There is no reformation in degradation. To mutilate a criminal is to say
to all the world that he is a criminal, and to render his reformation
substantially impossible. Whoever is degraded by society becomes its
enemy. The seeds of malice are sown in his heart, and to the day of his
death he will hate the hand that sowed the seeds.
There is also another side to this question. A punishment that degrades
the punished will degrade the man who inflicts the punishment, and will
degrade the government that procures the infliction. The whipping-post
pollutes, not only the whipped, but the whipper, and not only the
whipper, but the community at large. Wherever its shadow falls it
degrades.
If, then, there is no reforming power in degradation--no deterrent
power--for the reason that the degradation of the criminal degrades
the community, and in this way produces more criminals, then the next
question is, Whether there is any reforming power in torture? The
trouble with this is that it hardens and degrades to the last degree the
ministers of the law. Those who are not affected by the agonies of the
bad will in a little time care nothing for the sufferings of the good.
There seems to be a little of the wild beast in men--a something that
is fascinated by suffering, and that delights in inflicting pain. When
a government tortures, it is in the same state of mind that the criminal
was when he committed his crime. It requires as much malice in those
who execute the law, to torture a criminal, as it did in the criminal to
torture and kill his victim. The one was a crime by a person, the other
by a nation.
There is something in injustice, in cruelty, that tends to defeat
itself. There were never as many traitors in England as when the
traitor was drawn and quartered--when he was tortured in every possible
way--when his limbs, torn and bleeding, were given to the fury of
mobs or exhibited pierced by pikes or hung in chains. These frightful
punishments produced intense hatred of the government, and traitors
continued to increase until they became powerful enough to decide what
treason was and who the traitors were, and to inflict the same torments
on others.
Think for a moment of what man has suffered in the cause of crime. Think
of the millions that have been imprisoned, impoverished and degraded
because they were thieves and forgers, swindlers and cheats. Think for
a moment of what they have endured--of the difficulties under which they
have pursued their calling, and it will be exceedingly hard to believe
that they were sane and natural people possessed of good brains,
of minds well-poised, and that they did what they did from a choice
unaffected by heredity and the countless circumstances that tend to
determine the conduct of human beings.
The other day I was asked these questions: "Has there been as much
heroism displayed for the right as for the wrong? Has virtue had as many
martyrs as vice?"
For hundreds of years the world has endeavored to destroy the good by
force. The expression of honest thought was regarded as the greatest of
crimes. Dungeons were filled by the noblest and the best, and the
blood of the bravest was shed by the sword or consumed by flame. It was
impossible to destroy the longing in the heart of man for liberty and
truth. Is it not possible that brute force and cruelty and revenge,
imprisonment, torture and death are as impotent to do away with vice as
to destroy virtue?
In our country there has been for many years a growing feeling that
convicts should neither be degraded nor tortured. It was provided in the
Constitution of the United States that "cruel and unusual punishments
should not be inflicted." Benjamin Franklin took great interest in
the treatment of prisoners, being a thorough believer in the reforming
influence of justice, having no confidence whatever in punishment for
punishment's sake.
To me it has always been a mystery how the average man, knowing
something of the weakness of human nature, something of the temptations
to which he himself has been exposed--remembering the evil of his
life, the things he would have done had there been opportunity, had
he absolutely known that discovery would be impossible--should have
feelings of hatred toward the imprisoned.
Is it possible that the average man assaults the criminal in a spirit
of self-defence? Does he wish to convince his neighbors that the evil
thought and impulse were never in his mind? Are his words a shield that
he uses to protect himself from suspicion? For my part, I sympathize
sincerely with all failures, with the victims of society, with those who
have fallen, with the imprisoned, with the hopeless, with those who have
been stained by verdicts of guilty, and with those who, in the moment of
passion have destroyed, as with a blow, the future of their lives.
How perilous, after all, is the state of man. It is the work of a life
to build a great and splendid character. It is the work of a moment to
destroy it utterly, from turret to foundation stone. How cruel hypocrisy
is!
Is there any remedy? Can anything be done for the reformation of the
criminal?
He should be treated with kindness. Every right should be given him,
consistent with the safety of society. He should neither be degraded
nor robbed. The State should set the highest and noblest example. The
powerful should never be cruel, and in the breast of the supreme there
should be no desire for revenge.
A man in a moment of want steals the property of another, and he is
sent to the penitentiary--first, as it is claimed, for the purpose of
deterring others; and secondly, of reforming him. The circumstances of
each individual case are rarely inquired into. Investigation stops when
the simple fact of the larceny has been ascertained. No distinctions are
made except as between first and subsequent offences. Nothing is allowed
for surroundings.
All will admit that the industrious must be protected. In this world it
is necessary to work. Labor is the foundation of all prosperity. Larceny
is the enemy of industry. Society has the right to protect itself.
The question is, Has it the right to punish?--has it the right to
degrade?--or should it endeavor to reform the convict?
A man is taken to the penitentiary. He is clad in the garments of
a convict. He is degraded--he loses his name--he is designated by a
number. He is no longer treated as a human being--he becomes the slave
of the State. Nothing is done for his improvement--nothing for his
reformation. He is driven like a beast of burden; robbed of his labor;
leased, it may be, by the State to a contractor, who gets out of his
hands, out of his muscles, out of his poor brain, all the toil that he
can. He is not allowed to speak with a fellow-prisoner. At night he
is alone in his cell. The relations that should exist between men are
destroyed. He is a convict. He is no longer worthy to associate even
with his keepers. The jailer is immensely his superior, and the man who
turns the key upon him at night regards himself, in comparison, as a
model of honesty, of virtue and manhood. The convict is pavement on
which those who watch him walk. He remains for the time of his sentence,
and when that expires he goes forth a branded man. He is given money
enough to pay his fare back to the place from whence he came.
What is the condition of this man? Can he get employment? Not if he
honestly states who he is and where he has been. The first thing he does
is to deny his personality, to assume a name. He endeavors by telling
falsehoods to lay the foundation for future good conduct. The average
man does not wish to employ an ex-convict, because the average man has
no confidence in the reforming power of the penitentiary. He believes
that the convict who comes out is worse than the convict who went in.
He knows that in the penitentiary the heart of this man has been
hardened--that he has been subjected to the torture of perpetual
humiliation--that he has been treated like a ferocious beast; and so he
believes that this ex-convict has in his heart hatred for society, that
he feels he has been degraded and robbed. Under these circumstances,
what avenue is opened to the ex-convict? If he changes his name, there
will be some detective, some officer of the law, some meddlesome wretch,
who will betray his secret. He is then discharged. He seeks employment
again, and he must seek it by again telling what is not true. He is
again detected and again discharged. And finally he becomes convinced
that he cannot live as an honest man. He naturally drifts back into the
society of those who have had a like experience; and the result is
that in a little while he again stands in the dock, charged with the
commission of another crime. Again he is sent to the penitentiary--and
this is the end. He feels that his day is done, that the future has only
degradation for him.
The men in the penitentiaries do not work for themselves. Their labor
belongs to others. They have no interest in their toil--no reason for
doing the best they can--and the result is that the product of their
labor is poor. This product comes in competition with the work of
mechanics, honest men, who have families to support, and the cry is that
convict labor takes the bread from the mouths of virtuous people.