These unfortunate persons are discharged from punishment and committed to the asylum. The buildings not having been designed for the custody of this class of the insane, they cause much extra expense, watchfulness and care; and as experience shows, with but little prospect of benefit. The number is constantly increasing and encroaching upon space which might be more usefully devoted to patients who are likely to be improved, and for whom the institution was originally designed. Many of the class referred to are of the most depraved character, and quite unfit associates for the other inmates, who, for the most part, are persons of worth and respectability, and entitled to be protected against dangerous associations.
The mischiefs which are so clearly exposed by the Managers, are still farther exhibited in the report of the principal physician, who regards convict-lunatics as requiring more secure fixtures and stricter surveillance than ordinary patients, and for these and the worst class of drunkards, he recommends “the erection of a hospital for two hundred and fifty patients of the male sex only, to be carefully constructed, and fitted for the ultimate occupancy of lunatic criminals only; but to be used, until needed exclusively for this purpose, by criminal and homicidal lunatics and drunkards.”
We think these views and suggestions must commend themselves to all reflecting minds, and we hope to see them carried out.
We offer no apology for occupying so much of our limited space with this subject, inasmuch as the interests of philanthropy are involved in protecting our State Lunatic Hospitals from being prejudiced by the introduction of patients who do not properly fall under their care, and the interests of prison discipline require that the convict should not be released from any measure of retribution for his offence, which a lawful sentence imposes.
Art. VI.—REPORT OF THE CONDITION OF THE NEW JERSEY STATE PRISON.
—Embracing the reports of the Joint Committee, Inspectors, Keeper, Moral Instructor and Physician. January 19, 1853. pp. 48.
We have been favored with the report of this institution for the year 1852-3. There were in confinement, at the beginning of the year, two hundred and seven. Received during the year one hundred and twenty-one, and in custody in the course of the year three hundred and twenty-nine different individuals. Of these, sixty-eight were discharged by expiration of sentence, and nearly the same number (viz. 63) by pardon! One death occurred, leaving one hundred and ninety-seven prisoners on hand at the close of the year. The average monthly population of the prison was two hundred and ten, which is a large increase on the previous year.
Of the one hundred and ninety-seven on hand, seventy-two are in on a sentence of five years or upwards; thirty-four for three years and upwards, forty-eight for between one and three years, and forty-three for one year or less. Of the whole number thirty-eight were under twenty; eighty-one between twenty and thirty, and forty-nine between thirty and forty; showing that one hundred and sixty-eight out of the one hundred and ninety-seven, or four-fifths, were under middle life.
The offences are divided about equally between those against property and those against the person. Of the latter the extraordinary number of fourteen are for rape, and five for an assault with intent to commit that crime, and fourteen were counterfeiters. Eighty-nine, or nearly half the convicts, are natives of New Jersey; sixty-three are of foreign birth. Only eight females are in the prison, four white and four colored; and of the one hundred and eighty-nine males, forty-nine are colored. It is worthy of observation, that of one hundred and twenty-two commitments last year, sixty, or about one half, had no trade!