Crime and Its Causes

by William Douglas Morrison

Above the First Class is a Special Class composed of men whose conduct has been specially exemplary. Men may be admitted into this class 12 months before their liberation; they may also be placed in positions of trust and responsibility in connection with the prison, and are able to earn a gratuity amounting to six pounds. Such men are, as a matter of course, liberated at the expiration of three fourths of their sentence, which means that a term of five years' penal servitude is reduced to somewhat under four years.

For female convicts all these rules are modified and mitigated. Isolation is not so strictly enforced; a female may be liberated at the expiration of two thirds of her sentence; she may also earn four pounds instead of three, which is the highest sum men can receive, except the limited number in the Special Class. Corresponding to the Special Class of male convicts, there is among the females what is called a Refuge Class. Well-conducted women undergoing their first term of penal servitude are placed in this class, and nine months before the date on which they are due for discharge on ordinary licence, that is to say, nine months before they have finished two thirds of their sentence, they are released from prison and placed in some Home for females. Two Homes which receive prisoners of this class are the Elizabeth Fry Refuge and the London Preventive and Reformatory Institution. These Homes receive ten shillings a week for the care of each inmate confided to them by the State, and the time spent there is used as a gradual course of preparation for the re-entrance of these unfortunate people into ordinary life. According to this method females, after a prolonged period of imprisonment, are not thrown all of a sudden upon the world; they re-enter it by slow and imperceptible stages, and are thus enabled to commence life afresh under hopeful and salutary conditions.

Male convicts on their release from penal servitude are, if they desire it, assisted to obtain employment by Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies. The way in which assistance is rendered by the Royal Society, Charing Cross, which may be considered as a type of most of these societies, is as follows:—

"The convicts on their discharge are accompanied to the office of the Society by a warder in plain clothes. They are there received by the Secretary and the member of the Committee who, according to a fixed rota, attends daily for this purpose. The first step is to give them a plentiful breakfast of white bread, bacon and hot coffee. When this is finished they are invited to come forward and state their hopes and intentions as to the future. Full particulars of the nature of the crime, the sentence, and the antecedents of the convict have been previously received from the prison, and this information is, of course, of the greatest value as a guide to dealing with the particular case. After friendly discussion with the convict at one or more interviews, and further inquiry, if need be, by the officers of the Society, the course to be taken in each case is decided upon and carried out as soon as possible, either by the officers of the Society or through other agency. In cases of emigration and other cases where it is advisable, the gratuities received from Government are supplemented by donations from the funds of the Society; and, if not already supplied by the prison authorities, a respectable suit of clothes of a character fitted for the work on which the recipient is to be employed is provided.

"The cases of men or women who elect to remain in or near the Metropolis are usually dealt with directly by members of the Committee and officers of the Society; others prefer to seek work for themselves; but, meanwhile, respectable lodgings are provided till work is obtained. Others who prefer a sea life are sent to the care of agents until ships can be found for them—a few selected cases are sent abroad." In the case of persons proceeding to seek work at a distance from London, the Royal Society communicates with Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies in the country, and these Societies take such cases in hand.

Another admirable Society for dealing with discharged convicts is the St Giles' Mission, Brook St. Holborn. This Society provides a home for the person whose sentence has expired; it is managed by a man (Mr. Wheatley) possessed of an unsurpassed knowledge of the work; and it is year by year rendering effective service to the convict population. Some idea of the work accomplished by Societies such as those just mentioned may be gathered from the fact that about two thirds of the discharged convicts are annually passing through their hands; the other third declining or not requiring assistance by such methods. What is wanted to perfect the working of the institutions we are now describing is increased public support; even now the Royal Society was able to state in one of its reports, "that no discharged convict, who is physically capable and willing to work, has any excuse for relapsing into crime."

This brief sketch of the manner in which a sentence of penal servitude is carried into effect will afford some idea of the nature of this method of punishment. We shall now proceed to describe another mode of dealing with offenders against the fundamental order of society. In addition to convict establishments there exists throughout the United Kingdom a large number of places of confinement called Local Prisons. In England and Wales there are about sixty Local Prisons; in Scotland there are about twenty; in Ireland there are about eighteen. In Scotland and Ireland persons sentenced to a few days' imprisonment are often confined in police cells, in England all convicted offenders serve their sentence, however short, in a regular Local Prison.

Before 1877 the Local Prisons of England and Scotland were under the control and administration of the County Magistrates, and almost every county had then its own prison. One of the chief defects of this system was the multiplication of prisons; one of its chief virtues was that local power kept alive local interest in a way which is impossible with highly centralised machinery. Where prisons are small and numerous, as was to some extent the case under the old system, it is difficult to conduct them so economically; on the other hand, the herding of great masses of criminals together in huge establishments is not without corresponding evils. It is now being pointed out by specialists on the Continent and in America that huge prisons destroy the individuality of the prisoner; his own personality is lost amid the hundreds who surround him; he sinks into the position of a mere unit, and is obliged to be treated as such by the officials in charge of him. Under such a system it becomes almost impossible to individualise prisoners; there is no time for it; as a result, the influence of reformative agencies descends to a minimum and only the punitive side of justice comes home to the offender. At one time the value of Reformatory Schools was seriously impaired by herding too many lads together under one roof; it is now seen that the success of these institutions is marred by making them too large; it is accepted as an established maxim that the smaller the school the better the results. The same principle holds true with respect to prisons.

When the County Magistrates were deprived of their powers by the last government of Lord Beaconsfield, these powers were in England vested in the Home Secretary; in Scotland they were latterly vested in the Secretary for Scotland; in Ireland they are vested in the Chief Secretary. Under each of these Parliamentary heads there is a body called the Prison Commissioners or Prison Board. These Commissioners are centred in London for England; in Edinburgh for Scotland; in Dublin for Ireland. Under them is a body of Prison Inspectors, and last of all there comes the actual working staff of the Local Prisons, consisting of warders, schoolmasters, clerks, governors, chaplains, and doctors.

Wherein does the Local Prison system as worked by this staff differ from the system in operation in convict prisons? Perhaps the difference will be best expressed by saying that work in association is the centre of the convict system, while work in solitude is the central idea of the Local Prison system. This definition is not absolutely correct, for convicts, as we have seen, are subjected to nine months' solitary confinement at the outset of their sentence, and in some Local Prisons a certain amount of work in common is performed, but, taken as a whole, work in common is the central principle of the one; work in solitude the central principle of the other.