I am a man, and nothing which relates to man can be foreign to my bosom.
And it is a part of the qualification of the visitor of the Society, that he can accommodate himself and his ministrations to the varied circumstances of the occupants of the cell, becoming all things to all classes, that he may gain access to their confidence. Failing in all this, as almost any one must come short of some of the objects of his charitable effort, it is a part of the wisdom and prudence of the representatives of the Society to discern their own want of adaptation to the peculiar circumstance of the prisoner, and call in the aid of those who by different gifts, by other attainments, or higher functions may be better qualified to meet the wants of a particular case.
The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the miseries of Public Prisons, is known by its works. It desires to be judged according to those works. Some of the Society’s efforts have obtained for it European fame, while a part of its labors are of so humble a class as to be little known beyond the cell of the vagrant, or in the small circle of which such a beneficiary may form a part. The great system that seems to concern all mankind, that of separate confinement, is discussed, understood, and partially practised in Europe, and if it is not general, the cause is not so much a want of confidence in the system as a want of the deep, practical interest in the unfortunate victims, which should lead governments and legislators to incur the expense of erecting buildings, especially for penal purposes, adapted to the idea of separate confinement and special discipline, as substitutes for those prisons which are only modifications of antiquated palaces, abandoned convents, or delapidated baronial castles. Even the houses that were constructed for prisons owe their erection in many cases to a time when confinement and cruelty were the means of public or private vengeance, and when the convicted felon became an outcast for life, or rather when the conviction of felony was the Cain mark for perpetual infamy.
The Society is represented in its labors at the prisons in Philadelphia by two Committees. The duties of one of which are confined to the Eastern Penitentiary, in Coates street; the other committee is appointed to labor at the County Prison, in Moyamensing. These two committees are really practical operatives. They have little to do with theories or plans. Their work is in the cells of the prisoners or at the doors of the cells, and their dealings are directly with the individual.
In the experience of the visitors of the Society to the two prisons, there is necessarily great difference arising out of the different circumstances of the inmates of the County Prison and those of the Eastern Penitentiary. In the latter the length of incarceration and the closeness of the application of the rule of separate confinement, seems to break up so entirely the relations of the prisoner with the world from which he is banished, that many seem willing to listen to the admonition of visiting friends, and to accept the invitation to review their lives and to form resolves of future amendment. Not merely do the monitions and invitations, of the visitors to the cells, lead prisoners to promises of good, but the isolation of their condition and a want of outward objects to strike their senses and occupy their minds induce them to thought, to meditation, and lead them to the commencement of that reformation, or, at least those solemn resolves of reformation which are the object of their imprisonment. It can scarcely be doubted, that almost every prisoner in the Penitentiary who has been frequently visited by those who evince an anxiety for his temporal and spiritual good, has been led to resolve to refrain from the crimes which placed him in prison, and to seek a maintenance in the world by means which that world sanctions and which God approves; but it is certain that a large portion of those who thus resolve, find it easier on their return to the world to resume their associations and habits and to become three fold more offenders against the laws than they had been. In vice and crime there is no halting, they are progressive; he who has yielded to their influence must be carried forward with their advancement, or he must renounce entirely their influence. The arts of crime are like all other arts by which a man undertakes to acquire position or a living; they demand advancement. Pride in success leads to undertakings of difficulty, and he who enters a jail a “sneaking thief,” may be stimulated by professional emulation to advance in crime till he attains the dignity of a penitentiary cell for some boldly executed robbery, or some brilliant act of extensive forgery. The released half converted criminal feels all this, but he feels the difficulty of relinquishing plans of life which seem to have been devested of a part of their chances of defeat by the very imprisonment into which they led him; and, as a resolution to reform does not always include the means by which virtuous living may be obtained, the outgoing prisoner finds in his circumstances an excuse for violating the resolutions of good, or postponing their fulfilment till at length he becomes involved in the same labyrinth of difficulties and crimes that caused his former incarceration. Is he then to be neglected? Is he then to be cast off? Is he then to be marked as one who has forfeited, with the esteem of the good, the right to the cares of the good? The Great Master of benevolence gave no such advice, nor did He sanction such conduct by example. He to whom all hearts are open, and who, aware of the evils and hostility of vice and ambition, at once their object and their pardoner, He never but once refused time and attention to the profitless; and His only positive direct malediction was upon the unfruitful fig-tree that had outlived its time of usefulness, and which, under His frown, withered into a leafless and lifeless condition, that could experience no resuscitation.
If we confess, as we must, that much of the evils which we deplore in the prisoner, is the result of adverse circumstances, then we must also admit that he may owe a future reform or repentance to some favorable circumstance, to that circumstance which the thoughtless and the infidel deem the providence of man’s fate, but which reason and religion declare to be the instrument of God’s care of his creatures. It is the duty of the philanthropist to provide for such a contingency, to have in the mind of the offender an appreciation of wrong and right, so that when unexpectedly the circumstance occurs, there may be a knowledge of its capabilities and a readiness to improve it.
In preparing this Report, reference was had to the fact, that some of the great objects of the Society have already been discussed in every light, and with masterly effect. Essays given in the publications of the Society, from men of distinguished talent, have been productive of great good in strengthening the confidence of active members, and in removing prejudices from the minds of those who lacked experience to correct false impressions.
The great system of separate confinement has been presented to the public in a most convincing paper, by an able writer of this city, so that, for the present, it seems only necessary, in our Annual Report, to make a short reference to the system, and then to allow a statement of the proceedings of the Society to illustrate its effect.
It is the object, then, in the present Report, rather to make known the details of proceedings, than to announce the abstract views upon which action is founded; to give up this Annual Report to a presentation of the mode of procedure; to a detail of the daily duties of the active members and agents; to a consideration of some of the antagonistic circumstances that hinder our progress, and to the means upon which reliance must be placed in efforts to alleviate the miseries of prisons.
In attempting to present the report under various heads, it was found difficult to avoid a repetition of argument and explanation, or rather, having made the repetition, it was found difficult to correct the text without impairing the fulness of that part of the subject. Indeed, when it is considered that with the exception of enlightening the public mind, to procure co-operation, and soliciting legislative enactments to enable the Society to act more beneficially upon prisons, and through them on the prisoner, the great work of alleviating the miseries of public prisons, is to be upon the minds of individuals, we shall comprehend how all the divisions of the actions of the Society centre upon the single prisoner. Not for sympathy alone, but for amendment, must we “take a single captive,” and so, in reporting upon the action of the Agent; upon the doings of the various Committees; in setting forth the success, or want of success, at the Penitentiary or the County Prison; in referring to the movements on behalf of males or females; in the plans for future action, as on the records of the past, it is the incarcerated individual, it is the single mind whose experience we are to record, or whose susceptibilities we are to note. Hence it has seemed almost natural, at least it is hoped that it will be regarded as excusable, that what is the great means of all our hopes of alleviating the miseries of prisons, viz., separate confinement, and consequently individual dealing, should pervade every division of the report of our proceedings.