HOUSE OF CORRECTION.
In the preceding divisions of this Report, it has been shown that the County Prison is peopled and re-peopled by persons who pass regularly from vice to vice, or from one degree of vice to another, marking their progress with a short residence in the cells of the prison, remaining at the longest only thirty days, and associating with those who may be their teachers or pupils in misdemeanors. It is not pretended by those who send these offenders to the prison, that the incarceration will amend their habits,—it is only the means of punishment; nor is it more than desired,—scarcely to be hoped,—by those who seek to alleviate the miseries of the prison, that the confinement of thirty days will tend to repentance and amendment of the vicious offender.
It is evident that more is required,—more in the way of wholesome discipline, more in time, more in direct appeals and instruction, more in the enforcement of industry. The prison cannot do much more than it is doing for the vicious. The solemn pledges of the intemperate to avoid intoxicating drink are slightly regarded when the means of violation are enticingly offered, and all the vices which have procured imprisonment lose their terrors, or double their attractions, when the temporary punishment is accomplished.
It is evident then that we need a resort for the vicious that will offer to society some hope that even if the vice is not avoided, the vicious shall be kept where they will cease to degrade society by their misconduct and lead others to destruction by their example.
We need a “House of Correction,” a place to receive those men and women who will not be reclaimed by monitions, or short confinement. We need a place where time for thinking can be found, and where the food for reflection may be supplied.
But in this case we cannot throw the censure for deficiency on the Legislature of the State. The wants of the community are admitted, and the right to supply those wants granted: the means are withheld by the city authority. Resolutions for building a Municipal Hospital for the reception, care and cure of those attacked with the small-pox, are adopted, and the means for carrying into effect those resolutions are supplied by the Councils of the city. That is well, and denotes a paternal care, on their part, of the interest and health of their constituents. But why—when authority is given, why not provide a Hospital for those struck with the pestilence of drunkenness and the accumulated miseries that come in its train? Is there a disease in the whole catalogue of human suffering that is more epidemic, if not contagious, than intoxication? or is there one that multiplies itself more by social contact? And why then should the vagrant, the breaker of the peace, the drunkard, multiply his or her disease more than the sufferer by the small-pox or cholera? If the hospital for the small-pox is a retreat for the sufferer, and his family and neighborhood need to be relieved from the danger of his condition, the House of Correction would be no less an asylum for the vicious, in which they could grow better by care, and escape the evil of communicating their mental disease to their neighbors.
In whatever light the House of Correction is regarded, it presents the highest claims on society for its establishment. Is it to be a place into which the vicious are to be driven by the law, that they may be punished for their offence, and society saved the disgrace and danger of their presence? Society has a right to demand such a forceful withdrawal of the elements of crime from its midst. Is it to be a place of enforced refuge for the willing or unwilling victim of vice, where habits of disorder may be broken and new habits of industry and propriety established, where good counsel shall make reasonable and acceptable the moderate discipline of the place, where good example shall illustrate the lessons of good morals, and the exhibition of orderly propriety of the place be made to contrast with the squallor and misery of the resorts of vice from which the inmates have been gathered, and thus virtue enforced and resolutions of good formed, and their exercise for some time at least insured? Then it is solemnly urged that the House of Correction is called for by all that humanity can contrive and sound policy can suggest.
In this matter the Society has done its part, and is ready, when empowered, to continue its labor in the direction of amending the vicious. But whether the Society have or have not any direct relations with the House of Correction, it must feel that the interests of this great community, of humanity and of virtue, suffer by the delay in providing for its erection. If there be truth in the statements submitted with regard to the number and character of those who are habituées of the County Prison, we need no argument in favor of the House of Correction.