Prisons (treatment of crime) : return to an address of the Honourable House of Commons, dated 11 April, 1899, for copy of report of the Chairman of Commissioners of Prisons upon the treatment of crime in the United States.

  • Ruggles-Brise, Evelyn, 1857-1935.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prisons (treatment of crime) : return to an address of the Honourable House of Commons, dated 11 April, 1899, for copy of report of the Chairman of Commissioners of Prisons upon the treatment of crime in the United States. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the counties and the cities—persons convicted of serious crime are under the control of the State. The former are detained in Workhouses and Jails, the latter in State Prisons, and in some of the States in State Reformatories. The classification is roughly into persons guilty of felony and misdemeanour, but the latter can be punished with detention up to five years and the former must be punished with a minimum detention of one year. The system roughly corresponds with that prevailing in England prior to 1877, when the State had control only of the Convict Prisons, and the local Justices were responsible for the custody of local prisoners, with this difference, that here a local sentence could not exceed two years and a sentence to penal servitude could not be less than five years. With regard to the Jails and Workhouses (though I visited three, at Boston, Chicago and Pittsburg) I did not pursue any detailed inquiry. The system of control and management is notoriously inadequate, and there is a consensus of opinion that their transfer to State control is urgently required, but as the State is tenacious of its rights as against the Federal Govern- ment, so is the local authority of its rights as against the Governor of the State. Similar difficulties existed in England prior to the transfer in 1877, and they are less likely to be over- come in America, where any disturbance of the status quo might have wide reaching political results, and where there is no solid public opinion to back up a reform which is called for in the interests of discipline and uniformity. Indeed, on the contrary there is a general distrust of “ official ” authority, which thoughtful people, themselves favourable to the establishment of a Civil Service on English lines, regard as fatal to any proposal having for its purpose the substitution of “ official ” for local control. It is not, however, from any want of public exposition of the evils of the present system that reform is delayed. The following quotation from an official report to the Legislature of New York with regard to the local jail of the city called “The Tombs” will illustrate this. The Tombs is primarily a House of Detention for prisoners awaiting trial, and it is thus described :—“ The “ Tombs Prison is a disgrace to New York. It is defective in “ every modern appliance. It is dark, damp, and ill-ventilated. “ The closets are a filthy nuisance. There are no facilities “ for bathing, exercise, employment, or religious instruction. “ Worst of all is the hideous system of keeping two or three “ men in a cell, which is nothing but a means of indescribable “ torture to a decent man, and a prolific school of vice and crime “ to a criminal. . . . Such treatment of dogs would be gross “ cruelty.” It must not be supposed that all jails are as bad as this, some indeed, I was informed, were models of cleanliness and order. Generally speaking, however, it is agreed that they are the dark