The Government at the moment appears to be looking into alternatives to imprisonment for some criminals. Any ideas ??
Here is an interesting comment about prison life from Kentish Gazette 26 Apr 1821 p.3 col.4:
PRISONS with their modern improvements:
That the motives of the leaders of the New System have been highly laudable, is not to be doubted, but that their endeavours at improvement are useful to the public or to the objects of their solicitude, is very questionable... Experience of professional and practical men deserves peculiar attention.
One of the Justices of the Peace for Middlesex and Westminster has recently.. expressed himself in the following terms:-
"Prisons from being dreary and miserable abodes, have become spacious, commodious and agreeable; the offensive term prison has been mollified into the milder names, "House of Correction", "Penitentiary", etc.. tender feelings of the humane have been under a continual state of excitement to improve the unpleasantness of imprisonment, and the hard earnings of the honest and industrious have been drained to supply the means of rendering "Punishment comfortable" !
During these years also the alarming increase of crimes has been a subject of continual lamentation with the public. The coincidence is not an accidental one, is evidently that of a cause and effect. That a houseless, naked and starving man should be tempted to relieve his wants by acts of dishonesty, when, if detected and convicted the penalty is good lodging, good bedding, warm clothing, excellent food, cheerful society, daily visits of friends, the condolence and tender treatment of superiors, and light work, or no work at all, is only what might be expected.
Instances are frequent in which the accused candidly say that they were starving and committed the theft to get into a house of correction.
"The matter of surprise is when we view the wretchedness in which so many hard working men and their families drag on existence, that the regard for good character, and a love of independence, should induce them still to continue honest and work their emaciated frames to the very bones while such excellent fare waits upon choice if they will only condescend to be dishonest. The wonder however is rapidly evaporating; much of the face of the country is altered by the immense buildings going forward, for the better accommodation of criminals, they do not expand equally with the demand for places. In districts where a little old prison was seldom half occupied, extensive buildings under the new system are found to be always full and in want of additions, while Candidates for admission infest our streets and prefer their claims upon our persons and our property in swarms and in noonday."
On the attempt to make the criminal not only comfortable but religious, honest and industrious, he exclaims "vain attempt!"
Convicts may be taught a demurian and to make hypo-critical confessions of sorrow and amendment; a spurious artificial religion may also be infused into some of them, ..the idea that, through faith, they may avoid future punishments.. Some. go to their vacation of thieving, with religious tracts in one pocket and instruments of death in another. Others have been discovered at prayers, or at meeting, immediately after having committed a barbarous murder..
The County Gaol of Middlesex, called the House of Correction, but which he thinks might with more truth be called the House of Attraction or Seduction, cost £60,000; the annual expense of accommodation and superintending prisoners is about £9,000; to which add 5% on the cost of the building and the annual amount is £12,000, while the produce of the loitering employment of the prisoners, called labour is £260 a year. That this job, the Penitentiary at Mill Bank, cost the public, though but half built, half a million pounds sterling.
The annual expenses of this establishment in the House of Commons to the amount of £100 for each convict.
These matters merit serious and deep reflection before our philanthropy is put to the full stretch and the public purse called on to defray the charge of its indulgence."
(ends)
