lives of the three prisoners who died was prolonged by their imprisonment, as they had been long diseased!

The prison suffered a serious loss by fire during the year, and from this and other causes the revenue of the institution is less than the expenses by $4,242 79.

The physician’s report is a modest and sensible document, evidently prepared with care. The sickness of the prison would be represented by an average of four patients a day in the hospital. Four hundred and twenty-five days of light labor were prescribed during the year, and about the same number of changes of labor. The general average of convicts during the year was 287; and Dr. Bemis thinks his report shows “a fair average degree of health fully equal to that of the community at large, and vastly superior to what would have been enjoyed by the same class of men in pursuit of their usual modes of living when at large.”—p. 21.

The three deaths were of consumption.

The following remarkable statement from the physician’s report, we cannot refrain from transferring to our pages.

“The average period of imprisonment of all those sentenced for life to the State Prison, since 1818, (amounting to 125,) has not exceeded seven years. Nineteen of this number have died in the Prison after an average confinement of seven years.”

The supply of a substantial suit of clothes and a sum of money, not exceeding five dollars, to each discharged convict, occasioned an expenditure last year of more than five hundred dollars. In consequence of the frequent instances in which the money thus furnished is spent indiscreetly, it has lately been proposed in the Legislature to entrust the dispensation of this bounty to the “Boston Society for the relief of discharged convicts,” and a bill was introduced for that purpose. We have not learned its fate. From a cotemporary print we learn that, in consequence of the great increase in the number of convicts at the Charlestown prison, it has become necessary to use other accommodations than those which belong to the prison proper.[4] The chief cause assigned for this increase is intemperance.

State Prison of Michigan.—It is said that 128 convicts are confined in the Michigan State Prison, and that the annual deficiency in the receipts ranges from $5,000 to $10,000. The Governor thinks that this sum is not more than a reasonable profit upon convict-labor, considering what is made in other State Penitentiaries within his knowledge! -