In the ten prisons for separate confinement in England proper, there is room for 2,459 convicts, and 2,193 were in prison, leaving unoccupied accommodations for 266. In the three prisons for labor on the public works there were 1,931 confined, and only 17 more could have been received. In the hulks, there were 1,780 and only two vacancies; and in the Juvenile Prison at Parkhurst, there were 577 tenants and 29 vacancies. The total convict population of the year was 9,033, and there were 355 more on hand December 31, 1851, than at the same date in the previous year. Of the whole number, 13 were removed to Lunatic Asylums during the year, 147 were pardoned, (of whom 76 were on medical grounds,) and 111 died.
In the report of the Millbank prison, we have an incidental testimony from the chaplain to the moral advantages of separation, which we think valuable.
Of moral improvement, however, as regards the many, embracing change of principle and real amendment of character, he feels (he says) considerable diffidence. Bearing in mind the circumstances of the prison,—the period of separate confinement, rarely exceeding six months, being somewhat brief to be permanently effective for reformatory purposes—the danger of any good impressions made during that period (the seed-time of reformation) being effaced when prisoners are transferred to the large rooms and general ward, where the opportunity is withdrawn from those under incipient convictions of being ever left alone with their conscience, and the spiritual exercises of the more advanced in religion, both meditation and prayer, are subject to disturbance.
If this opinion is the result of intelligent and long continued observation, (as we suppose it to be,) it is certainly very conclusive as to the value and indispensableness of convict-separation as a means of reform. The italic words are all found of the same character in the original document. They form, when read by themselves, a memorable sentence, and one which we respectfully commend to all those who stand in doubt on the subject.
“Moral improvement or real amendment of character, to be permanently effective among the many, is not to be expected in large rooms and general wards. They require to be left alone with their conscience.”
From Pentonville, we have a very favorable report, especially as it regards the health, physical and mental. Only two cases of insanity have occurred during the year among 561 prisoners, and of these one had low intellectual development, which made him incapable of learning a trade; and the other, though only 26 years of age, had been previously convicted and imprisoned three times. He was suddenly seized with mania three weeks only after commitment, and cerebral disease was presumed by the physician to have been upon him when received. Concerning both of the cases the physician remarks, that the “insanity was not traceable to the operation of separation on the minds of the prisoners.”—p. 11.
We venture to say that no prison on any plan or system can show cleaner papers respecting the health of an equal number of convicts.
It seems that immediately succeeding this year of remarkable health, in the course of the first half of the year 1852, “an unusually large number of cases of mental affection” occurred, which led to the substitution of brisk walking in concentric rings for exercise in separate airing yards—the abolition of the mask or peak which was found useless as a preventive of recognition, and the doing away of the chapel stalls. It is well known that these three features of the Pentonville system were designed to carry out the principle of strict separation. If they were found ineffectual for this purpose, their abandonment is a matter of no moment; and as the term of imprisonment in this penitentiary is regarded as probationary, and is moreover restricted to twelve months, we can scarcely suppose that such changes were required by way of relaxing the discipline. Colonel Jebb gives us to understand that the prejudices of the public against separate confinement are gradually subsiding, and he thinks it “of greater importance to the more general introduction of the system that every effort should be made to secure its great advantages without again raising the question of its safety.” Is there no danger, however, that its efficacy may be so far diminished by needless relaxation, as to make it scarcely worth the trouble of introducing it?