Life imprisonment is an unjust sentence. Life prisoners are those who have received their sentence for murdering a fellow being. In many cases, however, they can not really be classed as criminals. They are victims of circumstances. The deed was not premeditated but was brought about on the impulse of the moment. The sentence of a lifelong imprisonment forever deprives of the liberties of freedom and the association of friends and relatives, and the only hope of freedom is an escape, then to remain a fugitive from justice. Mr. Meade in his report suggests that the life prisoner should be allowed the same privilege of commutation or short time as is given other prisoners, and in this give him a hope of release. There are tables which insurance companies use (and they are supported by the courts) which fix an average limit of years of the existence of a man, computing from the first year; the interval beyond the present age naturally decreasing as old age approaches. He says: “It would seem that these tables furnish a foundation on which a system for life prisoners should be based. For instance, a man twenty years of age is convicted of murder and sentenced to prison for life. Our tables show that the average number of years for a man of that age still to live is approximately thirty-four. Figuring the legal commutation on this term of thirty-four years, we find the prisoner would be compelled to serve about twenty-three years of solid time. A man thirty years old would on the same basis, having about thirty years to live, serve eighteen years; a man forty years old, having about twenty-five years to live, would serve sixteen years in prison. Thus we might continue our observations indefinitely.”
My views of this matter may be severely criticised, nevertheless we do not consider that five years is unreasonably short for the first offence of murder. This releases the innocent man who may have been sentenced through circumstantial evidence or otherwise by false accusation. It is a long sentence for a man who has acted on the impulse of the moment or in a fit of anger; and even to the one who has premeditated the crime, five years of hard labor and proper training in a prison will be an impressive lesson to cause him not to repeat the act. For a second offence it should not be more than ten or fifteen years, and even for a third offence it would not be out of reason to give him the life sentence with the regular commutation. This reasoning may to many at first thought seem ridiculous, but upon proper consideration we should remember that as long as there is life there is hope, and while there is a possibility of reformation a man should have some kind of a chance; not only a chance to reform, but a chance to enjoy his liberty. Even after he has served two or three terms he is not then a worse character and not more dangerous to a community than thousands of others who are just as guilty but have not suffered the penalty of the law. When a man has served according to the penalty here suggested, has he not suffered sufficient to satisfy the law? and should we not be willing to allow him the privileges of liberty and to enjoy life once more? It is a hard heart indeed that will place a man behind prison-bars for life. In England there is a possibility of being set at liberty after twenty years, on account of good behavior. There needs to be a radical change in our laws on this line.
THE DUNGEON.
This is the dreaded place of all prisons and in many places resorted to oftener than necessary. Many prisoners who work in the mines have had to go to the dungeon without their supper after laboring hard all day, because ungodly and wicked guards reported a shortage in the proper amount of coal mined, when the facts of the case were that the guards had stolen or removed a portion of the coal from the car after it left the prisoner, because of their dislike for the prisoner and by so doing could have him punished. It also too often happens that prisoners refuse to work as they should, and deserve the punishment. It is not necessary to here describe the filthy, stifling, odorous dungeons of war times or of some of the worst prisons of the day, but a description of the dungeon of one of the best prisons in our land will be sufficient. The following is a description given by one who served a term in prison. In describing the punishment to secure good discipline, he said:
“To me these contingency dungeons are, as their name implies, dark, with similarity to an ordinary cell with the exception of a door which in the common cell contains open spaces for the admission of light, but the dark cell admits no light, and not a sufficient quantity of air. There is no furniture in this dark cell. While undergoing punishment if a prisoner desires to rest he can do so by reclining on the stone floor. No refractory prisoner ever grows corpulent while confined in these dark cells, as he receives only one meal of bread and water in twenty-four hours. The prisoner is often kept in one of these cells from eight to ten days. Sleep is almost impossible. When a prisoner enters the dungeon he is required to leave behind him his coat, cap, and shoes. During the winter months it is often very cold in these cells, requiring the prisoner to walk up and down the dungeon in his stocking feet to prevent his freezing, and this for a period of ten days in nearly every instance compels submission. After the dark cells thaw out in the summer months they are excessively hot. Sometimes in winter the temperature is below zero, and in summer it often rises to 100 degrees. They are then veritable furnaces. Generally after the prisoner undergoes a freezing or baking process for eight or ten days, he is willing to behave himself in the future. They are sometimes so reduced and weakened that when brought out of the dark cell they can scarcely walk without aid. I have seen them reel to and fro like drunken men. They are often as pale as death. In many cases the prisoner contracts cold which later on terminates fatally, and this is one of the principal objections to this mode of punishment. If the prisoner in the mine does not get out his regular weekly task of coal, on Saturday he is reported to the deputy sheriff by the officer in charge and is sent to the blind cell before supper and kept there until the following Monday morning, when he is taken out and sent to his work in the mines. While in there he gets only bread and water once in twenty-four hours. This is a great inducement to work, which certainly prevents criminals from shirking their labor, and soon converts the lazy tramp into a hustling coal miner. If being in this dark cell ten days and nights is insufficient to subdue a rebellious spirit of the convict he is taken out and placed in the solitary cell. This is similar to the ordinary cell with the exception that it contains no furniture. Here the convict remains on bread and water until he is starved almost to death or until he is willing to submit and do his work as ordered.”
The Cat-o’nine-tails