And it is a part of the qualification of the visitor of the Society,
that he can accommodate himself and his ministrations to the varied
circumstances of the occupants of the cell, becoming all things to all
classes, that he may gain access to their confidence. Failing in all
this, as almost any one must come short of some of the objects of his
charitable effort, it is a part of the wisdom and prudence of the
representatives of the Society to discern their own want of adaptation
to the peculiar circumstance of the prisoner, and call in the aid of
those who by different gifts, by other attainments, or higher functions
may be better qualified to meet the wants of a particular case.
The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the miseries of Public Prisons,
is known by its works. It desires to be judged according to those works.
Some of the Society’s efforts have obtained for it European fame, while
a part of its labors are of so humble a class as to be little known
beyond the cell of the vagrant, or in the small circle of which such a
beneficiary may form a part. The great system that seems to concern all
mankind, that of separate confinement, is discussed, understood, and
partially practised in Europe, and if it is not general, the cause is
not so much a want of confidence in the system as a want of the deep,
practical interest in the unfortunate victims, which should lead
governments and legislators to incur the expense of erecting buildings,
especially for penal purposes, adapted to the idea of separate
confinement and special discipline, as substitutes for those prisons
which are only modifications of antiquated palaces, abandoned convents,
or delapidated baronial castles. Even the houses that were constructed
for prisons owe their erection in many cases to a time when confinement
and cruelty were the means of public or private vengeance, and when the
convicted felon became an outcast for life, or rather when the
conviction of felony was the Cain mark for perpetual infamy.
The Society is represented in its labors at the prisons in Philadelphia
by two Committees. The duties of one of which are confined to the
Eastern Penitentiary, in Coates street; the other committee is appointed
to labor at the County Prison, in Moyamensing. These two committees are
really practical operatives. They have little to do with theories or
plans. Their work is in the cells of the prisoners or at the doors of
the cells, and their dealings are directly with the individual.
In the experience of the visitors of the Society to the two prisons,
there is necessarily great difference arising out of the different
circumstances of the inmates of the County Prison and those of the
Eastern Penitentiary. In the latter the length of incarceration and the
closeness of the application of the rule of separate confinement, seems
to break up so entirely the relations of the prisoner with the world
from which he is banished, that many seem willing to listen to the
admonition of visiting friends, and to accept the invitation to review
their lives and to form resolves of future amendment. Not merely do the
monitions and invitations, of the visitors to the cells, lead prisoners
to promises of good, but the isolation of their condition and a want of
outward objects to strike their senses and occupy their minds induce
them to thought, to meditation, and lead them to the commencement of
that reformation, or, at least those solemn resolves of reformation
which are the object of their imprisonment. It can scarcely be doubted,
that almost every prisoner in the Penitentiary who has been frequently
visited by those who evince an anxiety for his temporal and spiritual
good, has been led to resolve to refrain from the crimes which placed
him in prison, and to seek a maintenance in the world by means which
that world sanctions and which God approves; but it is certain that a
large portion of those who thus resolve, find it easier on their return
to the world to resume their associations and habits and to become three
fold more offenders against the laws than they had been. In vice and
crime there is no halting, they are progressive; he who has yielded to
their influence must be carried forward with their advancement, or he
must renounce entirely their influence. The _arts_ of crime are like all
other arts by which a man undertakes to acquire position or a living;
they demand advancement. Pride in success leads to undertakings of
difficulty, and he who enters a jail a “sneaking thief,” may be
stimulated by professional emulation to advance in crime till he attains
the dignity of a penitentiary cell for some boldly executed robbery, or
some brilliant act of extensive forgery. The released half converted
criminal feels all this, but he feels the difficulty of relinquishing
plans of life which seem to have been devested of a part of their
chances of defeat by the very imprisonment into which they led him; and,
as a resolution to reform does not always include the means by which
virtuous living may be obtained, the outgoing prisoner finds in his
circumstances an excuse for violating the resolutions of good, or
postponing their fulfilment till at length he becomes involved in the
same labyrinth of difficulties and crimes that caused his former
incarceration. Is he then to be neglected? Is he then to be cast off? Is
he then to be marked as one who has forfeited, with the esteem of the
good, the right to the cares of the good? The Great Master of
benevolence gave no such advice, nor did He sanction such conduct by
example. He to whom all hearts are open, and who, aware of the evils and
hostility of vice and ambition, at once their object and their pardoner,
He never but once refused time and attention to the profitless; and His
only positive direct malediction was upon the unfruitful fig-tree that
had outlived its time of usefulness, and which, under His frown,
withered into a leafless and lifeless condition, that could experience
no resuscitation.
If we confess, as we must, that much of the evils which we deplore in
the prisoner, is the result of adverse circumstances, then we must also
admit that he may owe a future reform or repentance to some favorable
circumstance, to that circumstance which the thoughtless and the infidel
deem the providence of man’s fate, but which reason and religion declare
to be the instrument of God’s care of his creatures. It is the duty of
the philanthropist to provide for such a contingency, to have in the
mind of the offender an appreciation of wrong and right, so that when
unexpectedly the _circumstance_ occurs, there may be a knowledge of its
capabilities and a readiness to improve it.
In preparing this Report, reference was had to the fact, that some of
the great objects of the Society have already been discussed in every
light, and with masterly effect. Essays given in the publications of the
Society, from men of distinguished talent, have been productive of great
good in strengthening the confidence of active members, and in removing
prejudices from the minds of those who lacked experience to correct
false impressions.
The great system of separate confinement has been presented to the
public in a most convincing paper, by an able writer of this city, so
that, for the present, it seems only necessary, in our Annual Report, to
make a short reference to the system, and then to allow a statement of
the proceedings of the Society to illustrate its effect.
It is the object, then, in the _present_ Report, rather to make known
the details of proceedings, than to announce the abstract views upon
which action is founded; to give up this Annual Report to a presentation
of the mode of procedure; to a detail of the daily duties of the active
members and agents; to a consideration of some of the antagonistic
circumstances that hinder our progress, and to the means upon which
reliance must be placed in efforts to alleviate the miseries of prisons.
In attempting to present the report under various heads, it was found
difficult to avoid a repetition of argument and explanation, or rather,
having made the repetition, it was found difficult to correct the text
without impairing the fulness of that part of the subject. Indeed, when
it is considered that with the exception of enlightening the public
mind, to procure co-operation, and soliciting legislative enactments to
enable the Society to act more beneficially upon prisons, and through
them on the prisoner, the great work of alleviating the miseries of
public prisons, is to be upon the minds of individuals, we shall
comprehend how all the divisions of the actions of the Society centre
upon the single prisoner. Not for sympathy alone, but for amendment,
must we “take a single captive,” and so, in reporting upon the action of
the Agent; upon the doings of the various Committees; in setting forth
the success, or want of success, at the Penitentiary or the County
Prison; in referring to the movements on behalf of males or females; in
the plans for future action, as on the records of the past, it is the
incarcerated individual, it is the single mind whose experience we are
to record, or whose susceptibilities we are to note. Hence it has seemed
almost natural, at least it is hoped that it will be regarded as
excusable, that what is the great means of all our hopes of alleviating
the miseries of prisons, viz., separate confinement, and consequently
individual dealing, should pervade every division of the report of our
proceedings.
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