INDISCRIMINATE ASSOCIATION OF PRISONERS--TRANSPORTATION, AND THE
CAUSE OF ITS FAILURE--A GUNSMITH.
As I have already said in a previous chapter, one of the most glaring
defects in our present system of penal servitude, viewed as a means of
reformation as well as of punishment, is the indiscriminate association
of all classes of criminals, or rather all criminals with a certain
sentence, irrespective of the nature of the crime they have committed,
the previous character of the criminal or the probability of his
re-admission into society as an honest and useful member of it. I have
met in the same ward prisoners of widely different characters and
antecedents, whose crimes afforded conclusive proofs that in habits,
disposition, and general conduct, they would never, in the natural
order of things, become associates, compelled by law to mate with each
other as equals, and to learn of each other how to injure, not how to
benefit society and themselves. There are, for instance, certain crimes
which a man may commit under the influence of strong passions, aroused
in moments of great temptation, such as rape; or of great provocation,
such as manslaughter; or committed under the pressure of misfortune, or
to avoid, impending ruin, such as forgery or embezzlement, which do not
necessarily prove the criminal to be of habitually depraved habits, or
generally of a violent and vicious disposition. I found as a rule
prisoners guilty of these crimes undergoing their first sentences.
Prison life and prison associations were new to them as to me. They had
no inclination to repeat the offence, or to pursue a career of crime,
but rather disposed to redeem their character, and live an honest and
industrious life. Yet this class of prisoners are condemned, in
addition to the loss of liberty and character, to live in constant
contact, for years it may be, with the professional thief and
house-breaker, the burglar, and the garotter, who has been frequently
convicted, and whose whole life is spent between the prison and the
"cross." The natural and inevitable result of this is contamination.
Even in the case of men possessing high principle and of great moral
fortitude the effect would be deteriorating and pernicious. With men of
weak resolution, strong passions, and a comparatively low standard of
morality, the consequences cannot be doubtful in the majority of cases.
They gradually lose self-respect, cease to think of reformation or
amendment, in time they come to envy the hardened stoicism and
"gameness" of the practised ruffian, learn his language, imbibe his
notions of life, and finally resolve, since character, self-respect,
and all else that bind them to morality and virtue are lost, that they
will compel society to make amends for the ruin it has brought upon
them. It is from this class I am persuaded that the ranks of our born
and bred convicts are so largely and so constantly supplemented. Yet
how easily and how speedily might this source of supply be diminished,
if not altogether closed.
The old Transportation Act, although it may not have provided for any
such separation as that I have just indicated, and although it was
based on what I consider pernicious principles, was undoubtedly the
most effectual plan for getting rid of our criminal population, and in
its operation the most merciful to the prisoner of any of our recent
parliamentary enactments. Had its provisions been efficiently and
judiciously administered, we might still have been sending convicts to
our colonies. But the business of exporting our "dirty linen" was
grossly mismanaged. The merchant who hopes to succeed as an exporter
must study carefully the class of goods suitable for the market he
proposes to supply, and send only those he is confident will be
approved of and meet a ready sale. But our prison authorities, by some
fatality, so organized the system of selection of convicts for
transportation that those who were, of all men, the very last a young
and virtuous community would seek, were forced upon them, whilst those
for whom there was a constant demand, and who would have regarded
transportation and liberation abroad as the opportunity for escaping
from social prejudice, of retrieving their lost character, and of
commencing anew a life of honesty and industry, were condemned to pine
in the prisons at home, and in too many cases, to adopt a career of
crime when their sentences expired. The first and great commandment the
prison authorities regarded in their selection was, that the prisoner
should be physically healthy, sound in wind and limb; and the second
was, that he should have been a certain time in prison at home after
receiving his last sentence and conducted himself well whilst there. No
enquiry was made into the prisoner's previous history, employment,
education, or general disposition and habits, which, one would
naturally have thought necessary before any intelligent opinion could
be formed as to the probabilities of his future career abroad. Now,
although the qualifications of health and good conduct might seem to be
good and sufficient grounds on which to make such a selection as was
required for transportation, those acquainted with prisoners and prison
life will at once perceive that they were very far from being so. In
the first place, a great many of the prisoners who would have adopted
an honest life and been a benefit to the colonies if they had been sent
there, but who were rejected on account of ill-health, had become
diseased in prison and in consequence of their imprisonment, and would
in all probability have recovered their usual good health before they
had reached their destination abroad. These were generally men of
education, and accustomed to generous diet, but the prison discipline
and scale of dietary soon told upon their health, and disqualified them
in the eyes of the prison officials for the boon of transportation.
Even if their health was not restored by the sea voyage and liberation
abroad, it was only exchanging the hospital abroad for the hospital at
home. If the experiment succeeded, who may estimate its value to him
who was the subject of it? Again, "good conduct," as indicated by the
standard of our prison authorities, is anything but a trustworthy
criterion of the convict's true character and disposition. It does not
mean that the prisoner has shown himself honest, industrious, or well
disposed, or in any active sense what the phrase is ordinarily supposed
to mean; indeed the system of penal servitude does not permit the
prisoner any opportunity of showing that he is so. All that "good
conduct," in prison official language means is, that the prisoner has
not broken any of the prison rules, and is therefore a purely negative
quality; scrupulous obedience to prison discipline and regulations,
with severe penalties attached to transgression, is a very sorry basis
on which to found a character of good conduct in a convict. The
consequence was, if one of the greatest ruffians that ever entered the
prison gates were to make up his mind, as I have known many of them do,
to go abroad, he knew that he had only to study the rules of the prison
and obey them for a certain length of time, and he would obtain his
object, and be let loose among the innocent colonists, to rob and
murder as he found opportunity. Thousands of such men, who had
purposely behaved themselves well in the prison at home, with the grim
determination of making amends for their restraint by a career of
increased violence and ruffianism abroad, were thus let loose upon
colonial society, and there is no wonder that the colonies rose up in
indignation and shut their ports against them. As a rule, it was the
hardened criminal whose reformation under existing laws was, I may
safely say, entirely out of the question, who, on the score of health
and good conduct, most perfectly fulfilled the conditions required by
the prison authorities, and most frequently had the boon of
transportation extended to him. Accustomed by long and frequent
experience to prison diet and discipline, and to all the "dodges" for
augmenting the one and evading or modifying the other, he could keep
himself in perfect health under circumstances which would send a less
experienced and more sensitive man to the hospital in a month; whilst
his familiarity with all the petty rules and regulations of the prison,
which the novice is in constant danger of breaking (quite
unintentionally), enabled him to steer clear of any offence that could
be reported if he thought it for his interest to strive for the
convict's prize. In fact, "good conduct," as exemplified by a convict
according to the prison standard, affords no more reliable evidence of
his moral qualities and industrious habits, than proficiency in drill
affords of the moral character of the private soldier.
It is quite clear that selection on these terms could only by a rare
accident find the suitable men for sending abroad. And yet it is my
firm conviction that I, or any other man possessing ordinary
intelligence and insight into human character and experience of convict
life, could, with the utmost ease, have selected from the inmates of
our prisons a very large number for exportation, whom our colonists
would have been glad to receive, and who would have been rescued from a
life of ignominy or crime at home. The question may very naturally be
asked--Why could not our prison officials have done the same? The only
answer I can give is that our prison officials (excepting the very
highest) are directly interested in _maintaining_ and _increasing_,
and not in _reducing_, the number of our convicts, and they are
therefore inclined to favour the liberation of those whom they are
pretty sure will soon return.
As a fair and forcible example of the advantage which might have been
taken of the "Transportation Act," in dealing with a certain class of
prisoners, and also as an illustration--not nearly so forcible as
others I have alluded to, and will yet notice--of the fault of the
authorities in the matter of selection, I will mention one case. Three
young men received sentence of twenty years' penal servitude for rape.
One of them, quite a youth, was more a spectator of than a principal in
the crime, the other two being the really guilty parties. The three
were in due course sent to Portsmouth. The guilty pair were sent
abroad, and liberated before the end of five years from the date of
their conviction. One of them is now married and settled comfortably
abroad, and the other lodges with him. The other prisoner, being young
and not very muscular, received some injury while at work and was sent
to the Invalid Criminal Hospital in Surrey, and has to remain in
prison, in a state useless to himself and to society, for eight or nine
years longer than his more guilty companions.
But the day has gone by for successful re-establishment of a penal
colony. I do not think there are many who would commit crimes for the
express purpose of getting abroad, unless the colony was very
attractive; but no country where officers can be got to reside will
ever be looked upon with dread by the majority of criminals. A penal
colony, I am convinced, would have no deterring influence on the minds
of those convicts who are most difficult to deal with. It would have
such an effect upon certain classes of prisoners, but their numbers are
small, and less expensive remedies might be found even more effectual
in their cases.
When convicts leave prison they could be divided into three classes.
First, those men who are not only determined to live honestly, but who
in all human probability will never again enter a prison; their number
may amount to about ten per cent. of the whole. Another class leave
prison with the deliberate intention of committing crime, and their
number may be about forty per cent. The third class, comprising about
fifty per cent. of the whole, belong to the hesitating, unsteady,
wavering class. Many of this class do manage to keep out of prison, but
at least one half of them return, and, along with the forty per cent.
of professionals, bring up the number of the re-convicted to seventy
per cent. Now, it must be quite clear that if we would reduce this
number, it is to the fifty per cent of waverers that our efforts must
be principally directed. The other classes either do not require or
will not benefit by our endeavours. Our present law is altogether
unable to cure the professional thief. I never heard, and I never met
with a convict who ever heard, of any of this class being converted
into honest men by the operation of our present system, nor do I
believe it possible to point to a single case. The professional thief
lacks three virtues--economy, industry, honesty. Now, under the present
system it is positively forbidden to give him any practical lesson
either in economy or honesty; industry, indeed, might be taught him,
but he rarely if ever receives an intelligent lesson, for it must be
remembered that enforced labour does not teach the labourer industry,
but is more likely to inspire him with an aversion to it. All that can
be done with the professional thief, under existing laws, beyond the
punishment of confinement and vigorous prison discipline, possibly, is
to give him such work to do as he can do, or be readily taught to do,
and that work not to be of the kind usually done in prison, but such as
will compensate to some extent for his maintenance in prison, and
enable him to live honestly out of it should he so elect.
On my right hand, in the twenty-four-bedded room, lay a city-bred
professional thief, acquainted with all the brothels and sinks of
iniquity in London, and his disgusting conversation chiefly related to
such places. Like many of his class, his constitution was delicate, and
his appetite somewhat dainty. The prison fare and hard work were
undoubtedly severe punishment to him; but no punishment could frighten
him into honesty. He knew no honest trade by which he could support
himself, but if he had been taught one in prison such as suited his
strength and talents, and had been taught only the _policy_ of
honesty, and been then sent to a country far removed from his old
haunts, where his newly-organized trade would be more profitable than
thieving, the possibility is he would have become a useful man in the
world. On the expiration of his sentence, which was three years, he
went home and wrote back to one of his "pals" in prison, under an
assumed name, that he had been to the Prisoners' Aid Society, and had
obtained as much of his gratuity as he could, to buy a barrow and some
fruit, as he meant to turn costermonger. He added, however, that he did
not like fruit-selling, and returned to his old trade of "gunsmith,"
gunning being the slang term for thieving, or going on the cross. The
real fact was, that he never intended anything else than being a
"gunsmith," but only used the deception in order to obtain a little
more money from the Aid Society than he otherwise could. As soon as he
got his barrow and stock he sold all off, and in a very few months I
had him for a companion again, with a seven years' sentence. I remember
asking whether he preferred a sentence of seven years' penal servitude,
or three years in Coldbath Fields?
"Three years in Coldbath Fields! why that would kill me. I would as
soon have fifteen years here."
The only good trait discoverable in his character was his ardent
affection for his mother. When he has completed about five years and
three months he will be liberated again, if he is alive, and again he
will return to crime; and it is almost impossible that such a man can
do otherwise; and as long as our prison authorities regard convicts as
mere living automatons, all modelled after the same fashion in
iniquity, our convict and county prisons, viewed as reformatories, will
remain quite inoperative for good, but very potent for evil.