CHAPTER XIII BRITISH PRISONS OF TO-DAY
Steady progress toward improved methods—Legislation to secure uniformity and proper principles of management—First effort to bring all local jurisdiction into line—Decision that all prisons must be under state control—Unification of system—Burden borne by the public exchequer—Remarkable results—Marked diminution in number of jail inmates—How convict labour has enriched the nations—Results at Portland, Chatham, Dartmoor—Extension of output—Chattenden and Borstal.
Forty years have elapsed since England was forced to revise her methods of penal treatment, and to replace the system of transportation beyond the seas with home establishments, rather hastily improvised to meet a sudden demand. Reference has already been made to the institution of "penal servitude," so-called, the process of expiation to which condemned felons were subjected in the newly devised state prisons. The flaws and failures that became prominent in the earlier phases of the system have also been touched upon, as well as the salutary changes introduced from time to time by the legislature. Year after year steadfast and consistent efforts have been made to improve and develop, to remove blots in administration, to remedy shortcomings; to reform offenders, while obliging them to labour to recoup expenditure and to secure thereby some restitution from them. A brief survey will show the existing conditions of the British penal system of to-day.
The chief reason of the merit of the British system is, that it is the growth of time, the product of experience. In the many changes introduced in this century, the great aim and object has been progressive improvement. The movement has all been forward. There has been no slackness in correcting errors and remedying abuses since John Howard struck the key-note of indignant protest. Reform may not always have gone hand in hand with suggestion, but that has been because of the quasi-independence of the prison jurisdictions. British prisons in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were largely controlled by local authorities upon no very uniform or effective principles, although act after act of Parliament was passed for the purpose of betterment. In 1823 and 1824 two acts first laid down the rule that health, moral improvement and regular labour were as important objects in prison maintenance as safe custody. At the same time, some attempt at classification was made, and it was ordered, for the first time, that female prisoners should be controlled only by female officers. In 1835 a fresh act insisted that all prison rules should be subjected to the approval of the Secretary of State; a proper dietary was made essential, without the "stimulating luxury" of tobacco. Classification, too, was again tried, but without good results, and the rule of separation at all times except during divine service, labour or instruction, was gradually adopted in theory and practice. Inspectors of prisons were appointed to exact obedience to the new laws. In 1839, an act permitted, but did not actually order, the confinement of each prisoner in a separate cell. The dimensions of these cells were stipulated, and it was insisted that they should be certified as fit for occupation. A surveyor-general of prisons was also appointed to assist and advise the Secretary of State as to prison construction.
The first substantial progress was made in the building of Pentonville, a prison which has served as a model for all prisons. Although copied in a measure from the old Roman monastery prison of San Michele, and following in design the famous Cherry Hill Penitentiary of Philadelphia, Pentonville was really a type in itself, and embraced so many excellences that it has never yet been greatly improved upon. In the six years following the establishment of Pentonville, fifty-four new prisons were built in England, providing cells for eleven thousand prisoners; but in 1850 a select committee of the House of Commons reported that several prisons were still in a very unsatisfactory condition, and that proper punishment, separation, or reformation in them was impossible. Parliament even then was strongly urged to entrust the supreme control of all prisons to one central authority, wholesome advice which was not accepted for nearly thirty years. But, although convicts sentenced to longer terms, which were usually carried out beyond the seas in the manner described in the earlier chapters, obtained much attention, the successive recommendations to improve the small outlying gaols, for short terms, were very imperfectly adopted.
The next great step was the Prison Act of 1865, which grew out of the report from a committee of the House of Lords, and which strongly condemned the lack of uniformity in the prison buildings, and in the punishments inflicted. Many of the practices which still prevailed even at that late date (1865) were really a disgrace to our civilisation. In some of the prisons the inmates lay two in a bed in dormitories without light, ventilation or control. Warders were afraid to enter them after dark. There was no uniformity in labour, or in the hours in which it was performed. In one prison the inmates lay in bed for fifteen hours daily. One of these gaols, which existed until the passing of the Act of 1865, and which was situated in the heart of a densely populated seaport town, has been described by its last governor. It was an ancient edifice, consisting of four parallel two-storied blocks. The lower story opened on a corridor, the windows of which were unglazed and communicated with the outer air. Above each cell door was a barred opening without glass, which served as a ventilator. In wet weather the rain poured into the passage; in a snow storm the snow flakes drifted through the cell-ventilators upon the bed which was just beneath, and which was often covered in the morning with snow an inch or two deep. There was no heating apparatus, and the place was desperately cold in winter. On the first floor there were a number of larger cells in which as many as seven prisoners were associated together, day and night, so crowded that the beds were stowed upon the floor, while hammocks were also stretched across them above. Sunday was the worst day of the week in this horrible old prison. After morning service, the prisoners took their dinners with them to their cells and were then and there locked up till the following morning. No one could get out, even if he were dying; there was no communication with officers or others outside. Here, in an atmosphere laden with fetid exhalations, amid filth of all kinds, the wretched prisoners were imprisoned for eighteen consecutive hours. These modern "black holes" were far worse than that of Calcutta in that their unfortunate inmates had daylight in which to observe with loathing and disgust the indecencies which surrounded them. Nor was it only in the accommodation provided that these poor creatures suffered. They were continually ill-used by their warders, who harassed and harried them at every turn. Each officer had a prisoner to wait upon him as a personal attendant, called his "lackey," who was always at his heels serving him hand and foot, and performing every menial office except that of carrying his keys. The outgoing governor who escorted his successor (my informant) around the gaol was imbued with the same brutal, reckless spirit, which he displayed by rushing into a cell, seizing a youthful prisoner by the shoulders, and shaking him violently, after which he threw him roughly upon the ground with the brief explanation, "You've got to show them you're master sometimes." The boy had not been guilty of any misconduct whatever.
In this gaol, all kinds of work was performed for the private benefit of the officers, a practice very generally prevalent in the gaols until a much later date. It was of the governor's perquisites to employ prisoners for his own behoof. There was jubilation in his family when a clever tailor or seamstress "came in;" new suits were at once cut out and made for the governor, his wife or his children. His house was fitted and half furnished by prisoners; they made arm-chairs, picture-frames, boot-racks. In one prison I heard of an excellent carriage constructed by a clever coach-builder who had gotten into trouble, and whose forfeited hours were thus utilised for the governor and not for the taxpayers. In another gaol an unexpected inspection revealed the mouth of a mysterious pipe leading from the kitchen, which when followed to its outlet was found to convey the grease and scourings straight to a flower bed in the governor's garden.
This deplorable state of affairs continued without change long after 1865. Twelve years later the uniformity sought by the act of that year had not been secured. Justices had not in every case realised their duties and responsibilities. Many prisons remained defective. All differed in their treatment of prisoners, and the criminal classes were themselves aware of the differences. It was a common practice for intending offenders to avoid a locality where the gaol discipline was severe. To secure the same measure of punishment in each institution was all the more important since criminals had learned to avail themselves of the many modern facilities for travelling from place to place, and crime was no longer localised. The same reason added another argument in favour of making the support of prisons an imperial rather than a local charge. It was a little unfair, too, that a district which had already suffered by the depredations of an evil-doer should bear the heaviest part of the expense of his correction. With these, there was a still stronger reason for concentration. Some relief of local taxation was earnestly desired, and the assumption by the public exchequer of prison expenditure seemed to promise this in an easy and substantial way, more particularly as the transfer of control would be accompanied by a revision of the means, and followed by a diminution in the number of prisons required. Such arguments fully justified Mr. (afterward Viscount) Cross in introducing the measure known as the Prison Act of 1877, which was passed that year, and contemplated great changes in the system as it then was; the first and chief being the transfer and control of all local prisons to a board of commissioners acting for the state.
All these have now taken effect, and after a test of twenty years may fairly be judged by the results achieved. Certainly the uniformity desired has at last been attained. Every prisoner now finds exactly the same treatment, according to his class and sentence, from Land's End to the Orkney Isles. Whether only an accused person, a debtor, misdemeanant, or condemned felon, he is kept strictly apart, occupying a cell to himself, the dimensions of which assure him a minimum air-content of 800 cubic feet, and which has been duly certified by one of the government prison inspectors as fit for his occupation, being lighted, heated, ventilated, and provided with bell communications, which are electric in some of the new prisons. From the moment he passes into the prison until he again finds himself on the right side of the gate, he is under exactly the same discipline, whether he is in the gaol of Bodmin, Newcastle, Norwich, Liverpool or Carlisle. Everywhere his bath awaits him; his prison clothing, if he is convicted, is furnished him; his first and every succeeding meal is based upon a dietary framed by medical experts after the most mature deliberation. His day's task is fixed. If he is able-bodied, he must do six hours at more or less severe labour, breaking stones, making cocoa mats with a heavy beater, making sacks, digging, pumping, and so forth. This, the most irksome phase of his prison life, continues for one month, or more exactly, until he has earned 224 marks in the first series of the progressive stages which have been ingeniously adopted to secure industry and good conduct. Every prisoner holds in his own hands the ability to modify the penal character of his imprisonment, and by the exercise of these two qualities may gradually earn privileges and improve his position.