The Evil of Constant Supervision
Individual supervision is compulsory, and in many cases it is essential, but not in all. Surely there are some prisoners who might, with good results, be trusted. The supervision is never relaxed; the prisoner is always in sight or hearing of an officer. During the day she is never trusted out of sight, and at night the watchful eye of the night officer can see her by means of a small glass fitted in the door of each cell. She may grow gray during the length of her imprisonment, but the rule of supervision is never relaxed. Try and realize what it means always to feel that you are watched. After all, these prisoners are women, some may be mothers, and it is surely the height of wickedness and folly to crush whatever remnant of humanity and self-respect even a convict woman may still have left her. These poor creatures who wear the brand of prison shame are guarded and controlled by women, but men make the rules which regulate every movement of their forlorn lives.
Some Good Points of Convict Prisons
The rules of prison, rigorous as they are, are not wholly without some consideration for the hapless beings who are condemned to suffer punishment for their sins within their gloomy walls. On the men’s side the system is harsher, the life harder, and the discipline more strict and severe; and I can well believe that for a man of refinement and culture the punishment falls little short of a foretaste of inferno. But gloomy and tragic as the convict establishment is, it is a better place than the county prison, and I have heard habitual criminals avow that a convict prison is the nearest approach to a comfortable “home” in the penal world. I know that a certain type of degenerate women, after serving their sentences, have committed grave offenses with the sole object of obtaining a conviction which would send them back to penal servitude. For such the segregation system would be the most effectual remedy.
My Sickness
I had never been a robust woman, and the hardships of prison life were breaking down my constitution. The cells at Woking were not heated. In the halls were two fireplaces and a stove, which were alight day and night; but as the solid doors of the cells were all locked, the heat could not penetrate them. Thus, while the atmosphere outside the cell might be warm, the inside was icy cold. During the hard winter frosts the water frequently froze in my cell over night. The bed-clothing was insufficient, and I suffered as much from the cold as the poorest and most miserable creature on earth. Added to this, I was compelled to go out and exercise in all kinds of weather. On rainy days I would come in with my shoes and stockings wet through, and as I possessed only one pair of shoes and one pair of stockings, I had to keep them on, wet as they were. The shoes I had to wear until worn out; the stockings until changed on the Saturday of each week, which was the only day a change of any kind of underwear could be obtained, no matter in what condition it might be. Therefore, the majority of the inmates in the winter time seldom had dry feet, if there was much rain or snow, the natural result being catarrh, influenza, bronchitis, and rheumatism, from all of which I suffered in turn.
Taken to the Infirmary
As long as the prisoner is not feverish she is treated in her own cell in the ward, her food remaining the ordinary prison dietary; but as soon as her temperature rises, as occurred in my case frequently, she is admitted as a patient to the infirmary, where she is fed according to medical prescription.