London's Underworld

by Thomas Holmes

And there is another cause, almost as prolific in producing a prison population. For while the State has been, and still is, ready to thrust afflicted youth into prison, it has been, and still is, equally ready to thrust into prison the half-educated, half-fed, and half-employed young people who break its laws or by-laws. It is true that the State in its irony allows them the option of a fine; but the law might as well ask the youths of the underworld to pay ten pounds as ask them to pay ten shillings; nor can they procure all at once the smaller sum, so to prison hundreds of lads are sent.

Does it ever occur to our esteemed authorities that this is a most dangerous procedure! What good can possibly come either to the State or to the youthful offender?

What are the offences of these boys? Disorder in the streets, loitering at railway stations, playing a game of chance called "pitch and toss," of which I have something to say in another chapter, gambling with a penny pack of cards, playing tip-cat, kicking a football, made of old newspapers maybe, playing cricket, throwing stones, using a catapult, bathing in a canal, and a hundred similar things are all deemed worthy of imprisonment, if committed by the youngsters of the world below the line.

Thousands of lads have had their first experience of prison for trumpery offences that are natural to the boys of the poor. But a first experience of prison is to them a pleasant surprise. They are astonished to find that prison is not "half a bad place." They do not object to going there again, not they! Why? Because the conditions of prison life are better, as they need to be, than the conditions of their own homes. The food is better, the lodging is better, the bed is decidedly better, and as to the work, why, they have none worthy of the name to do. They lose nothing but their liberty, and they can stand that for a week or two, what matters!

Well, something does matter, for they lose three other things of great moment to them if they only knew; but they don't know, and our authorities evidently consider these three things of no moment. What do they lose? First, their fear of prison; secondly, their little bit of character; thirdly, their work, if they have any. What eventuates? Idleness, hooliganism and repeated imprisonments for petty crime, until something more serious happens, and then longer sentences. Such is the progress of hundreds whom statisticians love to call "recidivists."

Am I wrong when I say that the State has been too ready, too prompt in sending the youths of the ignorant poor to prison? Am I wrong in saying that the State has been playing its "trump ace" too soon, and that it ought to have kept imprisonment up its sleeve a little longer? These lads, having been in prison, know, and their companions know, too, the worst that can happen to them when they commit real crime. Prison has done its worst, and it cannot hurt them.

If prisons there must be, am I wrong in contending that they should be reserved for the perpetrators of real and serious crime; and that the punishment, if there is to be punishment, should be certain, dignified and severe, educational and reformative? At present it includes none of these qualities.

To such a length has the imprisonment of youths for trumpery offences gone, not only in London, but throughout the country, that visiting justices of my acquaintance have spent a great deal of money in part paying the fines of youths imprisoned under such conditions, that they might be released at once. Here we have a curious state of affairs, magistrates generally committing youths to prison in default for trumpery offences, and other magistrates searching prisons for imprisoned youths, paying their fines, setting them free, and sending on full details to the Home Secretary.

It would be interesting to know how many "cases" of this kind have been reported to the Home Secretary during the last few years. Time after time the governors of our prisons have called attention to this evil in their annual reports. They know perfectly well the disaster that attends the needless imprisonment of boys, and it worries them. They treat the boys very kindly, all honour to them! But even kindness to young prisoners has its dangers, and every governor is able to tell of the constant return of youthful prisoners.

I do not like the "birch" or corporal punishment at all. I do not advocate it, but I am certain that the demoralising effect of a few' days' imprisonment is far in excess of the demoralisation that follows a reasonable application of the birch.