Known to the Police

by Thomas Holmes

So far has this kind of belief permeated, that several of my acquaintances, educated men who have suffered well-merited terms of imprisonment, contend that the community ought to receive them back with open arms, and not only restore them to a position, but give them again the confidence and respect they had forfeited. Their offences having been purged, they argue, by the term of imprisonment suffered, the law has been satisfied; and the law now holding them guiltless, nothing else ought to be considered. These men, as I have said, were educated men, and well able to win back the public confidence if they set themselves to the task. But I am more concerned for the effect of this belief upon the ordinary prisoners, who have but little education, and for them it has disastrous effects. If there is one virtue that is absolutely necessary to a discharged prisoner, it is the virtue of self-reliance. Without it he is nothing. No matter what sympathy and what aid be extended to him from societies or individuals, without self-reliance he is a certain failure. Anything that tends to lessen self-reliance in discharged prisoners has, then, a tendency to reduce their chances of reformation. After all has been done that can possibly be done for discharged prisoners, one is compelled—reluctantly compelled—to the conclusion that the only men who can be rescued are those who possess grit and self-reliance. Many—I think that I can with safety say most—discharged prisoners appear to believe that assistance once given gives them a claim to other assistance. I have met with very few to whom I have given material help who thought that the help given them was exceptional and given with the view of helping them to a little start, that they might afterwards rely upon themselves. On the other hand, I have met with hundreds who actually believed that help previously given constituted an absolute claim to continued assistance. Sometimes it has taken much persuasion, and occasionally a display of physical force, before I have been able to get some discharged prisoners to accept my view of the matter.

The complete assurance with which many of them present themselves at my door and inform me that they are "Just come out of prison, sir," is of itself astounding, but a little conversation with them reveals more surprising things still. About eleven o'clock one winter night there was a loud rap at my front-door, to which I responded. When I opened the door, a big man stood before me, and he promptly put his foot across the doorstep, and the following conversation took place: "What do you want?" "Oh, you are Mr. Holmes. I want you to help me." "Why should I help you? I know nothing of you." "I have just come out of prison." "Well, you are none the better for that." "Well, you help men that have been in prison." "Sometimes, when I see they are ashamed of having been in." "Well, I don't want to get in prison again." "How do I know you have been in prison?" "Why, didn't you speak to us like a man last Sunday?" "Yes, I was at Pentonville last Sunday, and I hope I spoke like a man." "Ah, that you did! And when I heard you, I said: 'I'll see him when I come out. He will be sure to give me half a dollar.'" "How did you get my address?" "From another chap." "When did you come out?" "This morning." "How long have you been in?" "Six months." "Got all your conduct marks?" "Every one." "Then you had eight shillings when you left the prison. How much have you got left?" "Never a sou!" "What have you done with it?" "I bought a collar, a pocket-handkerchief, a necktie, and a bit of tobacco, and a good dinner." "You saved nothing for your lodging?" "No; I thought you would see me right." "I see! How old are you?" "Thirty-four." "How tall?" "Six feet one." "What is your weight?" "Fourteen stone." "My friend, you are big enough, strong enough, and young enough to help yourself. You seem to be making a bad job of it; but you will get no help from me." "Not half a dollar?" "Not half a penny." "What are you for?" "Well," I said, "I appear to exist for a good many purposes, but at the present time I am for the purpose of telling you to move off. Take your foot from my doorstep and clear!" "Not without half a dollar." "Take your foot away!" "No fear! I am going to have some money for my lodgings." "You will get no money here. Clear off!" "You don't mean to say that, after speaking to us like a man, you won't give me any money?" "That is exactly what I do mean to say." "What are you for?" "I will show you what I am for"; and I called three stalwart sons. "I ask you once more to withdraw your foot, or we shall be compelled to put you as gently as possible in the gutter." He then left us, muttering as he went: "I wonder what he's for?"

The sight of an ashamed and broken ex-prisoner touches me, and my heart goes out to him. Neither sympathy nor help will I deny him. But when unabashed fellows confront me, and show not the slightest evidence of sorrow or shame, but trade, as far as they can trade, upon the shameful fact that they have been rogues and vagabonds, very different feelings are evoked. My experience leads me to the belief that the greater majority of ex-prisoners are by no means ashamed of having been in prison, or of the criminal actions that preceded prison; neither are they anywise reticent about their actions or thoughts.

So well is the public desire to help prisoners understood that I have sometimes been the victim of specious scoundrels who probably had never been in prison, but who richly deserved the unenviable distinction.

One morning, when I was leaving home for the day, I saw on the opposite side of the street a young man, who looked intently at me when I bade my wife good-bye. As he was an entire stranger to me, I did not speak to him, but went about my business. During the evening my wife said to me: "Oh, you owe me ten shillings!" "What for?" I inquired. "I gave young Brown his fare to Birmingham." "What young Brown?" I inquired. "That nice young fellow that got into trouble two years ago, and you helped him when he came out of prison. He kept the place you got for him, and now he has got a much better one at Birmingham." I tried to recall young Brown, but my memory was vacant on the matter. At length I asked for his description, when the young man I had seen in the morning was revealed. He noted my departure, and when quite sure that I was not in the way, he came to the door and asked to see me. He told my wife a long tale about his imprisonment and of my kindness to him, of his struggle for two years on a small salary, and of the good position open for him in Birmingham; and also of his certainty that I would, had I been at home, have advanced his fare, and wound up by expressing the great sorrow that he had missed me. He did wish so much to tell me of his success, for it was all due to my kindness. He got his fare, and I sincerely hope that by this time he has got his deserts too.

But, independently of specious rogues, it is high time the fact was recognized that a feeling does largely exist among prisoners and ex-prisoners that the fact of having been in prison is a sure passport to public sympathy, and constitutes a claim upon public assistance. A large proportion of prisoners are, of course, people of low intelligence, who cannot estimate things at a proper value or see things as ordinary-minded people see them, and to these the belief becomes a certainty and the hope almost a realization. Let me repeat, then, that the duty of the community to help and "rescue" discharged prisoners has been so insistently and persistently proclaimed that prisoners now quite believe it, and are eagerly ready to leave to societies, organizations, or individuals other than themselves those efforts that are undoubtedly necessary for their own reformation and re-establishment.

I hold, and very strongly hold, that there is no hope of any prisoner's reformation who has no sorrow for the wrong he has done, and no sense of shame for the disgrace he has brought upon himself and others. I am not sure which is the more hopeless and repulsive kind of an individual—the man who blatantly demands assistance because he has been a rogue, or the fawning hypocrite who professes repentance, tells of his conversion, and thanks God that he has been in prison; but I do know that both have the same object in view, and that both are but specimens of a numerous class.

While giving a course of lectures in our large prisons I had opportunities of becoming acquainted with many of the prisoners. At the conclusion of each lecture those prisoners who had expressed during the week a wish to consult me were allowed to do so in strict privacy. I had some very interesting talks with them. For many of them I felt profoundly sorry, and made some arrangement to meet with them when they were once more at liberty. For others I felt no pity, for I realized that they were barely receiving a just reward for their deeds.

One young man, with a heavy face and a leering kind of a look, came to me, and informed me that he had asked permission to see me, because he wanted my help in a fortnight's time, when he would be at liberty. Clad in khaki and marked with broad arrows, there was nothing to differentiate him from the ordinary prisoner, excepting, perhaps, that his face was duller and less intelligent than the majority. I asked him how long he had been in prison. "Six months." "What are you in for?" "Forgery." "How much money did you get by it?" "Five hundred pounds." "You were a bank clerk, then?" "Yes." "Is your father alive?" "No." "Have you a mother?" "Yes, and two sisters." "In what way do you want me to help you?" "I want to go to Canada." I looked at him closely and said, "Tell me what you did with the five hundred pounds." For the first time I saw brightness in his eyes and face, and he promptly replied, "Oh, I had a high old time." I saw sensual enjoyment written very largely about his lips and eyes; but I repeated his words, "A high old time?" "Yes; a good time, you know." So I enumerated drink, gambling, women, and to each of them he replied, "Yes." He evidently looked back to that wicked period with great pleasure. I felt that he was far beyond my prentice hand, for I thought of his mother and sisters, of the employer he had so ruthlessly robbed, and of his own certain future. So I said to him, "My son, I cannot help you; no one can help you. It is no use wasting money in sending you to Canada. Canada is no place for you, for you cannot get away from yourself." He said, "I shall be away from temptation in Canada." "No," I said; "that is impossible: the devil is always to hand, even in Canada." "Won't you help me to get away from London?" "No," I said. "Stop in London, where you have been a wicked rogue; face life where you are known; show yourself a man by living decently and working honestly at anything you can get. Try and win back your mother's and sisters' respect. Write to your employer and ask his forgiveness; tell him that at some time in life you will endeavour to repay him. Feel ashamed that you have been a disgusting rogue; don't rejoice in having a 'high old time.'" He did not blush, or appear in any way concerned, but said: "If you won't help me, others will." It needs no great knowledge of life to forecast that young man's future. I often feel dismayed when I consider some of the present-day tendencies. There is such a feverish and manifest desire among thousands of people to stand between a prisoner and the law, and to relieve him at any cost from the legal consequence of his wrong-doing.

Indeed, some folk would move heaven and earth, if it were possible, to keep a heartless young rogue out of prison. I would not lift my finger; to me it seems a most serious matter, for the consequences of criminal actions ought to be certain as daylight. I would, however, do much to make those consequences, not only certain, but swift, reasonable, and dignified, but not vindictive or revengeful. Punishment should be severe enough to convey an important and a lasting lesson. There ought to be no element of chance about it, but at present there is a great deal of uncertainty whether a prisoner, even if found guilty, will receive any punishment or be merely admonished.