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criminal became a criminal , they may perceive and apply the means of curing him of his criminality : thus fulfilling the second great object which imprisonment should be made to effect . If our nation were in the most prosperous state conceivable , it would still be an injustice to charge it with the gratuitous maintenance of even the few offenders who would then be found in its
prisons ; but , in the condition of difficulty and want in which our population finds itself at present , the support of 120 , 000 prisoners per annum is a burden which ought to be declared intolerable . If it be considered that advantages of every kind attend the enforcement of productive labour in prisons , while evils of all sorts arise in its absence , it becomes difficult to conceive how so many have been permitted to spend their months and years of captivity
in idleness , —why the sentence of hard labour has been so largely evaded , —and how it is that the necessary working apparatus has not been made a part of the furniture of every prison . The objection that the labour of prisons , like work-house labour , deranges , in a certain degree , the operation of demand and supply ,
and thereby injures the innocent labourer and capitalist , is of small weight in comparison with that of maintaining prisoners in idleness : moreover , it would become of less weight perpetually , were prison labour properly regulated and enforced , since the number of prisoners would decrease . Let us once , like the Auburn authorities , send out 146 reformed out of 206 committed ,
and the productions of our offenders' industry would shortly occupy a very small space in the market . There would result , from such an arrangement , a sensible relief to the community , — already sufficiently injured by the acts of the offender , —and a new efficiency in our penal institutions , to the great benefit both of the criminal and of society at large .
The one great thing to be borne in mind throughout the contemplation of the subject before us , —throughout the doings of the daily life of the benevolent , —is that the amelioration or renovation of our penal system lies , in some measure , between the hands of every man . Let the government be aroused to the utmost vigilance and activity , —let the Prison Discipline Society continue its virtuous labours , —let individuals visit the prisoner , and towns and cities unite to keep their magistracies up to their duty ;—much yet
remains to be done by those who may , for reasons or excuses of their own , abstain from joining in any of these efforts to accomplish a great good . As much may be done indirectly as directly for an object which may be reached by so many ramifications as this . Injudicious charity , overgrown luxury , waste , aristocratic J idleness , all cause poverty somewhere ; and poverty causes crime . Commercial restrictions , unequal taxation , profuse government expenditure , all cause poverty somewhere ; and poverty causes prime * Cruel , inconsistent , perplexed laws , imperfect representation , aristocratic privilege , all cause oppression j and oppression
Untitled Article
Prison Discipline * 585 &
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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/9/
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