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Untitled Article
influence of these visits is described to be most beneficial , and tije effect of the entire discipline is decidedly successful in the prevention of crime , both by the dread which imprisonment inspires , as well as by the reformation of the offender . Inquiries have been instituted relative to the conduct of prisoners released from the Auburn Penitentiary—the prison at which this system has been longest observed—and of two hundred and six
discharged , who have been watched over for the ^ space of three years , one hundred and forty-six have been reclaimed , and maintained reputable characters in society . ' A large proportion ;—to which should be added all who , instead of being corrupted on the re-entrance of these offenders into the world , are warned by their past and encouraged by their present example .
It would seem to be the very least that the authorities of a civilized country could do , to provide against the further corruption of the criminals who are made such , in a large degree , by the vices of that country ' s institutions ; yet , among us , not ouly have the authorities failed to discharge this essential part of their duty , but they have hindered or omitted to support the exertions of benevolent societies and individuals . The jails in Scotland
reniain unimproved , and most of the prisons attached to corporate jurisdictions are in a state so disgraceful as necessarily to corrupt all committed to them . In some of these there is no employment , no inspection , no separation of the men from the women , of murderers from truant boys , or even of the sick from the health y * In some , the jailer does not reside . In others , irons are illegally used because the walls are tumbling down . It is a
very old analogy between the diseases of the body and the spirit ; but it is one so complete and well-grounded , that it will bear a perpetual application . What should we think of the justice and humanity of first throwing a man into the very centre of a plague contagion , then , as soon as sick , removing him into an hospital with the ostensible purpose of relieving society and curing himself ; then , instead of putting him into a clean separate bed and applying proper means for his recovery , shutting him up with
patients worse than himself , in heat and dirt , untended and uncared for ; and , finally , turning him out into the world again , when the disease had reached its height , to spread it wherever he goes ? Yet this is precisely our management of those afflicted with that kind of malady which is to the patient as much the result of natural causes as physical disease , while it is at the same time
productive of worse evils , and more certainly curable . The root of this grievance lies deep , —even in the mistaken notions generally prevailing of the origin and nature of virtue and vice ; but thousands who cannot reach or discern the principle of the mischief Can , help to ameliorate the practice , Without arguing how the
Untitled Article
&EMb Prison Discipline-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 585, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/8/
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