Firstly, there was the discipline of Pentonville, now mitigated by horticulture, &c.; secondly, there was the academic discipline, which flourished for so long a time at Reading; thirdly, there was the semi-cellular system, then in partial operation in Birmingham; fourthly, there was encellement with hard labour at crank, and similar contrivances enforced at Winchester, and in a still more primitive fashion at Leicester; and fifthly, there was a “mixed system” still working with great success, and no drawback, at Preston and elsewhere.
All these systems and the effects upon the prisoners were submitted to the consideration of a committee who had been appointed by Government to inquire into the subject.
After examining many witnesses, and long discussions, the committee reported strongly in favour of the discipline of Preston.
At Great Wakefield prison, for instance, the justices had begun with Pentonvillian rigour, and in less than two years adopted all the Preston modifications.
But still the committee hankered after some method of treatment more sharply penal than that at Preston seemed to be.
The influence of able editors crops up in many portions of the report, which was an attempt to make the unpopular system satisfy the cry for cheapness and austerity.
The Reading plan, therefore, of plenty of sleep and study, with no manual employment except by way of “recreation” was thoroughly repudiated, and some obnoxious resolutions passed in favour of more work, coarser food, and less artificial warmth.
Unfortunately, however, the committee went further, and voted that hard labour was incompatible with individual separation, citing Leicester gaol as a model for imitation.
In this gaol prisoners had cranks in their cells, and were forced to turn the handles 14,000 times a day, and if they refused to work they were starved or flogged into submission.
This discipline had produced the notable result of frightening all the tramps from the neighbourhood.