CO885(2-3) — Page 9

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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TIC.O.

* 885

COPYRIGHT PHỔRAPH-NOT TO

2 PUBLIC RECOR

ALLY WITHOUT

BE REPRODUCE

XXXV

111

MISSION OF THE HOTOGRAPHIC-

FICE, LONDO

Sound sense which

lies at the founda- tion of the present

elaniour against ticket-of-leave mien.

Conceivable ob-

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members; therefore, it is affirmed, the State has no right to liberate them. It sins against the community by doing so, for it wittingly lets loose upon it an insatiable and implacable foe. It sins against the convict himself by doing so, for it deliberately enables him to add to the number of his crimes, knowing that he will avail himself of the facility it grants. The great mass of offenders, on the other hand, it is equally well-established, are reclaimable-often, it is true, after long probation, after many failures, after the disappointment of many hopes-but, still, reclaimable they are; some by one means, some by another; some by just severity, some by judicious kindness; some in a few months, some not for many years. But we say of these, as we say of the others, that, till they are reclaimed, the State has no right to let them loose; it wrongs them, and it wrongs the community if it does so; it sins alike against those whom it is bound to protect from injury, and those whom it is bound to protect from crime.

And here it is that the present popular panic outery coincides with the dictates of sound principle, and may be turned to account in enabling the authorities to carry out sound practice. The public is quite right in complaining of the liberation, in a civilised and peaceable community, of crowds of professional malefactors whose reformation there is not the faintest reason to surmise, and whose relapse into crime there is every possible reason to predict. The public is quite wrong in directing its indignation specifically against the ticket-of-leave men, who are perhaps no worse than thousands of others; who would probably have been not one whit more safe or harmless had they endured the entire term of their nominal sentences; and who are not the agents of half the crimes imputed to them. The facts of the case are, that for the last three and a-quarter years the number liberated on license has been 2,000 per annum; and that before the change of the law, about 1,000 from the hulks, and about 80,000 from ordinary gaols, were annually liberated without any restric tions whatever. The public see the truth as to the 2,000, but have not yet applied it to the 80,000. But the justice of their blundering complaint is the same in both cases. They perceive the error, and protest against the mischief, of liberating criminals while still criminally disposed, or by circumstances hounded back into criminal courses.

The principle, then, being morally just and logically sound-and the jerrions answered. public have got an imperfect, which might soon be converted into a perfect, grasp of it-it only remains to notice one or two conceivable objections:-

1. Imprisonment for life may at first startle some unthinking minds: but such may be quieted by reminding them that in the great majority of instances the criminals who will undergo this punishment are those who used formerly to be hanged; that hanging was not abandoned because it was deliberately deemed that these offenders ought ever to be restored to society, but from some religious or humane scruples; that if let loose these men would soon again subject themselves to recapture; and that in any case, therefore, their life must be a long course of imprisonment-with intervals in the one case, without intervals in the other; and finally, that their life, though it must be permanently passed in detention, need not be permanently passed under infliction. They are shut up, not for vengeance, but for the safety of society; and, in course of time, much mitigation, consistent with safe custody, might be allowed them.

2. Other objectors urge that it is not the State's business to reclaim offenders, but to punish them; and that it steps beyond its province when it undertakes the task of the chaplain or the schoolmaster, and attempts to proportion penalties to repentance instead of to crime. The reply to this objection is brief and conclusive: The State has one sole, clear, paramount duty in this matter, viz., to protect the community. We have already seen that this protection can only be effectually afforded by incarcerating all professional criminals for ever, or till they are reclaimed: unless, therefore, the objectors are prepared to advocate perpetual imprisonment for all, their objection falls to the ground. But it will also be admitted at once that the State. in protecting the community. has no right to inflict any suffering beyond what is necessary for this protection: it has, therefore,

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no right to retain in prison any who can be let out with safety. It can be shown, moreover, that it answers better-is wiser, more effectual, more economical, to say nothing of its being more just—to keep convicts in gaol till they are reclaimed than to keep them in for ever. interests of society are concerned, the sooner a criminal can be turned As far as the into an honest and industrious citizen, the better; the " afforded is the more complete, the more prompt, and the less costly. We

protection insist, therefore, on the direction of the State's exertions to the transfor- mation of the criminal, simply and solely because thus can it best discharge its special duty to the community-thus can it best, casiest, soonest relieve it of a burden, by liberating an offender whom yet it must not liberate till he be transformed.

3. A third class of objectors urge, that in taking all this pains to reform and train the criminal, to teach him a trade, to instil habits of industry, and to inaugurate him in a respectable way of life, the State incurs the risk of disheartening honesty and encouraging erime. This is an objection for the forum-rather showy than substantial. A very slight consideration of the facts of prison discipline, and a very superficial acquaintance with the peculiar character of the class of professional offenders, will suffice to convince us of its futility. No one wouk! willingly select so circuitous and so painful a channel by which to arrive at a respectable and self-supporting position. Months of separate confinement, entire and continuous seclusion from all old associates, severe and unre- mitting labour, monotony of scene and thought, enforced regularity, absti- nence from all sensual indulgences, and the uncertain and indefinite duration of all these conditions, constitute a picture which, we may be sure, presents nothing that is attractive to the criminal, nothing that can seem enviable to the honest labourer. The most marked and universal characteristics of the criminal population, are self-indulgence and a hatred of order: a scene where hours are early and toil is regular-where there are no women, no tobacco, and no spirits-is, in their eyes, little better than a hell.

4. The expense of the proposed system, if duly carried out, will be objected against it. This objection might, if it were desirable, be triumph- antly disposed of by a series of detailed comparative statistics, which, however, would necessarily be more or less conjectural. which has nothing conjectural about it is, that these professional male- But a reply factors and depredators live at the cost of the community, alike whether in or out of prison; and we are perfectly certain that we shall keep them

a great deal more cheaply than they can keep themselves.

The principle then being clearly seen and defended against all objec- Application of thos tions, the plan in which it is to be embodied and by which it is to be principle. carried out, remains to be explained. But, first, we must notice a corollary of the principle which, though a logical sequence, seems somewhat startling on its first enunciation—and that is, that we must deal in the same manner with all the offenders we lay hold of, whatever be the particular offence which brings them under the grasp of justice. We are all the time speaking, it will be remembered, of professional and regular criminals— permanent members of the criminal population. Now, we propose to take these into our continuous custody, not because they have stolen a pocket- handkerchief, or broken open a till, but because they are organized and established enemies of the community-habitual depredators on its goods. The particular offence for which they are brought up rurnishes the proof. but not the measure, of this habitual enmity and this predatory life. The community equally needs to be protected against them, and they equally need to have their bad and inveterate propensities eradicated, whether the degree of their discovered depredation be great or small. Moreover, if will often happen that a great offender will be detected only in one of his smallest offences, or that a man who has committed fifty crimes (for which the cumulative penalties would be enormous) will be sentenced only for one. Therefore, whatever be the special features of the case, it seems reasonable and righteous that all professional offenders should be dealt with in the

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