"I will teach you to respect human life," says the judge, "by depriving you of your own."
"Don't worry, my boy," says the culprit's counsel, patting him on the back; "you'll die sometime, I suppose; but nothing is more certain than that it won't be on the day set for your execution by his honor. And I'll risk my reputation on your death being no less in the ordinary course of nature than his honor's, and very likely—for he looks like a diabetes patient—not so soon."
These anticipations often prove well grounded.
No one in the court room, therefore, is often more cheerful and confident than is the prisoner doomed to the noose or the chair. Besides, if all else fails, he may petition for pardon or for life imprisonment.
In short, the death penalty stays on the statute books, but the community does not want it, though it has not the courage to demand its abolition outright. It forfeits its self-respect, and the murderer draws the inference that it is safer to murder than to steal. A thoroughbred man does not compromise; he does one thing or he does the other, retains his self-respect, and commands that of his fellows, whether or not he be "successful." This nation is not thoroughbred as regards its laws, and is neither self-respecting nor respected.
However, there is agitation for the abolition of the death penalty; and possibly the futility and absurdity of such a punishment may finally strike the persons whom we have picked out as the wisest and ablest among us, and have put in our legislatures to tell us what to do and not to do. Absurd though legal killings may be, they are not so absurd as the persuasion that death is the worst thing that can happen to a man. It involves little or no suffering, and is over in a moment. Imprisonment involves much suffering, and lasts long, not to speak of the disgrace of it, to those who can feel disgrace. The serious feature about killing is, that it is final for this state of being, and when we do it we do we know not what. But that is for the community to consider, not the victim.
We cannot know what death means, but we can and do know what imprisonment means, and so far as our mortal senses can tell us, it is worse than death. But while we may abolish the death penalty easily, the suggestion to abolish imprisonment staggers us like an earthquake. Every moral instinct in our little souls leaps up and shrieks in protest; and if that be not enough, we fall back with full conviction upon the consideration of security of property. It is impossible to consider a measure which would leave crimes against property unpunished. And what other punishment for them than imprisonment is there or can there be?
Argument upon this matter evidently bids fair to drag in pretty nearly everything else—sociology, political economy, religion, politics, law, medicine, psychology,—the whole conduct of our life and history of our opinions. But I must content myself here with a few words, and leave volumes to others. That personal property has value is undeniable; whether it be worth what it costs us, in the long run, and from all points of view, may be left to the judgment of generations to come. Law in its origins is Divine; whether our human derivations from it partake of its high nature is debatable. Medicine and psychology, professing much, have not explained to us what or why we are, or what is our degree of responsibility for what we are and do. Politics sits on the bench and argues through the mouth of the public prosecutor; is justice safe in their keeping?
This age did not invent prisons, but inherited them from an unmeasured past. It is a primitive device. The mother locks up her naughty child in the closet or ties its leg to the bed-post. Society does the same with its naughty children, though with one difference—the mother still loves her child. She, following the example of God, chastens in love; but what do we chasten in? If not in love, then in hate or indifference, or to get troublesome persons out of our way without regard to harm or benefit to them. And that is not Godlike but diabolical, being based upon selfishness. The community being stronger than the individual, its selfishness is tyranny or despotism. Many of us indeed may be willing to admit that prisons are perhaps objectionable or altogether wrong in theory; but surely something must be done with malefactors, and if not prison, what?
The only answer hitherto is compromise—the old answer, fresh once more from the devil's inexhaustible repertoire. We are willing to abolish the death penalty, which is more merciful than imprisonment; but we are unwilling to abolish the latter, because in spite of its inhumanity, it seems to protect our property. In other words, we consider our own interests exclusively, and the culprit's not at all—though we still protest that our object in imprisoning is as much the individual's reformation, as our own security. The fact, however, that imprisonment brutifies and destroys instead of reforming is beginning to glare at us in a manner so disconcerting and undeniable, that we feel something has to be done; and in accordance with our ancient habit and constitutional predisposition, that something turns out to be compromise. We sentenced for murder, but put obstacles in the way of carrying the sentence out. On the same principle, we will now retain prisons, but make them so agreeable that convicts will not mind being committed to them.