CHAPTER XXIX
DOES IMPRISONMENT REFORM?
This is a hard question to answer, although it has been asked extensively down through the ages. The answer will turn mainly on what you mean by reform. It is interesting to know that students of criminology have wrestled with the question, but cannot agree on the answer. As an abstract question it is very clear to us that imprisonment of itself cannot reform. Force cannot change a life, nor restore the image of God in the soul. When a lawbreaker is placed inside the walls of a prison, force uses the machinery of the institution to compel him to pay the penalty of the law. But it cannot reform him, nor make him a better man, nor change his nature. That work must be done by a higher Power.
Not only can it be truthfully said that imprisonment does not reform the law-breaker, but in most of our prisons the culprit has only to serve a brief sentence, to come out a worse man than when he went in. This is a sad statement to make, when we think of all our boasted liberties and advanced civilization, but it is nevertheless true. For the explanation of this condition of affairs it is not necessary to look far. The fact is, the unfortunate lack of proper classification in all of our prisons makes the companionship of thieves and cutthroats so demoralizing, the fellowship so infectious, the language and habits so debasing, that out of thousands of persons who mingle together in a modern prison, few escape the contaminating influences.
When a man has been charged with a crime, the first thing that is done by society is to arrest him and lock him up in a little dark dungeon, 4x6 feet, with hardly enough cubic space of air coming in through the small iron grating to make it sanitary. Here he is kept weeks and sometimes months before a trial is given him, breathing the fetid atmosphere of the institution, which after a time poisons his entire system, and paints his face with the prison pallor.
Here it is that many a man who has brooded over the past to such an extent that when he has atoned for his crime, and he finds himself a free man once more, has made up his mind to fight society to a finish! From this time on his hand is against every man, and every man is against him. The imprisonment has aroused in him the darkest passions of an unregenerate life, and made him a moral anarchist for the fancied wrongs he has suffered. Said a man to me who had spent nearly twenty-four years in prison, having been convicted of crime eight or ten different times, when I asked him why he did not go to work when he came out of Caldwell Prison, N. J., “Me work! I will never work. When I was sent to prison for the first time, I received a good deal of harsh treatment. I then vowed vengeance for the wrongs done me. No! I will steal as long as I live, but I will never work.” Whenever I touched on prison life, the subject awoke bitterness in his soul, and for the time being he spoke like a maniac. The fact is, over fifty per cent. of all first offenders come from our penal institutions, and after a brief period return to crime again, unreformed and uncured.
The prison authorities should always bear in mind that no matter how deep-dyed in crime the inmates may be, they are moral beings, made in the image of God, and are therefore worth saving, and may be saved if the proper methods and influences are brought to bear the right way on their minds and lives. While there is life there is hope.
It is true, the men in prison, no matter how intelligent, have little influence over the authorities in bringing about needed reforms. They are regarded as having no right to complain, nor even to ask for favors. If they are to receive favors, others must speak in their behalf. Even the suggestions of criminals are usually ignored by the prison authorities, as they are supposed to be moved by sentiment, or often by mercenary reasons.
In dealing with crime, it should be the settled policy of the State to use every means possible, although sometimes expensive, to bring about the reformation of the prisoner. It is a well known fact that when a thief is sent to prison, absolutely nothing is done to teach him the why and wherefore of the Eighth Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” Out of 168 hours in seven days, one, or possibly two, hours are devoted to religious training. If the thief, the perjurer, the gambler, the swindler and others of that ilk are to be reformed, why not use means for the accomplishment? Why not have moral and ethical teaching, or addresses of some kind daily? Every one saved from a life of wrongdoing will necessarily reduce the cost of crime!
Although all cruel and inhuman methods of punishment are forbidden in nearly all of our prisons, and the punishment for crimes that is meted out to criminals was never so free from malice and revenge as it is to-day, yet we are free to say that as far as prison reform is concerned, we have not yet reached the ideal.