Recollections of Windsor Prison; / Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection

by of Vermont John Reynolds

A few lines more and I shall have done with this article. I was in Windsor when Rev. Lewis Dwight, the Secretary of the Society, visited that prison. I know from what source he obtained his information, and I know how extremely imperfect was some of the account he obtained, and how much was hidden from him entirely. And taking what relates to this prison, in his Reports, as a specimen of what he has related of other prisons, I am certain that much more light is needed to guide him to the evils of penitentiaries, and to their cure, than he has yet obtained, Prisoners ought to have been consulted, as well as keepers; an ex parte examination contains only part of the truth. Prisoners ought to be treated by christians on terms of equality, if any good is to be effected in the work of reformation; and before any thing can be done to effect their lasting good, they must be treated with kindness and respect. No other means can reform them. You may snarl them into sin, and tread them down to hell, but you must love them into repentance, and support them up the ascent to heaven.

DESIGN OF PENITENTIARIES IN RESPECT TO THE TREATMENT OF CONVICTS, ACCORDING TO THE VIEWS OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE CONNECTICUT STATE PRISON, WITH REMARKS.

"Upon the subject of the general treatment of the convicts, and the discipline of the institution, we would remark that the State Prison is designed to be, and emphatically is, a place of PUNISHMENT. The feelings of humanity and mistaken mercy should not be suffered to interpose, to disarm its punishment of that rigor due to justice and the violated laws of the land. While a proper regard is had to the health of its inmates, their comfort should not be so far studied as to render it a desirable residence, even to those whose condition in society is attended with the severest privations. When this becomes the case, our criminal code becomes a bounty law for crime."—Sixth Report, page 94.

This is throwing off the mask completely, and boldly declaring that "punishment," SEVERE punishment, a punishment in which there is no tincture of "humanity," is the design, and emphatically, the discipline, of that prison. The comfort of the prisoner is not to be sought in any way inconsistent with punishment without humanity. His reformation is not to be sought at all. A more unsound and disgraceful principle of penitentiary discipline, was never avowed by any similar committee in this country before; but it is the very one on which all American penitentiaries are governed. "That rigor due to Justice and the violated laws of the land!" Yes; "Justice and the violated laws," demand "rigor." It is not enough to have the sinner securely confined—he must be uncomfortable. His health must be attended to; let him live; but his cup of gall must be full and overflowing. Let him live—not for comfort, but to groan in the ear of heaven the "rigor" of "Justice" and of the "violated laws." Punishment is God's "strange work," his "strange act," but it is the common work of his creatures.

According to my views of a penitentiary, it is not unqualifiedly, a place of punishment, but a place of reformation, to be effected by the mildest means, and to be under the constant direction of humanity. Cruelty never should enter its walls. Satan was no more out of his place in Eden, than is cruelty in a place of reformation.

As to a criminal code's becoming "a bounty law for crime," when its discipline for prisons is such as to render them a desirable residence, to those who are suffering even the "severest privations" in society, that Committee need have no fears. There is no danger of any prisons ever becoming so mild as to be a desirable residence for any one. Take the purest apartment in heaven, and confine a seraph there, and the simple fact that he was a prisoner would make his home a hell. The Devil himself would prefer liberty in the world of woe, to imprisonment even in Paradise—freedom with damnation, to salvation with restraint.

THE MEANS OF EFFECTING A REFORMATION AMONG PRISONERS.

On this subject many an enthusiast has speculated, and many a fine and beautiful theory has charmed the benevolent mind. The sacred orator from the desk, inspired by the genius of his faith, and warm amidst the holy fires of the altar, has often brought the miserable tenants of the dungeon within the sympathies of his weeping hearers. Clothed with the robes of state, the philanthropist has often urged the claims of prisoners upon the consideration of councils and legislatures. For eighteen hundred years have the altar and the throne sent abroad, in tones of commiseration, the suffering and neglected condition of prisoners; but what has been the result? Prisons are as numerous as ever, and almost every season sees a new one erected. The annual volume of crimes is as huge and black as ever. The gloom of these earthly hells is undissipated by the charm of operative benevolence. And though it is two thousand years since the foundations of christianity were laid in the earth—that heavenly principle which was to say to the prisoners, "go forth,"—the notes of its rejoicing ascend in faint association with the deep-toned sigh of despair and misery, which is hourly bursting from the grated cell. Alas! for the times. But why have the benevolent and christian spirits of every age laboured in vain, and spent their strength for naught? The answer is obvious.

They have acted on a mistaken theory. They have confided in the integrity and benevolence of those to whose immediate care prisoners are committed, where nothing is more true than that prison keepers are, and ever have been, the cruelest of men. They have gone the whole round of experiment—imprisonment and hard labour, solitary confinement, transportation, stripes, cropping and branding—the whole machinery of torture and death has been put into various motion, in the ignorant hope of reforming a sinner by the sure and only means of making a devil. The science of architecture has been exhausted in experiments to construct a reformatory prison, as if the form of a cell could regenerate a vicious heart into virtue. Societies have been formed, books have been published, funds have been collected, and a "PRISON DISCIPLINE" has been put into practice, on the infatuated supposition, that a bad man can be made good by writing him a "VILLIAN" on every page that presents him to the public eye, and crushing him under a painful and torturing humiliation which would fire an angel with resentment, and make a John a Judas. Every sermon that is preached, every prayer that is made, every hymn that is sung in prisons, tells the convicts that they are sinners above all men, because they suffer such things; and it is by means like these, by audibly and impliedly thanking God that they are not like these publicans, that the ministers of mercy to prisons are labouring to reform the wicked.

Another great fault in the operations of the benevolent in favour of prisoners, is, they are objects of attention only while they are in prison. A wise physician will take care to prevent disease, and be equally careful to prevent a relapse. Not so with these physicians. They visit the patient at his sick bed for the first time, and there they remind him very graciously of the cause of his sickness, and leave him as soon as he can leave his bed. Intelligent good will embraces its objects the moment they are discovered, and never abandons them. The grand outlines of expansive and understanding benevolence are—the prevention of crime or any other misery—the comfort of the sufferer and the reformation of the criminal—and the prevention of future distress and relapse into crime. Let the pious, and virtuous, and compassionate, keep these outlines constantly in view, and never permit their efforts to relax, but increase and multiply them over every part of the ample field which the above landmarks describe.