In every part of these Reports is found the reiterated opinion of the visiting officer, (whose experience of many years entitles his views to the greatest respect,) that no good moral results are to be expected from social confinement; nothing but the separate system can be relied on to give moral efficacy to imprisonment for crime.
It is noticed too, that in Great Britain and Ireland, as in this city, and, we suppose, in most of the large cities of the Union, there is a class of men and women, and especially of the latter, that seem to divide their time between the prison cells, and places of debauchery and preparation for imprisonment. In the Report for the prison in the county of the town of Drogheda, (the district containing eighteen thousand inhabitants,) there are females who are constant “recurrents;” and it is said that, out of those committed during the year 1862, one had been previously in custody ninety-two times, and the rest from twenty-eight to forty-nine times.
Separate Reports are made upon the condition of convict prisons, both in Great Britain and Ireland.
In the Report for common prisons of Great Britain, there is rather less perspicacity, and there seems less attention paid to the details of the institutions. The moral and religious instruction is ordinarily committed to a clergyman of the Established Church; but in most of the Reports it is stated that Dissenting and Catholic prisoners may have the services of clergymen of their own denomination, if they desire it. In Cardiganshire, (Wales,) it is stated, “every facility is given to protestant dissenters for seeing ministers of their several persuasions, but Roman Catholics are unknown in the prison.” Whether Catholics are not admitted, or none are sentenced to its cells, or whether the existence of such a denomination is ignored, or whether none are found in that district, it is not stated.
The county and borough jails throughout England seem not to be in the best condition to produce moral improvement.
We may remark here, that the Episcopal Church, being the established denomination in England and Wales, we find all the prisons supplied with a clergyman of that church. So far as that goes, it is laudable, and it may be added, as an additional ground for commendation, that Dissenting and Roman Catholic Clergymen are admitted, when their service is required by prisoners of their denomination. We are not willing to criticise closely, but it would seem that, as visiting clergymen are paid by the public money, and as their office is to awaken as well as to satisfy an appetite for moral and religious instruction, it is scarcely within the limits of Christian charity to make no provision to call dissenters and other prisoners to a sense of duty. And this is the more evident, from the fact that, in Ireland, where only a very small minority are of the Established Church, prisoners of that denomination are supplied with a special religious teacher, as well as those of the other two great divisions. There is, however, in some of the English prisons, a “lecturer, who instructs his hearers not only in moral, but in physical sciences.”
It is much however to know that the great truths of religion are taught in the public prisons of England, and it is more to know that there are many willing learners, who, without this means of improvement, would remain in ignorance, if not of religious truths, at least of the necessity and advantage of receiving and practising them.
The Report of the Directors of the Convict Prisons of Ireland, is interesting to those who feel desirous, in this country, to do all the good possible to convicts. The very great proportion of inhabitants of Ireland who are not of the “Established Church,” makes it necessary to give officially, religious and moral instruction by clergymen of different denominations, and hence we find that the development of the true state of the prisons, includes the Annual Reports of the Clergy of the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic Churches, and of that denomination of Dissenters which has probably the largest number in the prison, or which can most easily supply from the neighborhood, a clergyman to lead religious service. And we learn from the Reports of the different clergy, that religious service, according to the requirements of the several denominations represented by the clergymen, are held twice on every Sunday and recognized religious holiday, and that the usual instruction in doctrine and morals is also given to classes; all, of course, without interference with each other.
In many respects these Parliamentary Reports may be regarded as of more consequence to Boards of Prison Inspectors, than to the “Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” as they set forth the economy of the institutions, the discipline, the means of comfort, and the character of employment, as well as the results of all these, and the exact cost; and thus they may become useful as indicative of what Boards of Inspectors should carefully shun or promptly adopt, with such modifications and adaptations as difference of circumstances renders necessary.
But, in Great Britain and Ireland, much of the labor assumed by the Philadelphia “Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” is undertaken by the Government; and the closeness of the investigation of their affairs, and the fulness of the Reports, are consequent upon the interest which philanthropic individuals have awakened throughout the country, and the action which has been secured by both Houses of Parliament. The great volume of Reports of the action of “a committee of the House of Lords” is of deep interest, even in this country, as showing not merely the condition of certain great prisons, but as illustrating, especially, the effect of different systems of treatment and labor. The elevated rank of the persons who composed the commission of inquiry, shows the importance which the House of Lords attached to the subject; and the constancy of attendance, and the searching character of questions put to those under examination, show the fidelity of the distinguished noblemen to the interests submitted to their care.[[2]]