Remarks on cellular separation : Read by appointment of the American association for the improvement of penal and reformatory institutions, at the annual meeting in New York, November 29, 1860 / by William Parker Foulke.

  • Foulke, William Parker.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on cellular separation : Read by appointment of the American association for the improvement of penal and reformatory institutions, at the annual meeting in New York, November 29, 1860 / by William Parker Foulke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    most of the inducements to mutiny and personal assaults,—in the application of special punishments or restraints for breaches of prison-rules,—in the option to abstain from such punishments, and to give free scope to spontaneous self-correction,—in the opportunities for the development of individual character,—in the protection given to the germs of good resolution,—in certain facilities for seasonable and appropriate instruction,—in the relation of labor to reformation,—in security against recognition, against enlargement of criminal acquaintanceships, and against the.general moral degradation caused by a forced public community in prison,—and, gene- rally, in the more complete individualization of the discipline in its relations to the peculiarities of its subjects, cellular separation has advantages which are necessary consequences of that mode of im- jDrisonment. Let us here also avoid a fallacy. To prove the existence of an advantage is not to determine its quantity. It may appear that we have overrated or underrated the value to be assigned to the advan- tages just mentioned; but error in this respect will not destroy the fact that to some extent they exist. The friends of convict-separation maintain that they cannot easily be overrated, because they are the very objects for which the discipline of the old jails has been reformed, and because they are essential to the conception of either a just or a humane disci- pline. If we go beyond the mere punishment of an offender, or the procurement of the largest pecu-