Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/787

PRISON DISCIPLINE 63 construction of model prisons was decreed as far back aj 1847, but in 1860 nothing had been done, and a new project was brought forward. Again in 1869 a fresh scheme replaced the previous ones, which were still dead letters. Seven more years elapsed, and in 1876 a new law was passed providing for the construction of a new cellular prison in Madrid with cells for a thousand prisoners. This law too hung fire, and the prison is not yet completed. The bulk of the prison population in Spain is still sent to presidios, or convict establishments, where general association both in the prison and at labour is the rule. The principal of these are situated at Cartagena, Valencia, where there are two prisons, Valladolid, Granada, and Burgos. There are also prisons at Alcala, Tarragona, Saragossa, and Santoha. Persons convicted of grave crimes are deported to the Balearic Islands or to the penal settlements in Africa, the principal of which are situated at Ceuta and Melilla. Throughout these establishments there is an utter absence of sanitary regulations; the diet is coarse and meagre ; the discipline is brutal ; the authorities are quite callous ; and morality does not exist. The Spanish authorities, however, claim the credit of having abolished corporal punishment in their prisons. Sweden. A great impetus was given to prison reform in Sweden by the interest taken in the question by King Oscar I. in 1840. Following special legislation, thirty-eight new cellular prisons were built in the various provinces of the kingdom. These prisons have been used since for all prisoners awaiting trial, those condemned to reclusion and those sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for two years and under. Persons sentenced to pay fines, but unable to pay, go to the cellular prisons. The isolation is continuous day and night. Besides these cellular there are a number of associated prisons for terms longer than two years and up to life. The labour in the first-named is of the usual kind tailoring, shoemaking, and some kinds of carpentry. Trade instructors arc specially appointed, so as to provide a prisoner on liberation with some employment. In the associated prisons there is more variety of work : linen and woollen cloths are manufactured, timber split up for matches, granite cut and dressed for buildings and pavements. The female prisoners weave textile fabrics, and make match boxes. A portion of the earnings is granted to prisoners, which, to a limited extent, may be spent in buying extra food. There is no purely penal labour, nor any regulated system of granting remissions for industry or good conduct. Many aid societies were formed about twenty- five years ago, but through want of success or funds their number has dwindled down to two. Switzerland. From the complete independence of each canton, each has its own special penal system and places of imprisonment. Hence the systems are various, and are not all equally good. The prisons of Switzerland may be divided into four groups : (1) those of the cantons of Uri, Scliwyz, Unterwalden, and Valais, which are still of a patriarchal character ; (2) those of Fribourg, Basel (rural), and Lucerne, which are on the associated plan and un satisfactory from every point of view; (3) those of the cantons of St Gall, Vaud, Geneva, and Zurich, which have prisons for asso ciated labour and separation at night, while Soleure, Orisons, Bern, and Schaffhausen are labouring to raise their prisons to this level ; (5) the penitentiaries of Lenzburg, Basel (urban), Neuehatel, and Ticino, which are good modern prisons in which the cellular system is completely applied. The system is one of progression, the pris oner passes through several stages of isolation, employment in association, and comparative freedom ; but only at Neuchatel is there separation by day as well as night. The general principle is one of collective imprisonment ; but there is an attempt at classifi cation, according to degrees of morality, in the best prisons. Sen tences may be either to imprisonment or reclusion with hard labour. The first may be from twenty-four hours to five years ; the second from one year to fifteen, twenty, thirty years, or to life. An ab breviation of punishment may under all the cantonal laws be obtained, but such reduction is rarely made according to fixed rules. In most of the cantons prisoners have a share in their own labour. This labour is chiefly industrial, but there is a form of penal labour to be seen where the plan has survived of employing certain pris oners to sweep the streets, make roads, or dyke the rivers. Such labour is felt to have a bad moral effect, and industrial labour is preferred. The latter is conducted by the administration itself, and not by contractors. It is thought that the state can introduce a greater variety of employments, and control the prisoner better when at labour than could free employers. Aid societies exist in most of the cantons ; the first was established at St Gall about 1845. Wherever they exist the societies protect prisoners in durance and assist prisoners on release by providing tools and employment with private persons. The only drawback in the Swiss aid societies is the want of organization and uniformity of action. United States. There is no uniform prison system in the United States. The variety of jurisdictions following the constant ex tension of territory and development of communities more or less populous perpetuates changing conditions, and the supreme Govern ment has not concerned itself greatly with prison affairs, and has claimed no supervision or special control. The rule of local self- government has left each jurisdiction to manage its prison according to its own ideas, and hence the utmost diversity of practice still obtains. While some prisons are as good as need be, others are marked with many defects. There is a wide distinction between the best and the worst. In the country which initiated prison reform, numbers of prisons exist nowadays which fall far below the commonest requirements of a good prison system. Taken broadly, the prisons of the Union may be classed into (1) State prisons ; (2) district prisons ; (3) county prisons ; (4) municipal or city prisons. Each State as a rule has its own State prison, but Pennsylvania and Indiana have two and New York three such prisons. The cellular system, or the rule of continuous separation, to which refer ence has been made already (see p. 753), was at first followed by several States, but gradually abandoned in favour of the so-called silent system, or that of labour in association under the rule of silence, with cellular separation at night. At the present time there is but one prison, the Eastern Penitentiary of Philadelphia, managed on the purely solitary plan. Of the long-sentenced con victs 96 per cent, are now confined in congregate prisons. There are about forty State prisons in all. Of the district prisons inter mediate between the State and the county prisons there are but few. The county prisons are by far the most numerous. The county in the United States is the unit of political organization under the State, and, with area and population comparatively limited, is a convenient subdivison for the purposes of the criminal law. Hence it has been asserted that no one knows exactly the number of county prisons in the United States, but it has been computed at upwards of two thousand. The city or municipal prisons are also very numerous and constantly increasing. Each and every one, as in the State prisons, is managed locally by local authorities, with the inevitable result of the utmost diversity in practice, and often enough the utmost neglect of the commonest rules of prison dis cipline. A self-constituted body inspected a couple of hundred of these jails a few years back, and reported that they were mostly defective from a sanitary point of view, insecure, and so constructed as to compel the promiscuous association of all classes old and young, the guilty and innocent, the novice and the hardened in crime. The sexes even were not invariably separated. Little or no employ ment was provided for the prisoners, and in few prisons was any effort made to compass religious or intellectual culture. An eye witness, Dr Whines, reporting of other jails of the same class still more recently, unhesitatingly condemned them. "Ohio, to-day," says the Ohio Board of Charity, " supports base seminaries of crime at public expense." " In our jail system lingers more barbarism than in all our other State institutions together." Yet there are a few and conspicuous exceptions to the general verdict of condemna tion. The discipline and management of the district prisons at Albany, Detroit, Rochester, and Pittsburgh are excellent. The good example is gradually becoming more and more largely imitated. Where good prisons exist it will be found that their administration remains for some length of time in intelligent hands, free from the " pernicious influence of partisan politics." The chief drawback to improvement is the uncertainty no less than the complexity of the governing bodies. These are apt to be changed capriciously ; and, what is worse, the} 7 are needlessly intricate and often far too numer ous. They act independently, without reference to each other, and they are not too ready to benefit by example and experience. What is wanted is a supreme central authority over all the prisons of a State, if not throughout the Union. AVheiever there is the nearest approach to this the results are most satisfactory. It is not strange that under these conditions discipline should also vary greatly, or, as has been said, " every variety of discipline, lack of discipline, or abuse of discipline is found." Neither the deterrent nor the reformatory agencies are properly or uniformly brought to bear. Prison punishments are still severe ; although flog ging is nominally abolished, it is said to be still practised in prisons where it is forbidden ; and some more ancient methods such as the yoke, the shower bath, and the iron crown have not yet entirely disappeared. There is, however, often good secular and religious instruction. The dietaries are fuller than on the opposite side of the Atlantic, meat is a more common ingredient, and Indian meal is very largely issued. The financial results obtained are not un satisfactory: many of the State prisons are now self-supporting, and an examination of the labour returns will prove that much enter prise has been displayed in finding employment for the prisoners. There is no purely penal labour, although much of the labour performed is sufficiently severe. There may be no treadwheel or cranks, but convicts in Alabama and Texas have been employed to build railways ; they have raised cotton in Mississippi, and have worked mines in Tennessee and New York, while in many States they are utilized in gardening and agriculture. A great deal of labour has been expended on quarrying and dressing stone for building, or for burning into quicklime ; at Auburn there is a large manufactory of agricultural tools ; Ohio employs saddlers ; Massa chusetts prisoners make ornamental ironwork; in Michigan they tan leather ; and at Dannemora, in northern New York, iron ore is

quarried, smelted, forged, and wrought into nails by the prisoners.