At this time there were in England one hundred and seventy boroughs, cities, towns, and liberties which possessed the right of trying criminals for various offences. Nearly every one of these jurisdictions had its own prison, and there were one hundred and sixty such gaols in all. Many of them consisted of one or two rooms at most. The total number of prisoners they received during the year varied from two persons to many hundreds. It was in these gaols, withdrawn from the pressure of authority, that the new rules were invariably ignored. The right and privilege of the borough to maintain its own place of confinement was so “ancient and indisputable,” that for long no idea of interfering with them was entertained. All that was urged was that the borough magistracy had no right to govern their gaols so as to corrupt those committed, “to the injury of the peace and morals of the public.” As time passed, however, these magistrates made no effort at reform. They neither built new gaols nor contracted with the counties, as had been expected, for the transfer of their prisoners. As the Society put it in 1827, “the friends to the improvement of prison discipline will regret to learn that the gaols attached to corporate jurisdictions continue to be the fruitful sources of vice and misery, debasing all who are confined within their walls, and disseminating through their respective communities the knowledge and practice of every species of criminality.” The Society proceeded to support this indictment by facts. It is much the old story. The prisoners were lodged in rooms whence they could converse with passengers in the streets, and freely obtain spirits and other prohibited articles. All descriptions of offenders congregated together in the felons’ wards. The keeper and his officers resided at a distance from the gaol, and left its inmates to their own devices. There was no decency whatever in the internal arrangements; still no separation of the sexes, no means of ablution or other necessary services. One borough prison consisted of nothing more than a couple of cells, about ten yards square, and absolutely nothing more. In another borough, with a population of ten thousand, the prison was of the same dimensions. One cell was a dungeon, and the other an “improper and unhealthy abode for any human being,” with a watercourse running through it.
Most of these small gaols were still in existence and in much the same state eight years later, as is shown by the report of the Commissioners to inquire into the state of the municipal corporations in 1835. An examination of this report shows how even the most insignificant township had its gaol. Thus Dinas Mwddy, in Merionethshire, had, “besides the pinfold and the stocks or crib, a little prison.” Clun, in Shropshire, had a lock-up under the town hall. At Eye, in Suffolk, the gaol was part of the poor-house; so it was at Richmond, in Yorkshire, where the master of the workhouse was also keeper of the gaol. At Godmanchester there was no gaol, but a cage to secure prisoners till they could be taken before a magistrate. Kidderminster had a prison, one damp chill room, “the only aperture through which air could be admitted being an iron grating level with the street, through the bars of which quills or reeds were inserted, and drink conveyed to the prisoners.” At Walsall, in Staffordshire, the gaol consisted of six cells, frequently so damp that the moisture trickled down the walls; there was not space for air or exercise, and the prison allowance was still limited to bread and water.
Newgate through all these years continued a bye-word with the Society. Some reforms had certainly been introduced, such as the abolition of irons, already referred to, and the establishment of male and female infirmaries. The regular daily visitation of the chaplain was also insisted upon. But it was pointed out in 1823 that defective construction must always bar the way to any radical improvement in Newgate. Without enlargement no material change in discipline or interior economy could possibly be introduced. The chapel still continued incommodious and insufficient; female prisoners were still exposed to the full view of the males, the netting in front of the gallery being perfectly useless as a screen. In 1824 Newgate had no glass in its windows, except in the infirmary and one ward of the chapel yard; and the panes were filled in with oiled paper, an insufficient protection against the weather; and as the window-frames would not shut tight, the prisoners complained much of the cold, especially at night. There was a diminution in the numbers in custody, due to the adoption of the practice of not committing at once to Newgate every offender for trial at the Old Bailey, but nothing had been done to improve the prison buildings. In 1827 the Society was compelled to report that “no material change had taken place in Newgate since the passing of the prison laws,[78] and that consequently the observance of their most important provisions was habitually neglected.” It was enacted that the court of aldermen should make rules for the government of the prison, and that these should be posted publicly within the walls. As yet no rules or regulations had been printed or prepared. By another clause of the Gaol Act, two justices were to be appointed to visit the prison at least thrice in every quarter, and “oftener if occasion required.” These justices were to inspect every part of the prison, and examine into the state and condition of prisoners. The city justices had not fulfilled this obligation. Idleness was still the general rule for all prisoners in Newgate, in defiance of the law. There was no instruction of adult prisoners, in accordance with the law. The sleeping accommodation was still altogether contrary to the latest ideas. The visits of friends was once more unreservedly allowed, and these incomers freely brought in extra provisions and beer. Last, and worst of all, the arrangements for keeping the condemned prisoners between sentence and execution were more than unsatisfactory. They were not confined apart from each other, but were crowded thirty or forty together in the press yard, so that “corrupt conversation obliterated from the mind of him who is doomed to suffer every serious feeling and valuable impression.”[79] I shall have more to say on this subject, and upon the state of Newgate generally, in the following chapter.
The Prison Society did not relax its efforts as time passed, but its leading members had other and more pressing claims upon their energies. Mr. Buxton had succeeded to the great work which William Wilberforce had commenced, and led the repeated attacks upon slavery in British colonies till the whole body of the slaves were manumitted in 1833. In the year immediately preceding this, Parliament was too busy with the great question of its own reform to spare much time for domestic legislation. Nevertheless a committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1831 to report upon the whole system of secondary punishments, which dealt with gaols of all classes, as well as transportation. This committee animadverted strongly upon the system in force at the metropolitan gaols, and more especially upon the condition of Newgate, where “prisoners before and after trial are under no efficient superintendence,” and where “there was no restraint, or attempt at restraint.” Mr. Samuel Hoare was examined by this committee, and stated that in his opinion Newgate, as the common gaol of Middlesex, was wholly inadequate to the proper confinement of its prisoners. From the moment of a person’s committal he was certain to be plunged deeper and deeper in guilt. The prisoners were crowded together in the gaol, contrary to the requirements of the 4 Geo. IV. Again in 1835 prisons and their inmates became once more the care of the senate, and the subject was taken up this time by the House of Lords. A committee was appointed, under the presidency of the Duke of Richmond, “to inquire into and report upon the several gaols and houses of correction in the counties, cities, and corporate towns within England and Wales; upon the rules and discipline therein established with regard to the treatment of unconvicted as well as convicted persons.” The committee was also to report upon the manner in which sentences were carried out, and to recommend any alterations necessary in the rules in order to insure uniformity of discipline. It met on the 31st March, 1835, and continued its sittings well into July, during which time a host of witnesses were examined, and the committee presented three separate reports, embodying recommendations which may be said to have formed the basis of modern prison management.
It was laid down as a first and indispensable principle that uniformity of discipline should prevail everywhere, a theory which did not become a practical fact for forty more years. As a means of securing this uniformity, it was suggested that the rules framed for prison government should be subjected to the Secretary of State for approval, and not, as heretofore, to the judges of assize; that, both to check abuses and watch the progress of improvement, inspectors of prisons should be appointed, who should visit all the prisons from time to time and report to the Secretary of State. It was recommended that the dietaries should be submitted and approved like the rules; that convicted prisoners should not receive any food but the gaol allowance; that food and fuel should be issued in kind, and never provided by the prisoners themselves out of monies granted them. The use of tobacco, hitherto pretty generally indulged in both by men and women, should be strictly prohibited, “as a stimulating luxury inconsistent with any notion of strict discipline and the due pressure of just punishment.” Prison officers should not have any share in prisoners’ earnings, which should be paid into general prison funds, and no part of them handed over to the prisoners themselves. As a means of increasing the severity of imprisonment, letters and visits from outside should not be permitted during the first six months of an imprisonment. Various other recommendations were made as regards the appointment of chaplain and schoolmasters; the limitation of the powers of wardsmen, or prisoners employed in positions of trust, who should not be permitted to traffic with their fellow-prisoners in any way. The committee most of all insisted upon the entire individual separation of prisoners, except during the hours of labour, religious worship, and instruction, as “absolutely necessary for preventing contamination, and for securing a proper system of prison discipline.” This was the first enunciation of the system of separate confinement, which was eventually to replace the attempted arrangement of prisoners by classes according to antecedents and crimes, an incomplete and fallacious method of preventing contamination. The Lords’ Committee fully recognized the painful fact that the greatest mischief followed from the intercourse which was still permitted in so many prisons; to use its words, “the comparatively innocent are seduced, the unwary are entrapped, and the tendency to crime in offenders not entirely hardened is confirmed by the language, the suggestions, and the example of more depraved and systematic criminals.”
This committee, as well as the one preceding it, also reported in terms of strong reprobation on the small prisons and gaols still under the borough corporations. The Commons’ Committee gave it as their opinion that they were in a deplorable state. The same language was used by the commissioners appointed to inquire into the municipal corporations in 1835, when speaking more particularly of the borough gaols. In these the commissioners found “additional proof of the evils of continuing the present constitution of the local tribunals. Instances rarely occur in which the borough gaols admit of any proper classification of the prisoners. In some large towns, as at Berwick on Tweed, Southampton, and Southwark, they (the prisons) are in a very discreditable condition. In many of the smaller boroughs they are totally unfit for the confinement of human beings. In these places the prisoners are often without a proper supply of air and light; frequently the gaols are mere dungeons under the town hall.... It was frequently stated in evidence that the gaol of the borough was in so unfit a state for the reception of prisoners, that plaintiffs were unwilling to consign the defendants against whom they had obtained execution to confinement within its walls.” The Lords’ Committee on Gaols were of the same opinion, and considered the prisons under corporate or peculiar jurisdiction in a very unsatisfactory condition. They therefore recommended that the prisoners should be removed to the county gaols from such prisons as were past improvement, and that the borough funds should be charged for the accommodation. The whole question was again dealt with in Lord John Russell’s bill for the reform of the municipal corporations, and with a more liberal election of town councillors, and the establishment of municipal institutions upon a proper footing, the borough gaols were brought more into accordance with the growing demand for a more humane system of prison management.
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST REPORT OF THE INSPECTORS OF PRISONS.
Appointment of inspectors of prisons—Their names and antecedents—Mr. Crawford and Mr. Whitworth Russell at once visit Newgate, and make a searching inquiry—Find old evils still present—Overcrowding no longer excusable—Want of classification—The governor, Mr. Cope, blamed for this—Prisoners’ treatment—No beds, uncleanly, and in rags—Baleful despotism of prisoner wardsmen, who have more power than the officers—Again proofs of Mr. Cope’s neglect—Scenes of horror in Newgate—Gambling, drinking, debauchery—Flash books allowed—Libel of Stockdale v. Hansard grows out of this—Serious affrays in the wards—Prisoners badly wounded by one another—Extra and luxurious food admitted—Also visitors of both sexes indiscriminately—Same evils to a lesser degree on female side—Ladies’ Association—No real separation of the sexes—Mr. Cope an offender in this respect—The press-yard or condemned convicts’ yard the worst of all—Culpable and indiscriminate association—Brutal behaviour of many of those sentenced to death—The ordinary checked in his zeal—Criminal lunatics allowed to remain in Newgate—House of Commons’ prisoners monopolize hospital and best accommodation in the gaol—Abuses of State Side revived in their case—Evils rampant briefly recapitulated by inspectors—Their report raises a storm in the city—Protest of the Corporation—Some attempt at reform—Many of the charges reiterated in later reports—No radical reform possible without complete reconstruction.
IN the preceding chapter I have been tempted by the importance of the general question to give it prominence and precedence over the particular branch of which I am treating. Newgate has remained rather in the background while the whole of the gaols as a body were under discussion. But this digression was necessary in order to present a more complete picture of the state of gaols in the early part of the present century, just before the public mind was first awakened to the need for thorough reform. I shall now return to the great gaol of the city of London, and give a more detailed account of its condition and inner life as the inspectors of prisons found them in 1835-6. These gentlemen were appointed in October 1835, owing to the strong representations of the Lords’ Committee,[80] backed up by the evidence of several influential witnesses. Mr. Samuel Hoare, when examined, considered it indispensably necessary, to carry out whatever system might be established, that inspectors should watch over the observance of the law. He saw no objection on the score of their probable interference with the local jurisdiction, but he would not arm them with any authority lest their co-operation might be offensive. Sir Frederick Roe was of the same opinion as regards the appointment, but he would give the inspectors the power of acting as well as reporting. They should be persons, he thought, selected from the highest class; the duty was most important, one which required discretion, judgment, and knowledge of law, with sufficient insight and experience to discover defects in prison discipline. These considerations no doubt had weight with those who made the selection of the first inspectors, and the two gentlemen appointed were probably the most fitted in England to be so employed. One was Mr. William Crawford, the other the Rev. Whitworth Russell.
The first named had long been an active philanthropist, devoting himself more particularly to the reformation of juvenile criminals.[81] William Crawford had been one of the promoters and managers of the Philanthropic Society’s farm school. Later on he had devoted himself to the personal investigation of the prisons of the United States. At that time the mild and intelligent prison discipline in force in Pennsylvania, the legacy of the old Quaker immigrants, had made such prisons as Auburn a model for imitation. Several European states had despatched emissaries to examine and report upon them. France had sent MM. Beaumont and De Tocqueville, who subsequently published several interesting works on the subject. England was represented by Mr. Crawford, and the result of his inquiry was given to the public as an appendix to the House of Commons’ ‘Report on Secondary Punishments.’ It is an able and exhaustive state paper, testifying to the keenness of the writer’s perception, and his unremitting labour in pursuing his researches. Mr. Crawford was thoroughly versed in the still imperfectly understood science of prison management, and fully qualified for his new duties.