CLASSIFICATION OF CONVICTS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2103, 30 September 1875, Page 4

CLASSIFICATION OF CONVICTS.

Tlie^aunual report of" the Ordinary of Newgate (the Eev. F. E. Lloyd Jones) upori. the moral anc! religious condition of the prisoners in that gaol has just been issued. In it he urges that the condition of criminals has a great and important effect upon society, and that the restraint of prison, which for a time deprives them of liberty, affords an opportunity for reformation with the best prospect of success. Separation from vicious influences and their lawless tendencies, the atmosphere of cleanliness, without which godliness seldom is, the enforced sobriety which is so essential to Reflection, followed by the daily experience of the fact that " the way of transgressors is hard," would induce many to listen attentively to what could be said in favcr of honesty, truth, and soberness, and some to addopt*them ! as principles for their future course of life. The object of prison discipline was twofold; it was intended for the punishment, and also for the reformation of offenders against the law. If they could make the detection of crime almost certain, and the punishment which followed sufficiently severp, few would embark in so unprofitable and perilous a venture, but if they were able to affect the temper and disposition of those who had erred and were being punished, and to produce a change in them, society was doubly benefited, for not only were the ranks of those who were enemies to its well-being dimished ; but so many were added to tlie number of those who promoted its interests. In the Times of the 11th of November last there was an article upon the discipline of our convict prisons and reformatories, and its effect in promoting the reformation of criminals. Those whose work it was to endeavor to do all they could to bring that about, regarded with intense interest any new regulation introduced with- that object, and watched its effect with most eager attention. "When he regarded the batches of prisoners sentenced to 'penal servitude after each session, composed as they were of men of every rank and grade in society, he could n'ot:but deeply regret that it should ever be possible for them to sppiik of their experiences, or to express their vile to'those who were less hardened than themselves ; or to have the opportunity of affecting, bearing down, and stifling with the overwhelming weight of their own evil dispositions some germ of reformation in others. In these batches of convicts

might be found men whose natures were as,far apart as the Poles. To give each prisoner the best opportunity for reforming, to each should be afforded those conditions most favovable to reformation. The novice should not be so placed as to be influenced by the matured wickedness of the-, hardened crimi-

nal; the latter should be deprived of that opportunity, which he so much prized, and never failed to use, of parading, in all the pride of his depraved nature, those acts of his Jife which should be his shame. It had been, and still was, the Ordinary's impression that those who laboured for the reformation of criminals had by no means the best chance of accomplishing the object for which' they strived until a system was organized for careful classification of prisoners. By indiscriminately associating old offenders with first offenders in the convict prisons, they wouldsjaring down men comparatively pure to the depraved notions and feelings of those whose lives had been one catalogue of crime. In Newgate*the separate system was of the greatest' value in that respect. There was nothing to hinder any one who chose from yielding %to the good advice whioh he received, backed as it was by his enforced reflection upon the consequences which were inseparable from an evil life. During the nine months of probation, as they were termedi which immediately followed a sentenceof penal-servitude, everything was favorable to reformation. • Every prisoner was. easily- accessible to the chaplain ; and the separate system, so far as eommnication of prisoners with each other was concerned, as limited as possible. But all that was entirely altered when convicts arrived at the public works prisons. There men labored together in gangs of from 10 or 15 to 50, and communication was easy and incessant. It mattered not what a man might have been; according to the amount of bone and muscle which ;each individual possessed, he was draughted into a hard or light labor gang, A " gentleman" for forgery, a clerk for embezzlement, a postman for stealing letters, a soldier for some military offence, a youth, the victim of some sudden outburst .of passion, jbhe man for years respectable and respected who in the moment of irritation had dealt, a fatal blow, and the hardened .and habitual

criminal, were all herded together in those working parties. That was certainly not the classification likely to promote moral reformation, but the* contrary. At Portland the. good effects of separating first offenders from those who were undergoing sentence after second and third convicsions, and.of incorrigible offenders against prison rules from those who were, orderly and well-behaved, were fully apparent, and why, then should not the system be largely developed. By judicious classification, for there was abundance of material in the authentic history of each convict's career to make such a classification, they might look with the most sanguine expectations for still more extensive and positively good results. He did not mean to say that bone and muscle should be the test of fitness for the hard

or light labor gang, but he knew that each body contained a spirit and.and soul, wifh its emotions, and feelings, and capabilities for amendment of life, and if reformation, as he maintained it was, was part—and that not the least important—of our penal system, then let every chance be given, and every means used to promote it to the the utmost extent. To reform juveniles, or to prevent those who showed a disposition for waywardness, wilfulness, and vice, he had always considered a most important , part:. of his work, and he had endeavoured to utilise to that purpose and end various opportunities which had occurred. The powers given to the School Board he had regarded as the most available to reach and control unruly boys, who set home_ authority at defiance, and also to deal with those unnatural, ' selfish parents who refused or neglected to do their duty to their children'by taking the matter out of their hands, giving the children proper instruction, and compelling > the parents to pay the cost. His practice was to give the School Board the names and other information respecting lads of a certain age who might happen to be in custody on remand for some trifling offence, so that they might be sent to an industrial school instead of to prison. Iv conclusion, he desired to express his emphatic

opinion that the time had come when it ■was of the greatest importance to establish some general and regularly-consti-tuted method by which prison-authorities should be able to furnish information to the School Board about the children,of prisoners of the habitual class.—Times.