If every chapter in this book is ignored, I hope that this one will be read thoughtfully. For I want to show that a great national wrong, a stupidly cruel wrong, exists.
Probably all injustice is stupid, but this wrong is so foolish, that any man who thinks for one moment upon it will wonder how it came into existence.
I have written and spoken about it so often that I am almost ashamed of returning to the subject. Yet all our penal authorities, from the Home Secretary downwards, know all there is to be known about it.
I am going, then, to reiterate a serious charge! It is this: no boy from eight years of age up to sixteen, unless sound in mind and body, can find entrance into any reformatory or industrial school! No matter how often he falls into the hands of the police, or what charges may be brought against him, not even if he is friendless and homeless. Again, no youthful prisoner under twenty-one years of age, no matter how bad his record, is allowed the benefit of Borstal training unless he, too, be sound in mind and body. This is not only an enormity, but it is also a great absurdity; for it ultimately fills our prisons with weaklings, and assures the nation a continuous prison population.
It seems very extraordinary that prison and prison alone should be considered the one and only place suitable for the afflicted children of the poor when they break any law, but so it is.
The moral hump is tolerated, even patronised in reformative institutions, but the physical hump, never!
Cunning, dishonesty and rascality generally may be tolerated, but feebleness of mind or infirmity of body never! All through our penal administration and prison discipline this principle prevails, and is strictly acted upon.
Let me put it briefly; prison, and prison only, is the one and only place for afflicted youth when it happens to break one or the other of our laws.
We have numerous institutions, half penal and half educative, that exist absolutely for the purpose of receiving homeless, wayward or criminally inclined youthful delinquents.
These institutions, I say, although kept going from public funds, refuse, absolutely refuse, to give training to any youthful delinquent who suffers from physical infirmity or mental weakness.
Think of it again! all youthful delinquents suffering from any infirmity of body or mind, are refused reformative treatment or training in all publicly supported institutions established for delinquent youth.
He may be a thief, but if he is a hunchback they will have none of him. He may be a danger to other children, if he has fits he will not be received. He may rob the tills of small shopkeepers, but if he is lame, half-blind, has heart disease, or if his brain is not sound and his body strong, if he has lost a hand, got a wooden leg, if he suffers from any disease or deprivation, prison, and prison only, is the place for him. So to prison the afflicted one goes if over fourteen; if under fourteen back to his home, to graduate in due time for prison.
This is no exaggeration, it is a true picture, and this procedure has gone on till our prisons have become filled with broken and hopeless humanity.
Could any one ever suggest a more disastrous course than this? Why, decency, pity, or just a grain of common sense ought to teach us, and would teach us if we thought for a moment, that it is not only wrong but supremely foolish.
For there is a very close connection between neglected infirmity, mental or physical, and crime, a connection that ought to be considered, and few questions demand more instant attention. Yet no question is more persistently avoided and shelved by responsible authorities, for no means of dealing with the defective in mind or body when they commit offences against the law, other than by short terms of useless imprisonment, have at present been attempted or suggested. It seems strange that in Christianised, scientised England such procedure should continue even for a day, but continue it does, and to-day it seems as little likely to be altered as it was twenty years ago. Let me then charge it upon our authorities that they are responsible for perpetuating this great and cruel wrong. They are not in ignorance, for the highest authorities know perfectly well that every year many hundreds of helpless and hopeless degenerates or defectives are committed to prison and tabulated as habitual criminals. Our authorities even keep a list on which is placed the names of these unfortunates who, after prolonged experience and careful medical examinations, are found to be "unfit for prison discipline."
This list is of portentous length, and to it four hundred more names are added every year. This is of itself an acknowledgment by the State that every year four hundred unfortunate human beings who cannot appreciate the nature and quality of the acts they have committed, are treated, punished and graded as criminals. Now the State knows perfectly well that these unfortunates need pity, not punishment; the doctor, not the warder; and some place where mild, sensible treatment and permanent restraint can take the place of continual rounds of short imprisonment alternated with equally senseless short spells of freedom.
No! not freedom, but a choice between starvation, prison or workhouse. Now this list grows, and will continue to grow just so long as the present disastrous methods are persisted in!
Why does this list grow? Because magistrates have no power to order the detention of afflicted youthful offenders in any place other than prison; they cannot commit to reformatory schools only on sufferance and with the approval of the school managers, who demand healthy boys.
So ultimately to prison the weaklings go, and an interminable round of small sentences begins. But even in prison they are again punished because of their afflictions, for only the sound in mind and body are given the benefit of healthy life and sensible training.
Consequently in prison they learn little that can be of service to them; they only graduate in idleness, and prison having comforts but no terrors, they quickly join the ranks of the habitues. When it is too late they are "listed" as not suitable for prison treatment. Year by year in a country of presumably sane people this deplorable condition of things continues, and I am bold enough to say that there will be no reduction in the number of our prison population till proper treatment, training, and, if need be, detention, is provided in places other than prison for our afflicted youthful population when they become offenders against the law.
But reformatory and industrial schools have not only power to refuse youthful delinquents who are unsound in mind or body; they have also the power to discharge as "unfit for training" any who have managed to pass the doctor's examination, whose defects become apparent when under detention.
From the last Official Report of Reformatory Schools in England and Wales I take the following figures—
During the years 1906-7-8 14 imbeciles (males) were discharged on licence from reformatory schools; and during the same three years no less than 93 (males) were discharged by the Home Secretary's permission as "unfit for physical training." The 14 imbeciles in the Official Report are classified as dead, and the 93 physically unfit are included among them "not in regular employment."
For the same period of years I find that 28 (girls) were discharged from English reformatory schools as being physically unfit.
The Official Report of Industrial Schools includes England, Wales and Scotland, and for the same three years I find that 13 (males) were discharged from industrial schools as being imbeciles, and 116 (males) as being "unfit for physical training."
Strange to say, in the Annual Report the physically unfit are included among those "in casual employment," and the imbeciles are included among the "dead."
From the same Official Report we have the statement that in one year, 1909, in England and Scotland 991 (males) and 20 (females) who had been discharged from reformatory schools were re-convicted and committed to prison.
How many of them were mentally or physically defective we have no means of knowing, for no information is given upon this point; but there is not the slightest doubt that a large number of them were weak-minded, though not sufficiently so to allow them being classified as imbeciles.
The terrible consequence of this procedure may also be gathered from the Report of the Prison Commissioners for England and Wales 1910, from which it appears that during the year 157 persons were certified insane among the prisoners in the local and convict prisons, Borstal institutions and of State reformatories, during the year ending March 31, 1910.
In addition to the above there were 290 (213 males and 77 females) cases of insanity in remanded and other unconvicted prisoners dealt with during the year, including 14 males and 2 females found "insane on arraignment," and 173 males and 65 females found insane on remand from police or petty sessional courts. There were 30 (20 males and 10 females) prisoners found "guilty" but "insane" at their trial.
But the most illuminating report comes from the medical officer at Parkhurst Convict Prison; these are his words—
Weak-minded convicts and others whose mental state is doubtful continue to be collected here. The special rules for their management are adhered to. The number classified as weak-minded at the end of the year was 117, but in addition there were 34 convicts attached to the parties of weak-minded for further mental observation.
"The conduct and tractability of these prisoners naturally vary with the individual; a careful consideration of the history of each of the 117 classified weak-minded convicts indicates that about 64 are fairly easily managed, the remainder difficult to deal with, and a few are dangerous characters.
CLASSIFICATION OF WEAK-MINDED CONVICTS:—
(a) Congenital deficiency:-
1. With epilepsy . . . . . . 9
2. Without epilepsy. . . . . . 46
(b) Imperfectly developed stage of insanity 18
(c) Mental debility after attack of insanity 8
(d) Senility . . . . . . 2
(e) Alcohol . . . . . . 6
(f) Undefined . . . . . . 28
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117
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"The following is a list of the crimes of the classified weak-minded for which they are undergoing their present sentences of penal servitude, and the number convicted for each type of crime—
False pretences . . . . . . . 3
Receiving stolen property . . . . . 3
Larceny . . . . . . . 18
Burglary . . . . . . . 7
Shop-breaking, house-breaking, etc. . . . 19
Uttering counterfeit coins . . . . . 1
Threatening letters . . . . . . 4
Threatening violence to superior officer. . 1
Robbery with violence . . . . . . 3
Manslaughter . . . . . . . 6
Wounding with intent. . . . . . . 8
Grievous bodily harm. . . . . . . 2
Attempted murder . . . . . . . 1
Wilful murder . . . . . . . . 7
Rape . . . . . . . . . 5
Carnal knowledge of little girls. . . . 8
Arson . . . . . . . . . 15
Cattle maiming . . . . . . . . 1
Placing obstruction on railway . . . . 2
Unnatural offences . . . . . . . 3
"During the year 35 convicts were certified insane; of these 27 were removed to the criminal asylum at Parkhurst, 2 to Broadmoor asylum, 3 to county or borough asylums, and 3 remained in the prison infirmary at the end of the year.
"The average length of the last sentences for which these unfortunates were committed was seven years' penal servitude each. That their mental condition was not temporary but permanent may be gathered from their educational attainments, for 12 had no education at all, 18 were only in Standard I, 29 in Standard II, 15 in Standard III, and 12 others were of poor education."
The statement that the average length of the last sentences of these unfortunates was seven years' penal servitude is appalling. It ought to astound us! But no one seems to care. Penal servitude is good enough for them. Perhaps it is! But it ought to be called by another name, and legally signify the inmates to be "patients," not criminals. Let us visit a prison where we shall find a sufficient number of prisoners to enable us to form an idea as to their physical and mental condition.
Come, then, on Sunday morning into a famous prison that long stood as a model to the world. We are going to morning service, when we shall have an opportunity of seeing face to face eight hundred male prisoners. But before we enter the chapel, let us walk round the hospital and see those who are on the sick list.
One look as we enter the ward convinced us that some are lying there whose only chance of freedom is through the gates of death.
In yonder corner lies a young man of twenty-one years; the governor tells us that he is friendless, homeless, and a hopeless consumptive. He says, "We would have sent him out, but he has nowhere to go, for he does not know his parish, so he must lie here till he dies, unless his sentence expires first."
We speak to the young man a few kindly words, but he turns his face from us, and of his history we learn nothing.
On another bed we find an old man whose days also will be short; of his history we learn much, for he has spent a great deal of his life in prison, and now, aged, feeble and broken, there is nothing before him but death or continued imprisonment. We pass by other beds on which prisoners not so hopeless in health are lying. We see what is the matter with most of them: they are not strong enough for ordinary prison work, or indeed for any kind of vigorous labour. So they remain in prison well tended in the hospital. But some of them pass into freedom without the slightest ability or chance of getting a living otherwise than by begging or stealing.
What strikes us most about the inmates of the prison hospital is the certainty that many of the prisoners have not sufficient health and strength to enable them to be useful citizens.
So we pass through the hospital into the chapel, and find eight hundred prisoners before us. The organ plays, the morning service is read by the chaplain; the prisoners sing, and as they sing there is such a volume of sound that we cannot fail to be touched with it.
We enter the pulpit, and as we stand and look down upon that sea of upturned faces, we see a sight that is not likely to be forgotten. There, in front of us, right underneath the pulpit, are rows of young men under twenty-two years of age; we look at them; they are all clad in khaki, and we take a mental sketch of them.
One or two among them are finely developed young men, but the great bulk we see are small in stature and weak in body. Some of them have a hopeless expression of countenance that tells us of moral and mental weakness.
We note that most of them can have had but little chance in life, and that their physical or mental infirmities come from no fault of their own. They have all been to school; they have started in life, if it can be called starting, as errand boys, paper sellers in the streets, or as street merchants of some description. They have grown into early manhood, but they have not increased in wisdom or stature. They have learned no occupation, trade or handicraft; they have passed from school age to early manhood without discipline, decent homes or technical training.
When at liberty their homes are lodging-houses or even less desirable places. So they pass from the streets to the police, from police-courts to prison, with positive regularity.
They behave themselves in prison, they obey orders, they do the bit of work that is required of them, they eat the food, and they sleep interminable hours away.
At the back of the young men we see row after row of older men, and their khaki clothing and broad arrows produce a strange impression upon us; but what impresses us most is the facial and physical appearance of the prisoners.
Cripples are there, twisted bodies are there, one-armed men are there, and blind men are there. Here and there we see a healthy man, with vigour and strength written on his face; but the great mass of faces strikes us with dismay, and we feel at once that most of them are handicapped In life, and demand pity rather than vengeance.
We know that they are not as other men, and we realise that their afflictions more than their sins are responsible for their presence in that doleful assembly.
Yet some of them are clever in crime, and many of them persistent in wrong-doing, but their afflictions were neglected in days when those afflictions should have been a passport to the pity and care of the community.
We see men who have grown old in different prisons, and we know that position in social and industrial life is impossible for them.
We see a number whom it is evident are not mentally responsible, for whom there is no place but the workhouse or prison; yet we realise that, old as they are, the day of liberty must come once more, and they will be free to starve or steal!
We know that there are some epileptics among them, and that their dread complaint has caused them to commit acts of violence.
We see among them men of education that have made war upon society. Drunkards, too, are there, and we know that their overmastering passion will demand gratification when once again the opportunity of indulging in its presented to them. So we look at this strange mass of humanity, and as we look a mist comes over our eyes, and we feel a choking sensation in our throats.
But we look again, and see that few throughout this great assembly show any sense of sorrow or shame. As we speak to them of hope, gladness, of manliness, and of the dignity of life, we feel that we are preaching to an east wind. Come round the same prison with me on a week-day; in one part we find a number of men seated about six feet from each other making baskets; warders are placed on pedestals here and there to keep oversight.
We walk past them, and notice their slow movements and see hopelessness written all over them. They are working "in association," they are under "observation," which, the governor tells us, means that they are suspected of either madness or mental deficiency.
As we look at them we are quite satisfied that this suspicion is true, and that, if not absolutely mad, they are mentally deficient.
If absolute madness be detected, they will be sent to asylums. If feeble-mindedness be proved, they will again be set at liberty. Their names will be placed on a list, and they will be declared "unfit for prison discipline," but nothing more will be done. They will be discharged to prowl about in the underworld, to commit other criminal acts and to be returned again and again to prison, to live out hopeless lives.
And there is another cause, almost as prolific in producing a prison population. For while the State has been, and still is, ready to thrust afflicted youth into prison, it has been, and still is, equally ready to thrust into prison the half-educated, half-fed, and half-employed young people who break its laws or by-laws. It is true that the State in its irony allows them the option of a fine; but the law might as well ask the youths of the underworld to pay ten pounds as ask them to pay ten shillings; nor can they procure all at once the smaller sum, so to prison hundreds of lads are sent.
Does it ever occur to our esteemed authorities that this is a most dangerous procedure! What good can possibly come either to the State or to the youthful offender?
What are the offences of these boys? Disorder in the streets, loitering at railway stations, playing a game of chance called "pitch and toss," of which I have something to say in another chapter, gambling with a penny pack of cards, playing tip-cat, kicking a football, made of old newspapers maybe, playing cricket, throwing stones, using a catapult, bathing in a canal, and a hundred similar things are all deemed worthy of imprisonment, if committed by the youngsters of the world below the line.
Thousands of lads have had their first experience of prison for trumpery offences that are natural to the boys of the poor. But a first experience of prison is to them a pleasant surprise. They are astonished to find that prison is not "half a bad place." They do not object to going there again, not they! Why? Because the conditions of prison life are better, as they need to be, than the conditions of their own homes. The food is better, the lodging is better, the bed is decidedly better, and as to the work, why, they have none worthy of the name to do. They lose nothing but their liberty, and they can stand that for a week or two, what matters!
Well, something does matter, for they lose three other things of great moment to them if they only knew; but they don't know, and our authorities evidently consider these three things of no moment. What do they lose? First, their fear of prison; secondly, their little bit of character; thirdly, their work, if they have any. What eventuates? Idleness, hooliganism and repeated imprisonments for petty crime, until something more serious happens, and then longer sentences. Such is the progress of hundreds whom statisticians love to call "recidivists."
Am I wrong when I say that the State has been too ready, too prompt in sending the youths of the ignorant poor to prison? Am I wrong in saying that the State has been playing its "trump ace" too soon, and that it ought to have kept imprisonment up its sleeve a little longer? These lads, having been in prison, know, and their companions know, too, the worst that can happen to them when they commit real crime. Prison has done its worst, and it cannot hurt them.
If prisons there must be, am I wrong in contending that they should be reserved for the perpetrators of real and serious crime; and that the punishment, if there is to be punishment, should be certain, dignified and severe, educational and reformative? At present it includes none of these qualities.
To such a length has the imprisonment of youths for trumpery offences gone, not only in London, but throughout the country, that visiting justices of my acquaintance have spent a great deal of money in part paying the fines of youths imprisoned under such conditions, that they might be released at once. Here we have a curious state of affairs, magistrates generally committing youths to prison in default for trumpery offences, and other magistrates searching prisons for imprisoned youths, paying their fines, setting them free, and sending on full details to the Home Secretary.
It would be interesting to know how many "cases" of this kind have been reported to the Home Secretary during the last few years. Time after time the governors of our prisons have called attention to this evil in their annual reports. They know perfectly well the disaster that attends the needless imprisonment of boys, and it worries them. They treat the boys very kindly, all honour to them! But even kindness to young prisoners has its dangers, and every governor is able to tell of the constant return of youthful prisoners.
I do not like the "birch" or corporal punishment at all. I do not advocate it, but I am certain that the demoralising effect of a few' days' imprisonment is far in excess of the demoralisation that follows a reasonable application of the birch.
But the birch cannot be applied to lads over fourteen years of age, so it would be well to abolish it altogether, except in special cases, and for these the age might with advantage be extended. And, after all, imprisonment itself is physical punishment and a continued assault upon the body. But why imprison at all for such cases? We talk about imprisonment for debt; this is imprisonment for debt with a vengeance. Look! two lads are charged with one offence or two similar offences; one boy is from the upperworld, the other from below the line. The same magistrate fines the two boys an equal amount; the one boy pays, or his friends pay; but the other goes of a certainty to prison. Is it not absurd! rather, is it not unjust?
But whether it is absurd or unjust the result is certain—mathematically certain—in the development of a prison population.
During my police-court days I have seen hundreds of youths sitting crying in their cells consumed with fear, waiting their first experience of prison; I have seen their terror when first entering the prison van, and I know that when entering the prison portals their terror increased. But it soon vanished, for I have never seen boys cry, or show any signs of fear when going to prison for the second time. The reason for this I have already given: "fear of the unknown" has been removed. This fear may not be a very noble characteristic, but it is part of us, and it has a useful place, especially where penalties are likely to be incurred.
For many years I have been protesting against this needless imprisonment of youths, and now it has become part of my duty to visit prisons and to talk to youthful prisoners, I see the wholesale evil that attends this method of dealing with youthful offenders. And the same evils attend, though to perhaps a less degree, the prompt imprisonment of adults, who are unable to pay forthwith fines that have been imposed upon them.
It is always the poor, the very poor, the people below the line that suffer in this direction. Doubtless they merit some correction, and the magistrates consider that fines of ten shillings are appropriate, but then they thoughtlessly add "or seven days."
Think of the folly of it! because a man cannot pay a few shillings down, the State conveys him to prison and puts the community to the very considerable expense of keeping him. The law has fined him, but he cannot pay then, so the law turns round and fines the community.
What sense, decency, or profit can there possibly be in committing women to prison, even for drunkenness, for three, five or seven days? How can it profit either the State or the woman? It only serves to familiarise her with prison.
I could laugh at it, were it not so serious. Just look at this absurdity! A woman gets drunk on Thursday, she is charged on Friday. "Five shillings, or three days!" On Friday afternoon she enters prison, for the clerk has made out a "commitment," and the gaoler has handed her into the prison van. Her "commitment" is handed to the prison authorities; it is tabulated, so is she; but at nine o'clock next morning she is discharged from prison, for the law reckons every part of a day to be a complete day; and the law also says that there must be no discharge from prison on a Sunday, and to keep her till Monday would be illegal, for it would be "four days." How small, how disastrous, and how expensive it is!
If offenders, young or old, must be punished, let them be punished decently. If they ought to be sent to prison, to prison send them. But if their petty offences can be expunged by the payment of a few shillings, why not give them a little time to pay those fines? Such a course would stop for ever the miserable, deadly round of short expensive imprisonments. I have approached succeeding Home Secretaries upon this matter till I am tired; succeeding Home Secretaries have sent memorandums and recommendations to courts of summary jurisdiction till, I expect, they are tired, for generally they have had no effect in mitigating the evil.
Magistrates have the power to grant time for the payment of fines, but it is optional, not imperative. It is high time for a change, and surely it will come, for the absurdity cannot continue.
Surely every English man and woman who possesses a settled home ought to have, and must have, the legal right of a few days' grace in which to pay his or her fine. And every youthful offender ought to have the same right, also, even if he paid by instalments.
But at present it is so much easier, and therefore so much better, to thrust the underworld, youthful and adult, into prison and have done with them, than it is to pursue a sane but a little bit troublesome method that would keep thousands of the poor from ever entering prison.
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