As a general conclusion of the whole matter, Col. Jebb copies and adopts the opinion of the Parliamentary committee, that “if conducted under proper regulations and control, separate confinement is more efficient than any other system which has yet been tried, both in deterring from crime and in promoting reformation.”
It is quite evident that he is no convert to Dr. Baly’s views, for he does not propose to reduce the average term of separation below nine months, within which all the mischiefs of it, (according to the Dr.’s theory or statement,) are experienced. Indeed, if we are not under great misapprehension, Col. Jebb has over and over again expressed his confidence in the principle of separation, when applied to periods varying from twelve to eighteen months.
So far from yielding to a suggestion of relaxation, the present report urges a uniform system of discipline in all prisons, and the enforcing of separate confinement alike to the tried and the untried. It endorses the declaration of a committee of the House of Commons, that “the combination of hard labor with individual separation, has been remarkable in its effect to decrease the number of committals.” The prison of Leicester is cited as an example.
In one section of the report, the subject of enforcing hard labor is discussed; Lord Denman’s remarks are cited, in which he speaks of “the only legitimate end of punishment being to deter from crime; but I think I perceive,” he says, “in some of the theories of benevolent men, such a mode of administering the criminal law as to encourage instead of deterring. I greatly dread the effect of giving convicts benefits and privileges which they never could have hoped for but from the commission of crime.”
In allusion to this subject Col. Jebb, in his report for the preceding year, suggests whether among “the means of increasing the stringency of the discipline, and bringing it to bear with greater effect on the lowest class of prisoners, and on such as prove to be incorrigible, also on prisoners re-committed to prison, giving them a less comfortable bed for certain periods, or on alternate nights,—might not be desirable. The physical comforts of a prison are of necessity greater than the majority of prisoners enjoy when at liberty; and if, without injury to health, these can be abridged, a more deterring effect will be produced by the discipline, both on the individual himself and the criminal population generally.”
We have often and earnestly contended for a more liberal use of those methods of discipline which apply to the sources or organs of criminal indulgence. Moral diseases have corresponding remedies. No more suitable remedy can be prescribed for idleness and indolence than hard work. Nothing is more irksome to a man given to depraved appetite, than short commons. The difference between a good dinner on corned beef and potatoes, and a ration of bread and water, is felt at points which reproof and the shower-bath, and even the cat-o’-nine-tails, will none of them reach. The former, by itself, will subdue a spirit which the three latter combined will only rouse to indomitable stubbornness.
On the whole, we regard this document as decidedly confirmatory of the views which have been uniformly advocated by the Philadelphia Society for the Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisons, and in the pages of this Journal. It contains not a statement nor a tittle of evidence that impairs in the slightest degree our confidence in the safety, efficacy and humanity of convict-separation. That it has been, and may be abused or ill-administered, and that it requires judgment and discrimination to adapt its provisions to the various classes of persons who are subjected to it, is not more true of this than it is of the gregarious or any other system. The only substantial fault that we have ever known to be found with it, is that it costs more than association, and the only answer to be made to this is, that (admitting the statement to be true) it is worth as much more as it costs.
Art. III.—SOURCES AND CHECKS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.
When the farmer finds his fruit trees exposed to the ravages of the caterpillar, he makes but slow and unsatisfactory work, if he takes the worms one by one as they are feasting on the leaf, or crawling along the stem, or dangling in the air. There is a period of the day, however, when they are all in their nest, and if he can apply a torch to their curious fabric and consume it, or riddle it with shot, or wind it and its wriggling population upon a brush or broom well besmeared with pitch or tar, to be forthwith put into the fire or under the foot, the work is thorough and the tree safe.