On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
vices elsewhere ; but in compensation of this riddance , the debtors fcdtne but ready to steal as well as defraud ; the young educated to crime ; the once over-temp ted now hardened ; the innocent corrupted . Thus is moral evil propagated by the very mode adopted to confine it , and society injured by the means ordained
for its protection . The remedy must be found in classification , in restriction of intercourse , in keeping our prisons as clear as possible of offenders whose misdeeds are not of so bad a character as to render their seclusion necessary to the peace of the community , and in shortening , as much as possible , the period of imprisonment previous to trial .
* In respect to classification , ' observes the Report , the prisonact directs that in every county jail or house of correction , the prisoners shall be divided into ten classes ; and where these prisons are united together , twelve classes are required : ' it is further enacted that ' such further means of classification shall be adopted as the justices shall deem conducive to good order and discipline . ' It appears , however , from the jail returns , that upwards of forty prisons have not even the lowest scale of
classification required by law ; and that there are only twenty-two united county prisons in which the minimum is exceeded . Wherever the numbers are large , a further division of classes in respect to age , character , and degrees of crime , is indispensable in order to promote individual reformation and prevent the mischievous effects of contamination . '—p . 23 . There is much to be done then in rectifying the execution of the law while waiting for the amendment of the penal code .
The difficulties in the way of classification are much increased by the crowded state of too many of our jails;—an evil not wholly arising from the increase of crime , but from an increased disposition in the magistracy to avoid the responsibility of bailing offenders who are brought before them , so that stealers of hedgestakes and boys guilty of street-rows are shut up in a school of corruption for weeks , instead of awaiting , under better influences , the punishment of their offences- It should be remembered that
every committal to jail is a misfortune to the community as well as to the culprit , and therefore a deed riot to be needlessly done . Therecannot be a question / says the Report , ' that the number of untried prisoners—the most unmanageable class—might , by the general acceptance of bail , be reduced to one-half , or even a third , with no injury to the community , with great benefit to the
individual , and with material advantage to the discipline of prisons . The large proportion which the number of persons discharged by grand juries , and of those acquitted , bears to the whole number committed , affords strong presumptive evidence of the unsound ness of the present system . And this though much greater license of bailing is allowed by law than formerly . An analogous evil is the unfrequency of jail-deliveries . Some ?'
Untitled Article
§ 2 PHsdn Discipline .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 82, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/6/
-