(Here is an article from “Good Words,” the prison monthly from the
Federal Prison at Atlanta. It gives an anonymous prisoner’s views on a
vital subject.)
Inmates of prisons may be regarded as a composite man, for in any
collection of human beings, from a family to a nation, there is the
larger man, which organizes itself in human form--with head, trunk,
limbs, and organs. One group represents the brains, another the
physical powers; the stomach is figured by the purveyors of food, and
these analogies may be followed indefinitely; they are not fanciful,
but actual. He is all here, but is prevented from functioning freely.
His reaction against this repression of free action--a repression far
more physical than mental--gives unnatural energy to the faculties and
tends to lead into certain special channels, such as the falsity of
human justice, the overpowering desire to be at liberty; emotions of
resentment, resignation, hope, despair, impulses for antagonism or of
good-will toward others; moods or irony, cynicism, and even humor; good
or evil preoccupation of all kinds. In this way large reservoirs of
human force are collected, which can get no relief from expression, and
therefore corrode and distort the mind.
But prisoners at that are no different clay from other folks. They
are, if anything, different in that they are more sensitive, more
sympathetic, more appreciative, and more trustful, once their
confidence is gained, than the average person. They love the world
and wish it well. The average prisoner--even the “old timer” serving
a third or fourth sentence--will advise against a life of crime with
all the earnestness and logic he is capable of commanding. But the
prisoner, with his good qualities, has his faults--many of them. He
is always looking for the best of it, and, from his standpoint, why
shouldn’t he get it? He is a convict (the word is not pleasant to
hear). It carries a stigma of shame and disgrace. It is lasting. He is
declared unfit to live among his people; his movements are restricted;
he cannot move or speak without the consent of an official; he is
stripped of his citizenship; his home a narrow cell; he is helpless;
has lost all--everything a man values in this world. The prisoner knows
this full well. To him the best of it is the worst that the free man
can imagine.
This is the body corporate and the proposition the man or men charged
with the care, keeping and discipline of prisoners have to contend
with. The problems to be solved are difficult, and a gigantic task
confronts the warden of any penitentiary. While the power of most
wardens is as nearly absolute as mortal power can be, it is necessary,
if he is expected to accomplish anything. The demands of his position
are great--greater than any other person in the whole community.
Upon his say-so depends the hope or despair of the prisoners, but we
are convinced that the average warden is anxious for the uplift, and
untiring in promoting the welfare of the men under him.
A great honor is due the prison official who voluntarily treats the
prisoner with justice and mercy, whose radius of human action is
circumscribed only by the book of regulations. Harsh traditional
usages are gradually being eliminated and there are but few who new
persist in delaying the realization of advanced ideas in the handling
of law-breakers. But no intelligent reform of abuses can be effected
until they have been authoritatively acknowledged, and the remedies
necessary to relieve and cure evils understood. Improvement is slow,
and gross anachronisms are found side by side with advanced conditions.
Prisoners often distrust their officials when the latter’s only fault
may be the oath and obligation to obey regulations long out of date.
The prisoner sees the better way and, as a rule, will not listen to
reason. The official knows it too, but is not free to walk in it. From
this condition of affairs comes that great antagonism between the
prisoner and the officials which exists in all prisons. The warden to
do good must bridge the gulf which separates the prisoner and himself.
He must be the example and precept of right. He will not delay action
until all difficulties are removed, but is prompt to seize every
opportunity as it offers itself. He walks where others creep, and
sees the end where others grope. While sedulous to avoid favoritism,
he takes into consideration the “personal equation” of each man, and
gives him the interpretation of the law best suited to the case as it
may be. In his system of discipline, there is as little as possible
of the merely mechanical and whatever may be allowable of individual
consideration. This is not more human than expedient; for most of the
men are quick to perceive the proper means to deserve good treatment,
and, instead of sinking into lethargy and indifference, are aroused to
do what in them lies to meet the warden half-way. Frequently, though,
regardless of the work of such officials, in this great human body,
there are developed ideas unfair, and we will find prisoners who will
resist all efforts of the officials in this direction. They do not mean
to, but the world has treated them badly, and they cannot help it.
Kindness is winning them, though, where cruelty would never affect them.
Punishment and abuse may stir and arouse a man so that he will fight
with a desperation born of despair, but more often he sinks into a
state of mind, sullen, revengeful and heartless--a condition fatal to
reformation, and dangerous to Society. Method, discipline, authority,
are fine things and will accomplish much, but with a prisoner you can
not force his soul against itself. You must lead him up and out of
himself; you can not curse him into a better man. The supreme object of
imprisonment should be to inspire the prisoner to do his best when more
than his best is needed.
The fight to extirpate the old system is steadily going on, and will
eventually succeed. The evils of the contract-labor system are already
becoming known, and it will be blotted out of existence, and when that
system has become a thing of the past, an immense step in all other
features of jail amelioration will have been taken. The next step will
involve the entire principle of prison punishments as a deterrent of
crime and a means of making better men of prisoners. The State will
then not take revenge upon the criminal, will not annihilate his
self-respect or crush out whatever manhood he has in him.