Within Prison Walls / being a narrative during a week of voluntary confinement in the state prison at Auburn, New York

by Thomas Mott Osborne

I am curious to find out, therefore, whether I am right; whether our Prison System is as unintelligent as I think it is; whether it flies in the face of all common sense and all human nature, as I think it does; whether, guided by sympathy and experience, we cannot find something far better to take its place, as I believe we can.

So by permission of the authorities and with your help, I am coming here to learn what I can at first hand. I have put myself on trial in the court of conscience and a verdict has been rendered of “guilty”—guilty of having lived for many years of my life indifferent to and ignorant of what was going on behind these walls. For this crime I have sentenced myself to a short term at hard labor in Auburn Prison (with commutation, of course, for good behavior). I expect to begin serving my sentence this week. I am coming here to live your life; to be housed, clothed, fed, treated in all respects like one of you. I want to see for myself exactly what your life is like, not as viewed from the outside looking in, but from the inside looking out.

Of course I am not so foolish as to think that I can see it from exactly your point of view. Manifestly a man cannot be a real prisoner when he may at any moment let down the bars and walk out; and spending a few hours or days in a cell is quite a different thing from a weary round of weeks, months, years. Nor is prison a mere matter of clothes, they cannot make a convict any more than they can make a gentleman. I realize perfectly that my point of view cannot be yours; but neither when I go to Paris is my point of view that of a Frenchman. Just as an American may perhaps understand some things about Paris which are not so clear to the average Frenchman, so perhaps a short residence among you here may enable me to judge some things about the Prison System more accurately than those who live too close to the problem to see it in its true perspective.

A word to the officials. My plan will not altogether succeed unless I am treated exactly like these other men. I ask you, therefore, to aid me by making no discrimination in my favor. Relax your regular discipline not a jot because I am here. Give me the same guidance as these others—but no more. If I offend against the rules, deal out to me the same punishment—I shall expect it.

Here again I do not deceive myself; I realize perfectly that I shall not see the Prison System in quite its normal running order. Things can hardly, with the best intentions, keep going exactly the same while I am here. Long ago when I was a very young school commissioner I found out that neither teachers nor scholars can behave quite naturally when a member of the school board is present. But let me assure you that I come not on any errand of official investigation. I come in no sense as a spy upon officers or inmates; I come not to discover anything; I come solely to test, so far as I can, the effect of the system upon the mind of the prisoner. I shall study myself, rather than you; or rather, I shall study you through myself.

Perhaps many of you will think, as many outside the walls will think, that at best this action is quixotic—another “fool’s errand, by one of the fools.” I shall not argue the matter further. I believe that I fully realize the shortcomings which will attend the experience, yet still I shall undertake it. For somehow, deep down, I have the feeling that after I have really lived among you, marched in your lines, shared your food, gone to the same cells at night, and in the morning looked out at the pieces of God’s sunlight through the same iron bars—that then, and not until then, can I feel the knowledge which will break down the barriers between my soul and the souls of my brothers.

A final word to you all. When I come among you do your best to forget who I am. Think of me only as a new and quite uninteresting arrival. Think of me not as a member of the Prison Reform Commission, nor as the fellow townsman of you officers, but as plain Tom Brown or Jones or Robinson, sent by the courts for some breach of the law and who is no more to you for the present than any other Tom, Dick or Harry. Some day in the future, after I have done my time, perhaps my experience may be of service to you and to the State, but of that we will talk later. In the meantime, help me to learn the truth.

I have already attempted to describe my state of mind at the commencement of this talk. As I went on, there came the feeling that, keen as they usually are, the men were having some difficulty in grasping my full meaning; were in doubt whether I really did intend to carry out in all sincerity the plan of actually living their life. But as they began to comprehend the full significance of the idea, their applause increased in volume and heartiness.[1]

I have spoken of the sensitive quickness of the prison audience; I experienced an instance. When the next to the last paragraph of my address was first written, I used the words, “and in the morning looked out at God’s sunlight through the same iron bars.” Then there had come into my mind the picture made by the grated window, and I added three words so as to read, “looked out at the pieces of God’s sunlight.” As I spoke those words a burst of hearty laughter at the touch of irony came so quickly that I had to wait before finishing the clause; at the close of the sentence, with its note of brotherhood, all laughter ceased at once; and the loudest applause of the morning showed me that what I had said had struck just the right note, and that the help I wanted from the prisoners would not be lacking.

After my address I leave the Prison and proceed to my office where I am interviewed by representatives of the press. This is a disagreeable duty which I had up to this last moment hoped to escape; for even after giving up the notion of disguise I had still cherished the idea that it was possible, with the aid of the Warden, to keep my adventure from being made public until it was all over. But in our talk this morning the Warden very quickly convinced me that secrecy is impossible.