The First Prison Reformer.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 23, 5 June 1902, Page 6

The First Prison Reformer.

A LiTTi E mo c than 100 years ago prisoners were either kept in inkut>s, to the destru t:ou of thoir moral and phys'cal being, or else wi re t'ji ployed in what is known as penal labor. Penal labor had no purpo-e except as it resulted in a supposed discipline of the prwo er. He wai kept at work turnirg a crank, or in a treadmill, or ihro.vir g j-hot bags, or doing something else that had no utility wi'a'ever as an mci ntive. Ir was rot productive labor in any pen-e. It was grinding, tedi"Uf», demoralising. It may have had sane advantage over idleness in rhe way of physical exercise, but the mental and n.oral con-c-q lences were sne-h as to quite overcome the phjsical ben> fiis. PJnlanihr< piets, philosophers, penologists bi gan to see that meie mor«l labcr was not much better than idlene i-s. and some of these men loi g ago foreshadowed many of the elements ot modern inetliod-*. One of the earliest < f th< «c wa« Mabillon. Abbe of St. Germaine in Pan°. a Benedictine ni"i.k. who made himself famous in his mm. and who, duriiijr 'ne n 'gn of Louis XIV., had a reputation tor great learning He toie h dowedin seime of his dissertations n.any of the d'stm<ti\e features of prison discipline and of prison labor f-s «c tiow know them. Reformation in prison discipline • ci v pit ci hi-> mmd to such ;.n c xtt nt that he outlined apian for the guv rnm^nt of prison-. lie was ot the opinion that penitents ought lobe s. eluded m cells, living after the manner ot the Carthusian ti onks but be eirj. lo^ed in \arirus kit ds of labor. He wculd join to « at h cell a smull garden, gi\i-'g an opportunity to the penitents ■o take air and cultivate the ground. Mabillon was born in 1632 and vied in 1 107.