The Criminal & the Community

by James Devon

In a neighbouring country lately the question of compulsory treatment was raised. All the information I have with regard to it has been obtained from the statements, official and otherwise, which have been published. These statements may have been imperfect, but only from them can the public form an opinion, The statements contradict each other, and as they refer to incidents which took place in a prison—a place to which ordinary members of the public have no access—they are bound to leave an uneasy feeling in the mind of the impartial observer.

Certain women, impelled by the desire to advance a political measure, engaged in conduct which brought them into conflict with the authorities. It was claimed on their behalf that they had committed a political offence, and in that respect differed from other criminals; but all offences are political offences. Whether a woman strikes a man because she is angry with him, or because she is angry with a Cabinet Minister whom she does not know, she commits an assault which is a crime in the eyes of the law. Her motive may differ in the one case from the other, but its issue has no difference; and in both cases, in so far as the State takes notice of it, it is a political offence. Distinctions between offences can only end in confusion; distinctions between offenders have never been sufficiently recognised; and no real progress can ever be made in the treatment of the criminal until the differences between one person and another are taken into account. There can be no question that in character, in training, and in their previous history, these women differed widely from the ordinary prisoner, and all the trouble which resulted was due to the failure of those in authority to act upon their knowledge of this fact. That the conduct for which many of the women were sent to prison was unreasonable, few will deny; but it was no more unreasonable than the treatment they received. If they behaved like mad people, so did the officials.

The only way in which one person can show greater wisdom than another is by conduct. If the women were hysterical, the officials did not exactly shine as examples of calmness. The highly strung person who glories in what she believes to be martyrdom, who sees everything in the light of her own ideals, is not likely to be brought to another frame of mind by receiving the treatment which she regards as persecution. These women had made it necessary that they should be restrained from annoying others by their conduct; but it mattered nothing to the public that they should be restrained in a certain way; what did matter was that the nuisance should be effectively stopped. That the method of dealing with them increased the trouble is beyond question; and there is no justification for interference with anybody except in so far as the method adopted has the result desired.

It is folly, if not worse, to enter upon any course that cannot be carried on indefinitely. If your treatment fails to achieve the end aimed at, that is bad; if it results in the person with whom you are dealing beating you, that is worse. The law attempted to frighten the women, and the women, by their continued resistance, frightened the administrators of the law. Which presented the most sorry spectacle it is hard to say.

The trouble seems to have begun through the refusal on the part of the authorities to allow the women to wear their own clothing. What harm it would have done to anybody to grant this permission it is difficult to see. If they had fed themselves and clothed themselves it would have saved expense to the public. They believed that the clothing was intended to degrade them; and they might have asked, if that was not the intention, why was the proceeding insisted on? Of course, to permit them to save the State the expense of keeping them while they were in custody would have upset the system; but the system is far from being considered by those who are responsible for its administration to be anything approaching perfection, for it is a fashionable thing amongst them to ask for its improvement, and to justify changes, when they make them, on the ground that they were required. Opposition grew with repression; unreason provoked unreason, and the public heard with considerable uneasiness that a hunger strike was taking place, and that the strikers were being artificially fed.

In certain physical diseases resort to artificial feeding may be necessary, but prisoners suffering from these diseases are not fit for prison discipline and should be treated in a hospital outside. Among the insane are those who obstinately refuse to take food, and therefore require to be fed; but an insane person differs from a prisoner in this important respect, that in the eyes of the law he is free from responsibility and has no will of his own. His friends are permitted access to him. They may, and sometimes do, interfere with the discretion of the medical attendant, and in any case his actions are within their supervision and criticism.

Medical men assume that self-preservation is a primal instinct, and that the person who deliberately sets out to maim himself or to destroy his life is insane, even although intellectually he may appear to be quite sound. If a man become possessed by religious zeal and set out to convert his neighbours to his views, he may incidentally be a considerable nuisance to them. He may stand at street corners and annoy the surrounding inhabitants by his exhortation; but, in Glasgow at any rate, they put up with this on account of the good intention they ascribe to him. If, however, he gives up his business, and prevents other people from attending to theirs by calling on them and arguing with them, people begin to suspect his sanity; and the man who would throw a brick into another’s office at the risk of hurting some of the people employed there, in order to convince their principal that if he did not accept the religion the missionary preached he would go to hell, would probably be dealt with as a lunatic. The conduct of some of the women was quite as eccentric, but people may do insane-like things without being insane. That, however, is no reason for disregarding their eccentricities, which should be taken into account when dealing with them. If the women required to be fed artificially, it by no means follows that it was a proper thing to do so in prison. It certainly was indiscreet, and it is difficult to see how, if it was justifiable to resort to this measure in order to save the life of a prisoner, it could be argued that a medical officer would not be equally justified in cutting off the injured or diseased arm of a prisoner, in spite of his protestations, in order to save his life. It is one thing to place the liberties of men, and another thing altogether to place their lives in the hands of officials.

There is no official and no number of officials—by whatever name called—good enough to be entrusted, unchecked by public observation, with the lives of their fellow-citizens; and there is no criminal bad enough to be immured from the public gaze and placed wholly under the control of anyone. It is not that the officials are bad; they are no worse than unofficial persons and no better, and there is far more danger from those who have gained a reputation for humanity and for enlightened opinions, even when they have deserved the reputation, than from the others, because the former are likely to be left more to themselves on account of their good name. Few who read this could be trusted to do as good a day’s work at the end of the year as they did at the beginning, if there were not someone to check and criticise them.

Here and there, now and then, there are violent outcry and excitement because of some administrative scandal, and there is seldom much in it; but there is no continued and intelligent interest in administration on the part of the public. If a man do not fulfil his contract his employer may accept an excuse once or even twice; but if his failure continue he will find himself out of a job, and someone less incompetent or unfortunate will be sought and put in his place. In the public service excuses and exceptions are so much the rule that it would be easy to form a library of blue books containing them, printed and paid for at the public expense.

Only ordinary cases of domestic sickness need be treated in prison, and such ailments or injuries as are dealt with in the outdoor department of a general hospital. In Scotland there is little inducement to prisoners to feign sickness, as there is no automatic change in their diet or location as a result of their being placed on the sick list. The doctor may or may not remove them from their cells and alter their diet. So far as the Act of Parliament is concerned the treatment of the sick lies wholly in his discretion, and there is no power granted to any authority to interfere with or overturn his decision. He may be questioned as to the reason for his conduct; and if foolish enough or weak enough to be persuaded into altering it, in order to please some higher official, he may do so; but the Act of Parliament is absolutely specific in the matter, and refers the sick not to the Commissioners, but to the surgeon of the prison.