28
years' transportation. The example of Portland has shown that after a preliminary period of separate confinement, convicts may with perfect discipline and without bad results be worked in association on useful public undertakings, and prisons on a si- milar plan might easily be erected in different districts of Great Britain and Ireland. Supposing that all prisoners who are now sentenced to ten years' trans- portation or less, were hereafter to be sentenced to appropriate periods of imprisonment, the result would be so greatly to diminish the number of convicts for transportation, that they could with the greatest ease be absorbed in Western Australia. A table will be appended to this paper by which it will be seen that out of an average of 5,822 persons annually sentenced in the United Kingdom to trans- portation, 5,249 are sentenced for periods of ten years and under, and only 573 to periods exceeding ten years.
The great objection which will suggest itself to this proposal is the possible danger of detaining so many of our misdemeanants in this kingdom. But, in the first place, it is to be remembered that for several years all the seven years' convicts (who con- stitute about four-sevenths of the whole number of convicts and two-thirds of those who would be de- tained under the new plan) were sent to the hulks and then discharged at home, and yet no complaint was ever heard of the consequences. Moreover, it has been estimated upon data of which the statement would too much complicate the present paper, but on which the calculation has been founded by the officers most conversant with this subject, that the whole additional number to be released would probably not exceed from 2000 to 2500 per annum in Great Britain and 1500 in Ireland; no such very formid- able numbers when spread over the whole surface of these countries.
To enter with any detail into the financial bearings on the question would also encumber this paper, which has already, it is feared, extended to too great a length. The following table, however, without pretending to minute accuracy, may serve to convey some general notions of this part of the subject. It is computed that the average detention in prison of persons sentenced to various periods corresponding with all the sentences of transportation under ten
29
years would be four years. At this rate the follow- ing table will exhibit the total accommodation required and the existing means of supplying it :
GREAT BRITAIN.
Accommodation required Existing accommodation, Males
Females..
10,000
ני
Gibraltar, annual vacancies
8,000
300
200
8,500
Deficiency
IRELAND.
1,500
Accommodation required
Existing accommodation, exclusive of tem-
porary depôts
--
Bermuda (annual vacancies)
6,200
4,800
400
5,200
1,000
ལ
Deficiency
All these statements are necessarily, to a consi- derable degree, hypothetical, but they are the best which can be offered under existing circumstances.
The total cost of new prison accommodation, in- cluding every adjunct, has been estimated by the Chairman of the Directors of Convict Prisons, at about 70%. But, on the other hand, must be deducted the saving upon the transport of about 1500 prisoners annually from Great Britain, and 800 from Ireland. On these assumptions the account will stand as follows:
Cost of 1500 new cells required in Great £
Britain at 701. Deduct saving (per annum) at 242. on
transport of 1500 convicts
£
105,000
36,000
Net cost for Great Britain
69,000
Cost of 1000 new cells required in Ireland Deduct saving (per annum) at 247. on
70,000
transport of 500 convicts
12,000
Net cost for Ireland
58,000
Total cost for Great Britain and Ireland
127,000
But the whole of this outlay would not have to be made immediately. The entire extent of room would not be wanted until prisoners had been accu- mulating for four years. And the burden might
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