PRISON REFORM.

White Ribbon, Volume 1, Issue 5, 1 November 1895, Page 1

PRISON REFORM.

The skill of a physician is shadowed forth by his success in dealing with apparently hopeless cast*s; a mother’s love and tact are measured by her treatment of the troublesome and refractory members of her flock ; and is not the wisdom and ability of a nation mirrored in the faces of the individuals who at some time have broken the laws of the land ? What, then, are we to think of the sagacity of a people who, when one of their number lapses from the path of rectitude, immures him within four hare wall, subjects him to hardening and still further demoralising influences, and at the end of the term of imprisonment lets him loose upon society, in nine cases out of ten more malignantly diseased and a greater menace to others than before his incarceration ’t Is not the '• time rip*., a rotten-ripe, for change ?’* Are we to go on making criminals by the score, or are we, when traces of moral disease appear, to set ourselves to eradicate, as far as possible, the evil tendency, and prevent the spread of w'rong ' Surely the latter would betoken the mentally and morally sane nation.

In England Mr Fletcher, late editor of the Da\ly ChronuU has done noble service rn calling at tention to the grievous wrong inflicted on thin and future generations by th< injudicious treatment of the criminal. Mainly through this instrum* ntality, as our readers are probably aware, a commission w is appointed to impure into and consider the matte? Referring to this appointment, and to the report subsequently drawn up, Lady Henry Somerset says:— “We may then hope that the indeterminate sentence, the special treatment of drunkard*;, the separation of young from old offenders, may Income cardinal doctrines in prison management in England, together with many minor improvements, such as the introduction of libraries, the permission to sec and wriie to friends at shorter intervals, more reasonable forms of exercise than ‘grinding the air’ by means of the treadmill, a better dietary, and in general, a change from the concept of the prisoner as one who must fas pun ished. to the more reasonable view that he is one who must he, if possible, reformed.’ Referring to the good work in America, Lady Henry tells us that - “ The new thought in Prison Reform h,?s lieen l>est carried out in the Shcrhourne Reformatory Prison for Women, near I tost on, Massachusetts. Mrs Johnson, the warder, and one of the origina tors of the scheme, gave me the opportunity to study her methods at the prison, and in her company. The watchword of the reformatory is, ‘Temperance, Truth, Trust.” The women work on the farm and in the garden. Mrs Johnson thinks their association with domestic animals has l>een of great advantage. Each division (if the prison has a lamb of its own, which wears the ribbon of that division, and they have a day set apart in spring for naming the lamhft. They have a handsome schoolroom, fitted up as well as any in the country, and an extensive lending library,

managed on the same lines as the best libraries outside the prison. They wear large pockets, so that they can carry a book with them, and at all odd times, while they are v.aitingfor meals, before chapel, or during the intervals of work, they take out their books and read, instead of enduring grim and enforced silence, or being subjected to idle an 1 harmful gossiping. They have club meetings and temperance meetings. There are great workrooms, where the women are busy with sewing machines, driven lay steam. “ The form of government consists in gradual promotion according to conduct. They start the week with ten credit marks. Each grade has its own dining-room, the furnishing and food being graded according to the conduct. W hen a prisoner wears a blue shawl with white stripe, she has reached the highest grade; and among the 315 women, by far the larger number wore the shawl when I was there. The central thought is, that every human being is redeemable. I need not say this is a Christian prison, for every ingenious device in the building and management is the outcome of the most tender and thoughtful care, wisdom, and purpose, on the part of those who believe that every prisoner may be a ‘‘prisoner of hope.”