With a uniform constabulary system, embracing the whole country, and a uniform penal code, we might expect here a more perfect system of prison discipline than in any other country; but there is much complaint of the inequality of sentences for the same crimes, and of the too great leniency shown to “habitual offenders.” These, it is maintained, should be recognized by the law as a distinct class, as they are by the police. The practice of lengthening the sentence of an offender because of previous convictions, is regarded with favor, and its observance should be systematized and made universal. In this way “conditional pardons and registrations for the remitted term may be made the means of causing the very general incarceration of ‘habitual offenders’ in the only place suitable for them—convict prisons—with sentences of sufficient length to insure their being properly dealt with.”
An important principle is involved in this probationary system. If a man deliberately commits an offence against public law, the presumption is that he will repeat it whenever the occasion and temptation are presented. The privation and suffering which the execution of his sentence imposes, may deter him from farther transgression, but the burden of proving this is on the offender. The first duty of society is to protect itself. When the period of penal restraint expires, the man is discharged, on the presumption that he will sin no more. Whatever measures we can adopt to strengthen this presumption, and to assure society that he may be safely set at liberty, are as salutary for him as for us. And there is a farther obligation, and a very imperative one, on the part of the government, and that is to strengthen and encourage purposes of amendment. If the liberated convict finds it difficult to procure labor where his antecedents are known, he has the option of going to countries where labor is more in demand; and the means of reaching those countries are supplied by his prison gratuity, obtained through his own industry. In many of our schemes for ameliorating the miseries of public prisons, the interests of society are too often overlooked, and the comfort and ease of a transgressor unduly sought. There is a medium. The community whose laws have been outraged, justly demands the prompt and certain imposition of the penalty. If this can be imposed in such a way as at once to express the due disapprobation of the act, and a desire that the offender may be restored (on his reformation) to his forfeited place in society, a double advantage is gained.
As more enlightened methods of dealing with the criminally-disposed prevail, we have a right to look for a more efficient and well-balanced administration of penal law, and as a consequence, a sensible diminution in the number of crimes and criminals.
Brief Notices.
Escapes and Pardons.—The two chief ends which are usually supposed to be answered by punishment are,—1. To reform the offender; and, 2. To deter others from the like offences. Some persons deny the legitimacy of the latter purpose, affirming that society has no right to inflict pains and penalties on me, for the benefit of my neighbors. Without attempting to settle any such nice points, we have a plain, palpable fact staring us in the face, which seems, in a large measure, to frustrate both the ends to which we have referred. That fact is—that the punishment of crime, in our country, is one of the most uncertain events with which we are conversant. If a horse-thief, contemplating the fastenings of a stable-door, should have fore-thought enough to inquire whether there is such a reasonable probability of his punishment as should deter him from his purpose, we can scarcely suppose he would come to an affirmative conclusion. The contingencies on which the result depends are very numerous and complicated. If his picture is in the rogue’s gallery; or if he is an old, well-known horse-thief, so that suspicion would naturally fasten upon him if he was within fifty miles of the locus in quo at the time; or if a reward is offered for his arrest, more tempting than what he can offer for leave to run,—it may be his turn to be caught. But if he has money, or friends who understand the “intricacies” of the administration of penal law in some of our chief cities; or if he has had opportunities, in some associate prison, to learn how to dodge an officer, either before or after sentence, or to earn his liberty, even when fairly caged, either by working through bricks and mortar, or through the more porous and yielding tissue of a Governor’s sympathy,—he has little or nothing to fear. If there is no more risk than that, the State is certain to be plundered.
We hazard nothing in saying that the influence which the punishment of crime exerts, in deterring the criminally disposed from committing it, is scarcely worth a padlock. A single escape of a prisoner from gaol, or from the custody of an officer, weakens whatever deterring influence is exerted over hundreds of minds; and so likewise does a single pardon. Each one of the hundreds betakes himself to a criminal life, expecting to be the favored rogue. We sometimes think, with a sigh, of the good time past, when, under English law, the constable was the chief man in the parish, and when the parish was responsible for all robberies committed within its limits, if the thieves were not apprehended.
If we had a general, succinct return of the escapes and pardons in the United States, for a single year, it would show a degree of looseness in the administration of criminal law, and of imprudence in the exercise of executive clemency, of which the public have little conception.
From a great number of cases which go to corroborate the statement we have made, we have room for but a few, and these will serve to indicate the character of all. We give them as reported in the newspapers:
On a late Saturday night five prisoners escaped from the gaol of Cook county, Ill., at Chicago. A paltry reward of $150 was offered for their apprehension. The prisoners were supplied with tools by their friends outside. They were arrested for larceny. Three other prisoners, charged with robbery, were engaged in digging a hole through the floor, when the escape of the others caused them to be detected. The prison is in a very insecure sort of place, and had been grossly neglected by the authorities.
In Blair county, on the same Saturday night, a man, alleged to have stolen several horses, and who escaped from the person having him in charge, while on their way to Bedford recently, was re-arrested at a private house on Bobb’s Creek, on Saturday night a week. Assuming a religious guise, previous to retiring he called for a Bible, and read a chapter, and prayed with the family. When arrested he was in bed, with a six-shooter under his pillow, and every barrel charged with a bullet! and in his pockets were found several counterfeit notes and a small amount of good money. A reward of $500 had been offered for his arrest, with the horses.