The basis of the family not necessarily a blood tie—Adoption—The head and the centre of the family—The feeling of joint responsibility—The black sheep—Companionship and sympathy necessities in life—Reform only possible when these are found—“Conversion” only temporary in default of force of new interests—The one way in which reform is made permanent.
The basis of the family not necessarily a blood tie—Adoption—The head and the centre of the family—The feeling of joint responsibility—The black sheep—Companionship and sympathy necessities in life—Reform only possible when these are found—“Conversion” only temporary in default of force of new interests—The one way in which reform is made permanent.
Onegreat mistake made by those who consider social problems is that they either regard man apart from his surroundings or as one of a mass, instead of as a member of a family or group. Family life is the common form of social life, and whatever its defects, it is the form that is likely to persist without very great modification. The family is based on marriage, and the parties married are not one in blood, though the children of the marriage are. The family tie, therefore, is not solely a blood tie. The members are brought up in a sense of mutual obligation and in the knowledge of their interdependence.
Occasionally adoption is a means of entering a family. When a person is adopted early in life, it is difficult to perceive any difference in the tie that binds him and the other members of the family. There is another and a temporary adoption which is much more frequent than is generally imagined, and the existence of which prevents a great many lads and more girls from becoming destitute and from drifting intoevil courses. In Glasgow there are many young persons who, having no relatives of their own with whom they can live, or the relatives being unwilling to take them in, obtain lodgings and help from others. In the case of the girls, they pay a portion of their earnings to the common treasury and give their services in aid of the work of the household, being treated in all essential respects as members of the family. Many of them are not earning a wage sufficient to enable them to pay for lodgings at the ordinary rate; and it is this arrangement that explains why so many who are in receipt of small wages are able to live respectably, and do so. Attempts have been made to provide hostels for such wage-earners, on this very ground that their income is insufficient to enable them to hire a room with attendance; and the hostels are frankly admitted to require charitable aid for their upkeep, though they are in their management institutional; that is to say, they aim at economy by the subdivision of labour. It never seems to have occurred to those who appeal for funds to establish such places that the girls in the majority of cases have solved the problem for themselves, by what I have called, and what practically is, a kind of adoption; and that their solution is the correct one—that the minority who have failed to obtain adoption can be better helped by securing it for them, if necessary by subsidy, than by bringing them together in an institution.
A good many jokes have been made as to who is the head of a household—the man or the wife; and the question is occasionally a subject of dispute; but in the family authority tends to adjust itself. It can only exist when there is mutual toleration and respect. Each member may be acutely conscious of the shortcomings of the other and may discussthem freely, but they all tend to unite against outside criticism, and if they are aware of each other’s demerits, they are equally sharp to recognise qualities which help to their advancement. So that while one member may be the head of the family, another may be the centre of the family. It is not always either the father or the mother that exercises most influence in the family council. These matters are determined by circumstances, and when there is discord and disunion it is almost invariably due to a disregard of natural aptitudes and tendencies in the children, and to an insistence on parental rights in the narrow sense.
The enforcement of mutual responsibility implies the recognition of mutual power. The community in which we live is mainly made up of families. Yet men are considered as individuals, legislated for, and supervised as though this were not the case; and the authorities, instead of working through the family on the individual, contrive to raise the family feeling against them. The State is not an aggregation of men, but an aggregation of families; and when men are considered in the mass they are considered without relation to their usual surroundings. It has been pointed out that the crowd takes on characters different from the individuals composing it, but it is quite wrong to imagine that men have ordinarily to be regarded as units in a crowd. Attempts are made to supervise men in masses; that is what takes place in institutions. Individuals are supervised in certain circumstances outside, but they are best supervised in conjunction and in co-operation with the members of the family of which for a time they form a part.
If every family has not its black sheep, in most cases it has some one of its members whose capacity is not equal to that of the others. In some of the casesthe direction in which the weakness is shown is one that leads to breaches of the law. There are many children in every city who are a great trial to their parents, and there are parents who sorely try the patience and resources of their children. There are families who spend care and effort to prevent one of their members from becoming worse than he is and in endeavouring to lead him into better courses; but the community does nothing to help them in their efforts until they drop their burden or are compelled to relinquish it, when the authorities promptly proceed to apply official methods of treatment. We have reached the point where it actually pays the family financially to disclaim responsibility, for the State will do all (even though it does it badly) or will do nothing. It would be cheaper in every sense to help those who are trying to bear their responsibility—who are willing, though their circumstances make them unable—than to do as we have done; and acting on the ignorant assumption of our own knowledge, wait until evil has developed so far as to be unbearable and then put the evil-doer through our machinery.
Unless the offender is brought into sympathetic contact with someone in the community, who will enable him to resist temptation and encourage him in welldoing, he never does reform. There are people who attribute the change in their conduct to a conversion, sudden or otherwise, towards religion. The more sudden the change in their mental outlook the greater danger they are in; for the severing of an evil connection, though a necessary step, is not all that is required. In a community such as ours a man cannot stand alone. He cannot forsake his company and his accustomed pursuits and become a hermit, living the life of an early Christian sent into the wilderness.He has to remain in the world and live out his life there. He must not only be converted from his former courses, but turned to better courses. He cannot get on without company. He cannot even earn his living alone; and the great advantage the convert has in our place and time is the assurance that he will be supported by others of like mind with him. They will find work for him and fellowship, and they fill his time very full; but only in so far as good comradeship is established between him and others is he likely to remain steadfast. Comradeship deeper than the sharing of a common theological dogma and a common emotionalism is the only security for his reformation.
To the man whose life has been passed in sordid surroundings, whose work has been monotonous and laborious, and whose pleasures have been gross, the more emotional the form in which the religious appeal is presented the greater its chance of success. He becomes filled with the spirit—a different kind of spirit from that which has hitherto influenced his actions—but the result is an excitement and an exaltation as pronounced as any he felt in the days of his iniquity. No one can listen to the convert at the street corner without being struck by the fact that while he is detailing and perhaps magnifying the nuisance he was before his regeneration, he is as much excited and makes as much noise as he did in those days. In some cases his public behaviour makes little difference to his neighbours, for he is no quieter than he was; though, instead of sending them to hell as he did in his wrath, he now tells them that they are going there. Of course there is a world of difference both to them and to him as a result of the change in his outlook. His conduct is improved, if his manner is not; but every period of exaltation is liable to befollowed by one of depression, and this is the danger to which his emotionalism exposes him.
The best way to prevent a man from falling back into his old habits is to keep him too busy in the formation of new ones to have any time to turn his attention to the past. We hear it commonly said that the way to hell is paved with good intentions, but just as truly the way to heaven may be paved with bad. If men are distracted from doing the good they intend by something less worthy, they are as often prevented from doing the evil they had concerted through something interposing and claiming their interest. Religion, then, may be a very potent influence in starting a man on a new course of conduct, and its spirit may inspire him to continue in the way of welldoing; but his perseverance will depend far more than he thinks on his adaptation to the company of the religious, and his interest in their work and their lives. Almost as little will the love of good keep him from the world, the flesh, and the devil, as the love of evil will make him a criminal.
For the most part men are not wicked because they prefer evil to good, but because they have come under the influence of evil associations which appeal to something in them. The man at the street corner who speaks about serving God is, at any rate, logical when he talks about having served the devil; but in those old bad days he did not consider the devil at all. He did what pleased him best, quite apart from any desire to have the approval of the Prince of Darkness. It is only after his conversion that he discovers that all his life he had been serving Satan without recognising him, and it is equally possible, surely, for men to serve God without recognising the fact. It is just as possible for a man to do good and to live well,without thinking of anything beyond his pleasure in doing so, as to live wickedly from the same reason. In both cases the fellowship of others has a great deal to do with the matter.
There is only one method by which a prisoner is reformed, and that is through the sympathetic guidance and assistance of some person or persons between whom and him there is a common interest. An employer engages an ex-prisoner and shows that he really desires him to do well. He must not patronise him, but he has to impress in some way the person he would help with the idea that he believes in him. He has to revive in him a feeling of self-respect. How is this done? There is no convenient formula. The man whose manner attracts one may repel others. Religion, which most powerfully influences some, shows no power to attract many; and the man who will be deaf to one form of appeal may respond to another. It is simply foolish to assume that because our attempts to correct a man have failed he is incorrigible. All we can say is that we have failed because we have not been dealing with him in a way suited to him. Sometimes it is an old acquaintance or a fellow-workman that impresses him and leads him to a new interest in life. Whoever moves him, and however it may be done, it is only a new interest that will expel the old. It never is what a man is taught, but what he learns, that moves him.
ALTERNATIVES TO IMPRISONMENT
What is required—The case of the minor offenders—The incidence of fines—The prevention of drunkenness—Clubs—Probation of offenders—Its partial application—Defects in its administration—The false position of the probation officer—Guardians required—Case of young girl—The plea of want of power—Old and destitute offenders—Prison and poorhouse.
What is required—The case of the minor offenders—The incidence of fines—The prevention of drunkenness—Clubs—Probation of offenders—Its partial application—Defects in its administration—The false position of the probation officer—Guardians required—Case of young girl—The plea of want of power—Old and destitute offenders—Prison and poorhouse.
Ifthe present methods of treatment mainly result in the liberation of men and women from prison in a condition that makes it difficult for them to do well—sometimes more difficult than it was before they were sent there—it follows (1) that no one should be sent to prison if there is any other means to protect the public from him; and further (2) that no one should be liberated from prison unless the community has some guarantee that it will not suffer from him. In short, what happens to the prisoner in prison is of secondary importance to the public. Of primary importance is, what is likely to happen to them when he comes out. The first consideration should be: How can you deal with people who have offended so as to avoid making them worse and to ensure that they will behave better? Unfortunately, one main concern of many is how they can make the culprit suffer. One of the effects of retributive punishment is to make those who undergo it less fit, physically or mentally, than they were before its infliction. Wemust make up our minds whether we really desire to correct the offender or not, and if we seek his correction we must be prepared to throw overboard theories and practices which obstruct that end, whether they are old or new.
An examination of the reports of the Prison Commissioners for Scotland will suggest to anyone that a good deal might be done to diminish the number of committals to prison. According to the last report published (1910), there were 46,466 receptions of prisoners under sentence. As some were in prison more than once during the year, the number of individuals represented is probably about 23,000, and of these 9775 were in for the first time. Their sentences ranged from under one day to two years. There were 39,036 sentences of a month or less, and of these 22,696 were seven days or less; 7949 of that number being of three days or less. These people have not much time to get accustomed to their quarters before they are liberated; and if there were the means, there is neither the time nor the opportunity to make any thorough enquiry into their dispositions and way of living, with a view to help them.
As for the nature of their offences, there were 14,644 committals for breach of peace, disorderly conduct, etc.; 12,274 for drunkenness; 1982 for obscene language, etc.; and nearly all these are offences inferring drunkenness. Where did they get the drink? Apparently it was not from the public-houses, for from the tables it does not appear that anyone was sent to prison for breach of certificate. If the source of supply could be discovered and cut off, or at any rate made to flow less freely, it seems obvious that there would be a much smaller prison population. But is there any good purpose served by sendingpeople to prison for a few days? It is true the streets are rid of them, but such as are habituals go out simply revived by the rest and keen as ever for drink. I say the habituals, for time and again these return with sentences of two, three, five, or seven days. As for the casual offender, it would be far better to let him off, when he cannot pay a fine, than to send him to prison, thereby causing him to lose his employment and bringing him to bad company. In 1909 over 40,000 were sent to prison in default of paying a fine. Time to pay fines benefits many, but there are those who are too poor to be helped by it. At present a fine is imposed as an alternative to imprisonment; and as the public is only assured of the culprit’s behaviour for so many days, positive gain, financially and otherwise, would result from placing him in bond outside a prison. At present, if the fine is not paid, the absurd condition of affairs is this: that a person fined in, say, twenty shillings or twenty days may disappear and not pay the fine in the time allowed him; three months after he may be found, arrested, and sent to prison for this failure to pay. The sentence of the court amounted to this: that if he paid twenty shillings he would be at liberty to do as he pleased, but if he failed to pay he would have his liberty restricted for twenty days at the public expense; they to be secure from misconduct on his part during that time. He has behaved for three times that period at no expense to the public; why, then, should their hospitality be forced on him? As long as people will behave outside prison there is no sense in sending them inside. Whether they are likely to behave can only be discovered after a more exhaustive and a different kind of enquiry than has hitherto been made in each case.
Minor offences form the great majority of ourcommittals, and drunkenness is an element in most of the cases. If a man does not get drink to excess he will not become drunk. Persons and premises are licensed for the convenience of the public, and it is not for the public convenience that anyone should be allowed to have a practically unlimited supply of liquor. One of the troubles of the man that takes drink is that he is not in a state to appreciate his own condition, and he is apt to imagine that he is much more sober than he is. No respectable publican wants to make men drunk; but he wants to make money out of his business, and beyond certain limits he cannot be more particular than his neighbours. It is sometimes very difficult to say when a man is drunk, but it is easy to tell when he is not sober, and he is not entitled to the benefit of any doubt that may exist. It ought to be the business of the vendor to refuse drink to a man who has evidently had as much as is good for him. He may make mistakes, but they will be on the right side if he has to pay for them.
The very desire to prevent men being supplied with drink to excess has resulted in making the law, with regard to the supply of drink to intoxicated persons, something very like a dead letter. I have known a man to be convicted for being drunk and incapable at a police court, and though it was shown that he left a public-house in that condition after having had several drinks there, when the publican was brought to the same court on a subsequent date, to answer a charge of breach of certificate in respect that he had supplied drink to a man who was drunk, the charge was found not proven. The fine for such a breach of certificate would not have been nearly so great as the cost of defending the charge; but a conviction would have resulted in the endorsement of the licence, andmight have caused its withdrawal. Now as the man depended on the licence for his livelihood, this was practically a sentence of death. In these cases the magistrates are exceedingly unwilling to convict and in consequence charges are seldom made.
If the penalty inflicted in the police court did not result in a larger penalty imposed by the licensing court, there would be less difficulty in dealing with the licence holders; and if drunkenness is to be prevented they must be dealt with. Of course a man may get drunk in a private house or in a club; making it more difficult for him to become intoxicated in a public-house would not prevent that; but even so, it would tend to keep the streets free from disorder; and if a man will take more drink than he can carry, it is alike better for his own health and for the public convenience that he should do it in private. There have been many complaints about clubs during recent years, and that some of them are vile places there can be no question. The evidence given in the court as to how these objectionable places have been conducted shows their character quite clearly, but in the worst cases the very fact that such evidence was in possession of the authorities is a grave reflection on their competence to suppress disorder. In some cases the clubs were little better than dens of thieves, to which half-intoxicated persons were lured to be robbed by people whose character was well known to the police. Raiding them avails little, but warning off those who would enter might avail much. Men in uniform placed at the doors would act as a sign to warn the unwary. The knave preys on the fool. Warn off his prey and he will starve.
If through a subsidence or otherwise there is a hole in a street into which a man might stumble and breakhis leg, the place is barricaded off and a watchman placed there to warn the careless. Nobody would think of leaving the trap open, even though a sufficient ambulance service were provided to carry off the injured. When a place that is known to be a trap for the foolish is discovered, on the same principle it might be profitable to warn those who would enter it, rather than to wait until they had suffered loss and then seek to seize and convict those who had robbed them. There are more ways of closing an ill-conducted club than by withdrawing its licence; but after all has been said, most of the drunkenness that disgraces our streets has not resulted from the consumption of drink either in private houses or in clubs, in spite of what the trade may say to the contrary. Indignation against clubs on the part of liquor-sellers is not due to zeal for temperance, but springs from jealousy of their own monopoly. They seem to think that men should not take drink unless they are permitted to make a profit in the process; and it is just this question of profit that lies at the root of any effective dealing with the matter.
Our attempts to punish the drunkards are often ludicrous. It might not be so ridiculous to try to get at those who make a profit off the drunkard. He makes a loss; we make a loss; someone has profited. We punish him; we punish ourselves; neither of us are profited at all. There is surely something wrong here. Those who are incapable of taking care of themselves, or who are disorderly in their conduct through drink, when taken into custody by the police, might quite profitably be permitted to go home when they are sober, unless their conduct is becoming a habit; in which case some other method of dealing with them requires to be considered. The disgraceof arrest will appeal as effectively to any person with a sense of shame as proceedings before a magistrate would do. When a fine—the cost of the trouble he has caused—has been inflicted on such an offender, time for payment should always be allowed. A man will never earn money in prison to pay the costs of his prosecution, but if allowed to go about his business he may do so. Even if he can only earn his living without paying a fine, behaving himself the while, he has done more than it would have been possible for him to do in prison.
There has been a strong tendency of late years to deal with persons coming before the courts for the first time, even when the charge is regarded as a serious one, in some other way than by sending them to prison. They are put on probation for a period, and if nothing is known against them for that time they are discharged. Probation rightly managed would solve the problem of their treatment in the great majority of cases. Imperfect as the method employed at present is, many have been benefited because under it they have escaped imprisonment. It is most commonly adopted in the case of those who have committed offences against property; yet if the principle on which it can be justified—the principle of substituting correction for punishment—were intelligently recognised, it would be applied in all cases, no matter what the offence; provided the offender was regarded as a suitable subject on consideration of his history and character. At present the offence more than the offender determines the sentence; and there is a greater likelihood of a person who has committed a petty offence being put on probation, than there would be if in the eye of the law the offence he had committed were regarded more seriously.
The process is popularly described as giving the offender another chance. It is a loose expression, which may mean anything. It sometimes does mean giving him another chance to offend, and that is all. It is intended to give him another chance to behave; and this assumes that he has already had the chance; an assumption that is not always warranted if the facts were considered. Clearly it is of no advantage to the public that an offender should have a chance of again committing a breach of the law; and if he is to be liberated from custody, it would be a reasonable proceeding to see that he is placed under such conditions as would make it easier for him to obey than to break the law. Putting him on probation ought not to mean returning him to the conditions under which he failed to resist temptation. Rather should it imply placing him under less unfavourable conditions of life. What is actually done amounts to this, that the offender, instead of being sentenced, on conviction, to imprisonment, is ordered to appear in court after so many months, in order that his case may be disposed of; and is allowed to be at liberty provided he consents to live under certain conditions prescribed by the court, his conduct to be reported on by a probation officer, whose duty it is to give him such counsel and aid as is possible without expense to the rates.
The probation officer may be a police official; not necessarily a police officer, but under the control of the police. Now if there is one thing that is more clear than another in Glasgow and other urban areas in the West of Scotland, it is that the poorer classes are suspicious of the police and the machinery of the law that masquerades in the name of justice—for it is a burlesque of justice to examine only one side of acase; to decide how far the individual is to blame for offending against the laws of the community, without making any enquiry into the question how far the community is to blame for inducing the offence; and this is felt, if it is not clearly expressed, by all who are liable to transgress. A tacit conspiracy against the officers of the law is not only apparent in the case of the poorer classes, but in the case of all classes, when they are brought into conflict with it. The old Roman father who sacrificed his son to the laws, and whom we were asked to admire for his heroism when we were at school, is not a common phenomenon. He has left few descendants, which is probably a good thing. Now the father strives to shield his son; the sister puts the best face on her brother’s conduct; and the neighbours would far rather condone the fault of the culprit than expose his misdeeds. They feel that our methods are wrong whenever they come intimately in contact with them, and they obey their instincts and feelings; that is all. They can see that it is wrong, that it is foolish, to interfere with a man to make him worse, no matter under what pretence, when they know the man; although they will readily admit that you must punish the offender whom they do not know. So the probation officer may be misled into a wrong report regarding the person under his charge when that person behaves pretty much the same as he did before he was first arrested, the conditions under which he is living not having undergone any material change. The probation officer has his hands full, having quite a number of people to visit and report upon daily. These people being widely separated from one another geographically, he is merely discharging the duties of an inspector; and he cannot give individuals the attentiontheir cases may require in order to their improvement.
Before a prisoner is discharged from the criminal lunatic department, the authorities see that an approved guardian is provided for him outside. The conditions on which he is allowed to be free are distinctly laid down, and the guardian is given the same authority over him outside as the attendants had when he was inside. If he breaks through any of the conditions imposed on him the guardian may report his misconduct, when he is liable to be brought back within the walls of the department. The same thing may happen if complaints of his behaviour are made by neighbours or associates. He has to be visited at intervals by some citizen of known character and integrity, whose duty it is to certify that the patient is fit to be free; and at unexpected times a medical officer from the department may call and see him, his guardian, and others, in order that there may be a reasonable security for the public.
It has been said that there is too much fuss made over these cases, but I doubt it. The public security is the first consideration, and there has seldom been any cause given for complaint on the part of the prisoner so liberated. He is not set free and left to return to the associations to which he has reacted badly in the past. He is not left to struggle for existence and probably to fall under the struggle. He is placed under conditions which make it easier for him to do well than to do ill; and if he will not conform, his rebellion is checked at the beginning.
It is not the duty of his guardians and visitors merely to look for evidences of his evil tendency. They have to help him to do well. These guardians are usually people who, for some reason, have a friendlyinterest in the man whose care they undertake. They are not paid for their work—though they should be, if necessary, as it costs less to keep a man outside than to keep him inside a lunatic asylum, and it is better to pay people who have a personal interest in the subject of their care than to pay those who have only an official interest in the persons with whom they deal.
Contrast this state of affairs with probation as it is worked. In the one case the guardian is carefully selected and is not appointed to act, however willing he may be, if there is not ground for assuming that he is also able. In the other case it is assumed that the guardians who have failed to exercise supervision over the offender will be better able to do so when the culprit has appeared before a magistrate. In both cases there are official visits to the prisoner discharged on licence, and in the case of the offender on probation these visits are more frequent.
In so far as the officer can do so, he tries to help the wrongdoer; but if he has many under his charge the best will in the world cannot enable him to do more than a little for each. This little is as much as is required in many cases; and, imperfect as it is, the practice of the probation system has been justified by a certain amount of success. Where it has failed has been in those cases where the conditions laid down have been of such a character that the offender is morally unable to conform to them. I do not suggest that the conditions were in themselves unreasonable, or that the standard of behaviour demanded has been too high judged by the needs of the community, but only that the demand made on the offender was greater than his circumstances permitted him to meet.
X 32 was a girl under fifteen years of age, ratherbig for her years, judged by the standard of the district in which she was brought up. She was employed as a message-girl and stole money from her employers. In the aggregate she appropriated a considerable sum before she was found out. She was put on probation, broke her bond, and was sent to a reformatory. Two questions arose from her conduct. (1) Why did she steal? and (2) Why did she break her bond? As to the first question, the answer was quite apparent. She wanted little things which she could not get and she took the money to get them. Her peculations were not observed and they increased. Indeed, on one occasion she spent such a large sum of money in treating a party of school friends, that it is difficult to understand why the tradesman who executed her order did so at all, seeing what she was. It is one of the commonest things for young people to help themselves to things that are not their own. It is rarely considered thieving except they take money, or goods to sell; but dishonest appropriation of property is so common, not as a continued practice, but as an incident in the lives of young people, that I question if one of those who read this has not at some time or another in his or her life been guilty of it. This is too frequently forgotten, and if it were remembered as it ought to be children would be treated more wisely than hitherto has been done.
The girl in question was the eldest daughter of respectable working people. Her conduct shocked them; but they were unfit to direct her, for during the day her father was out working, and her mother had as much as she could do to attend to her household and to care for her younger children. The girl was sent back on probation to this home; a respectable home, but a home where, in the nature of things,she could not receive the care and guidance she required, having developed this propensity; and she broke her bond simply because she was placed under conditions where there was no reasonable probability of her keeping it. Accordingly she was sent to a reformatory, at a cost to the community much greater than would have been incurred had she been boarded out with the consent of her parents under the care of some respectable person in the country, where she could have been freed from the associations that had proved unsuitable to her.
Money may be had, through channels provided by Parliament, for placing people in institutions, reformatory and otherwise; while the statutes do not provide for expenditure in the way suggested. Accordingly the reason assigned for not doing things which obviously might be done with profit is, that there are no powers, enabling them to act in the way suggested, in the hands of the officials. This, if it is an excuse for inaction, is not a valid one everywhere. When the parents of a child are willing to surrender their rights as guardians on cause being shown, and to allow the young person who has offended to be placed under control of some suitable person, all the power required is in the hands of the judge.
It is recognised that parents, however respectable, may not be able to give their children such attention as they may require should they contract certain diseases; and there is seldom any difficulty in inducing them to have their ailing child removed to an infirmary for treatment. On the contrary, there are more who seek such treatment for their children than can be accommodated. For want of a better term, what we may call a moral ailment in a young person may as readily defy the resources of the parents as anyphysical ailment could do; and there are many parents who recognise the fact and would welcome assistance; but instead of helping them we are content to wait until the offender gets worse, and then to free the parent from all sense of responsibility and to make his position more painful than it need be by placing the culprit in one of our institutions. We may hope our action will do good, but the hope is not founded on experience.
There is no law that hinders the community from assisting the needy among its numbers, although there may be no provision of funds specifically for this purpose. Whatever may be the case elsewhere, in Glasgow want of money is not the reason why things are not done. We have a large fund called the Common Good of the Corporation. Of late years it has been swollen by profits on the city’s tramways to such an extent that a bonus, under the name of a reduction of rates, amounting to some £40,000 in one year, has been divided among the ratepayers. From this same fund banquets are provided; receptions are paid for; medals are supplied to magistrates; and all sorts of expenditure are defrayed for which there is no authority to rate. A small sum relatively is granted in aid of scientific and charitable organisations, and about £500 is contributed to assist discharged prisoners. If money can be had to defray the cost of food, drinks, and cigars, for those who are quite able to pay for them themselves, and that without any special Act of Parliament, surely it could also be had to prevent offenders becoming hardened in their offences, and to assist those who are willing to undertake the work of guiding and training them in right ways of living. Doubtless the money will be found when it is realised that it is at least as important to the city that people should be kept out of prison and helped to do well, as it is thatthe eminent and notable among the citizens should occasionally be treated from the corporation funds.
How many could be assisted in this manner it is impossible to say, but so far as can be judged a large proportion of those dealt with might be so assisted at comparatively little cost. Whether the number be large or small, however, it should be clearly understood that, the money being there, if they are not helped, it is not for want of power nor for want of means, but for some other reason. There are many things which the law does not enjoin on the corporation; but there are many others that are worthy which it does not prohibit those who are willing from doing; and if our officials are to be encouraged to believe that they must do nothing to help those who need assistance unless they get an Act of Parliament authorising them to do it, we need not wonder if our rate of progress is slow. The safe rule is to do the thing that needs doing, so long as there is not a positive injunction against doing it. This will cause trouble, no doubt, to the person who follows such a course of action; but I do not believe that any public official who acts on this principle will fail to receive public support and encouragement so long as he seeks to help people to help themselves, whatever view those in authority may take of his actions.
We are too much bound by precedent. Appropriate action is sometimes checked by the consideration that the thing proposed has never been done before. Of course that is no reason for not doing it now; but it takes the place of a reason in far too many cases.
More interest is taken in proposals for dealing with the habitual offender than in any others, although nobody is a habitual to begin with. He is supposedto be the dangerous person. He is a professional plunderer; the villain of the piece. But habitual offenders are not all great criminals. There are those who live by stealing, having become more or less expert at the business; but there are many offenders who, having become careless and drunken, or who, being physically or mentally a little below the ordinary standard of their class, are incapable of keeping a job even if they got it. They are more a nuisance than a danger to their fellow-citizens. This army of destitute persons should be dealt with by the destitution authorities. Taken singly they are not difficult to control and direct, and it would be cheaper and more profitable to have them planted out in the country than to allow them to herd together in the cities, to be successful neither in honest nor dishonest work, and serving as tools and touts for the more skilful rogues.
The most helpless among them are the aged and infirm, some of whom have only become submerged late in life, and all of whom are quite unable to extricate themselves from the morass into which they have fallen. Now they are in the prison; now in the poorhouse. When they can avoid either of these institutions they live in lodging-houses or on the streets, where their misery is a reproach to our civilisation. They are not interesting; they are only disgusting; and it has been proposed to shut them up in the poorhouse, because they go in and out too frequently.
Yet something might be learned from their point of view. They are sent to prison because they commit petty offences. They are quite unfit to conform to the rules of that institution and are not improved by residence there. For a few days they are kept off the streets, but nobody pretends that this could notbe done more effectively and at less cost. If they prefer the prison to the poorhouse, as is sometimes alleged, they do not prefer the prison to the miserable and haphazard existence they drag out when free; and as a matter of fact, when the weather becomes suddenly severe or their ailments become more insistent, it is the parish, not the police, to which they apply. They hope to be sent to a hospital. When they recover sufficiently they are out again. May this not afford a presumption that there is something wrong with the poorhouse? Is it reasonable to assume that, having experienced all the bitterness and hardship due to their poverty and destitution—that knowing they will be subjected to hunger, rough usage, and exposure—they prefer to suffer these rather than trust to the tender mercy officially meted out to them, and that they do this through sheer cussedness? For my part, I do not believe that they are such fools. If they prefer to forage for themselves, knowing the difficulty of doing so, rather than live in the poorhouse, it is because, after balancing the advantage and disadvantage, they have found that anything is better for them than life in that glorious institution. To anyone who has lived there, there is no ground for surprise that they should adopt this conclusion.
In the prison a man may have too much privacy. In the poorhouse there is none at all. The inmates having nothing in common but their misfortune, poverty, and destitution, are housed together and live a barrack life. Some attempt is made to classify them, as though you could sort out people, in ignorance of their temperaments and tastes, by their record as disclosed to an inspector. In our own experience people sort out themselves. In any church or club you get people of the same age and of similar goodcharacter. They can all be civil to one another if they meet occasionally, but set any half-dozen of them to live together with no relief from each other’s company, and there will be rebellion inside a week.
In the poorhouse the inmates have to suffer one another during the whole time of their stay. Some of them rebel and leave the place, even though they know that they will be more uncomfortable outside. They at least have a change of discomfort. Surely the money spent in chasing them and in keeping them would yield a better return if they were boarded out in comfortable surroundings, where during the few remaining years of their pilgrimage they might get fresh air and some space to move about in. Their very feebleness makes their custody less difficult, and it is no profit to them or to us to make it more arduous than it need be. If it be objected that this would be treating them better than the “deserving poor,” that is only to remind us of the shameful way in which we have neglected those to whom we give that name. The “deserving poor” are the uncomplaining poor; and so long as they do not complain their deserts are likely to be disregarded, even when quoted as a reproach to those whose behaviour has attracted our censure.
THE BETTER WAY
The offender who has become reckless—If not killed they must be kept—The failure of the institution—Boarding out—At present they are boarded out on liberation, but without supervision—Guardians may be found when they are sought for—The result of boarding out children—The insane boarded out—Unconditional liberation has failed—Conditional liberation with suitable provision has not been tried—No system of dealing with men, but only a method—No necessity for the formation of the habitual offender—The one principle in penology.
The offender who has become reckless—If not killed they must be kept—The failure of the institution—Boarding out—At present they are boarded out on liberation, but without supervision—Guardians may be found when they are sought for—The result of boarding out children—The insane boarded out—Unconditional liberation has failed—Conditional liberation with suitable provision has not been tried—No system of dealing with men, but only a method—No necessity for the formation of the habitual offender—The one principle in penology.
Ifour courts of first instance were places where more exhaustive enquiries took place and greater consideration were given to the needs of the cases coming before them; if the aged and destitute were cared for and prevented from offending; if minor offenders were either liberated on their own promise of good behaviour or that of their friends; if people were put on probation under conditions that gave them a favourable chance of conforming to the laws; there would still be a number to whom such treatment could not be applied.
There are some people who are not fit to be at liberty. They are so reckless of their own interests and the interests of others that, when uncontrolled, they become a danger. Some of them are insane, and the lunacy authority should attend to them. Others, through indulging their temper, are in the way of becoming insane; but their mental unsoundnessis not so marked as to cause the lunacy specialists to certify them. That is no reason why it should not be recognised. At present they annoy those around them with more or less impunity until they attain to the ideal standard of insanity, in the process of their graduation paying visits to the prison. There is no reason why they should not be dealt with from the beginning. There is only precedent taking the place of reason.
They are unfit to be at liberty without supervision, because they are not capable of self-control; but many of them could be trained in the habit. At present they are allowed to run wild for a time and then severely put down. Their life alternates between periods of riot and periods of repression, and their natural unsteadiness is intensified. If they knew that the period of riot had definitely ceased—that they were not again to be allowed to do what they liked if it implied harm to others—they would set about to control the temper that is in danger of finally controlling them.
They boast of being able to stand our punishments, and even invite them; they might as easily be trained to qualify for our rewards had we any to offer. They may be brutal and sometimes are, though brutality is no longer a common characteristic of prisoners in prison; but it does not follow that, bad as some of them may appear, they are incorrigible. Their conduct and reputation make it difficult to obtain guardianship for them. What can be done with them? If they are liberated at any time they are a menace to the safety and the comfort of the citizens. It is because some writers have recognised this that they suggest the lethal chamber as a suitable place for them. It is a bold thing to propose the wholesale killing of otherpeople except in name of war, and if there were any danger of the proposal being adopted it is not at all likely that it would be made. It is designed to shock us, and it fails to do so because we think we know that it will not bear discussion. As a matter of fact, at present we destroy the lives of these people in another way. Instead of curing them of their evil propensities we twist them still further, and kill any sense of public spirit in them as effectively in the process as we could do if we suffocated them. If they were put in the lethal chamber that would be an end to them. As it is, we have to set apart respectable citizens, not to make them better, but simply to watch them marking time before engaging in another period of disturbance.
If they are not killed they must be kept. We have got past the killing stage. It is time we adopted a more rational way of keeping them. Either they have to get out some day, or they have to be imprisoned till their death. In the latter case we need not trouble about them beyond seeing that they are not harshly treated, and that those over them do not develop in some degree the qualities condemned in the prisoner; but if they have to come out again it behooves us to see that they are not set free in a condition that makes them less able to conform to our laws than they were when we took them in hand. Otherwise all we have gained by their incarceration is the privilege of keeping them at our expense.
As all institutions have this in common, that the longer a man lives in them the less he is fitted to live outside, it follows that the shorter time a prisoner is cut off from the ordinary life in the community the less chance there is of his developing habits which will be useless to him on his return. The system ofshutting people up for longer or shorter periods, and then turning them loose without supervision of a helpful kind and without provision for their living a decent life outside, is quite indefensible and has utterly failed in practice.
A prison ought merely to be a place of detention, in which offenders are placed till some proper provision is made for their supervision and means of livelihood in the community. If this were recognised existing institutions would be transformed. Those who refuse by their actions to obey the law of the community, and to live therein without danger to their neighbours, would as at present be put in prison; but they would not be let out except on promise to remain on probation under the supervision of some person or persons until they had satisfied, not an institution official, but the public opinion of the district in which they were placed, that the restrictions put on their liberty could safely be withdrawn. The prison in which they would be placed would not be a reformatory institution where all sorts of futile experiments might be made, but simply a place of detention in which they would be required each to attend on himself until he made up his mind to accept the greater degree of liberty implied in life outside. The door of his cell would be opened to let him out when he reached this conclusion; but it would not be opened to let him out, as at present, to play a game of hare and hounds with the police. Alike in the case of the young offender and the old, the only safety for the citizens and the only chance of reformation for the culprit lie in his being boarded out under proper care and guardianship in the community. The proper guardian for one person would not be proper for another. At present the same set of guardians—theprison officials—look after all kinds of people who have offended.
The first objection which proposals such as these meet is that it cannot be done. There are a great many people who use this expression when their meaning really is that they cannot do it. There is a difference. Not only can offenders be boarded out, but they are and always have been boarded out. Whenever a man leaves prison he has to board himself out. I do not propose to let loose on the community any more offenders than are let loose at present. Indeed, I do not propose to let any of them loose at all, but simply to do for them, in their own interest and that of their neighbours, what they are doing for themselves to the great loss of us all. When any one of them does reform at present it is only by one way; either he has the necessary supervision from the friends religion has brought him, or an employer has taken an interest in him, or a fellow-workman has given him help, or some friendly hand has guided him. In no case do we give the guardian any control over him; in no case do we pay the guardian for time and work spent. I propose that we should give the power and the pay which are at present given to official persons in prison to unofficial persons outside prisons; in the reasonable hope that the money would be better expended, and in the full assurance that the results would not be worse.
Where are the guardians to be found? They are to be found in all parts of the country when search is made for them. The thing cannot be done wholesale. I do not suggest that the prisons should be emptied in a day. I merely indicate a mark to be aimed at and plead for an effective interference in place of the present ineffective interference. Putting it anotherway, are there no cases in which this procedure could be adopted? There are many; there are no cases in which it could not be adopted if you had the guardians looked out, but that takes time. It would be foolish, even if it were possible, to wait until you could treat every offender before treating any. It would be wise to begin and treat as many as possible in this way at once. It is not a question of finding so many thousand men to look after so many thousand; it is merely the question of finding one man to guide and supervise another man, the people in the district being the critics and the judges of his success.
At one time, in this part of Scotland, the children of paupers and of criminals, and the orphans of the poor, were brought up in numbers in the poorhouse. They acquired characters in common that marked them off from children outside. When they grew out of childhood, and were turned out in the world to work and to live, many of them gravitated back to the institution or to the prison. It occurred to someone that what these children required was proper parents; and one was boarded out with a family here, and another with a family there, at less cost to the parish than had been incurred in keeping them in the poorhouse. Thousands of children during the last generation have been boarded out in this fashion to their great advantage in every respect; and their after-conduct has been as good—they have been as decent and law-abiding citizens—as the children of any other class in the community. This moral and social gain has been accomplished at less financial cost than that incurred by bringing them up in institutions. It was said that the institution child had been handicapped because of the stigma of pauperism, but the boarded-out child is equally a pauper in respect that he is supported by the rates.The fact is that the stigma from which the poorhouse child suffered was not the stigma of pauperism, but the stigma of institutionalism.
When the public conscience was stirred regarding the treatment of the insane, great buildings were erected and lavish provision was made for the lunatic. To these places thousands were sent for treatment. By and by it became manifest that in many cases their latter condition was worse than their first. They were better housed, better fed, better clothed, and better cared for; they were protected from the cruelty of the wicked and the neglect of the thoughtless; but they acquired evil habits from each other, and they infected some of their attendants with their vices. Here and there suitable guardians were found for one and another of those whose insanity was not of such a kind as to make it necessary in the public interest that they should be confined to an institution; and now, in Scotland, between five and six thousand are boarded out. That in some cases mistakes are made no one denies; but the cases are few, and on the balance there has been an enormous advantage to everyone concerned.
It has become apparent that not only the inmates of institutions acquire peculiarities which mark them off from persons living outside, but the officials who live in these places also tend to develop eccentricities, and there are proposals made with the object of preventing them from living in; the idea being that the more they are brought in contact with life outside the less they are likely to become narrowed in their views and their habits, and the better they will be able to do their work in such a way as would commend itself to the public whom they serve.
If people can be had who are willing for a considerationto take charge of lunatics, and to fulfil their charge to the satisfaction of the public, it is not unreasonable to suppose that on suitable terms guardians could be found for persons who have offended against the laws, and who cannot be expected to refrain from offending if returned to the surroundings which have contributed to their wrongdoing. The criminal may be presumed to have a greater sense of responsibility than the insane person, and to be more able to take a rational view of his position. In any case, it should never be forgotten that so far as the public is concerned there are only two ways of it; unless, indeed, we are prepared to kill the criminals or to immure them for life. They must either be liberated, as at present, without provision being made for their welldoing, and without guarantees being taken for their good behaviour, even if opportunities were provided; or they must be liberated on condition that they remain under some form of supervision and guardianship.
Unconditional liberation has ended in disaster to all concerned. Conditional liberation can only be expected to produce good results if the conditions are reasonable. They must confer in every case the maximum amount of liberty consistent with the security of the public; and the final judges must be the public themselves. The offender should work out his own salvation, and show that he deserves to have all restrictions removed before they are removed. If he is merely required to do so under highly artificial conditions within the walls of an institution, he will soon learn how to get round the officials there. His conduct in the institution can afford no means for judging what his behaviour will be outside under entirely different conditions. Inside he has no choice but to obey. Outside he has to think and act forhimself, and has opportunities of acquiring new interests and of learning habits which are likely to persist because they are those of his fellow-citizens who are free.
All sorts of systems have had their trial in dealing with the offender. It has always been recognised that it was necessary to remove him from the place where he had offended. He has been transported to other lands, there to begin a new life; but the conditions under which the operation was carried out were appalling. He has been placed in association with other offenders, and left, with very little supervision, to become worse or make others worse. He has been placed in solitary confinement; cut off from company of any sort; with the result of wrecking his mind as well as his body. At present he is separated from his fellows, but he has no opportunity to come in contact with healthy social life. One system has broken down after another. All systems have failed to deal with him satisfactorily.
There can be no system, but only a method; and that, the method adopted by the physician in dealing with his patient. When he has satisfied himself that the man who comes to him for advice is suffering from a certain disease, he enquires into the past history, the habits and pursuits, and the social condition of the patient; and on the information gained considers his treatment. The course of conduct prescribed for one person may be quite unsuitable for another, although both suffer from the same complaint; and the wise physician knows that he cannot leave out of account the opinion of the patient himself as to what should be done. It is just so with the offender. In many cases he is best able to tell what should be done for him; and provided it is not something that would resultin harm to the community there is no reason why his opinion should not be considered, but every reason why it should. The expert may know a good deal about the offender, but it has been proved over and over again that he does not know how to reform him; for he has been given ample opportunity, and his prescriptions have ended in failure. The official person is apt to imagine that he and his methods should be above criticism. His office has been magnified for so long that he honestly believes it is necessary that it should be maintained in the interests of the public. No institution can be created which will not result in the formation of vested interests in its continuance; and yet every institution must be judged by its results, and not by the opinions of those who are set to manage it.
With the improvement in the social condition of the people; with an increase in the minimum standard of living; with the abolition, or even the mitigation, of destitution, the whole complexion of things would be altered. That changes in these directions will occur there is every reason to suppose, but meanwhile many fall by the way and many take the opportunity to grasp an advantage to the loss of their neighbours. Under any social condition offences may occur. Whatever laws we make there may always be law-breakers. A man may become possessed by jealousy or wrath and injure his neighbour, or from envy or greed may rob him, but he can only acquire the habit of doing so with our permission. If he is checked at the beginning and placed under control, he will not acquire that habit.
Our present methods have not prevented the growth of the habitual offender, and they have not been designed to help those who have gone wrong to reform.The great defect in all our systems is that they are not based on a recognition of social conditions as they exist. Most men can and do behave under supervision, and that supervision in many cases could be made as effective outside an institution as inside one. Men prefer a greater to a lesser degree of liberty. At present they have more than one choice. They may conform to our laws and go free; or they may break our laws in the knowledge that if they are caught, on payment of a penalty either in money or in time, they may resume their wrongdoing once more. The habitual offender continues to offend because he prefers to risk imprisonment and live in his own way rather than accept the humdrum, peaceful life of his law-abiding neighbour. When he finds that there is no question of pay in the matter, but that he is simply offered the choice of good behaviour outside of prison, or incarceration within a prison, he will begin to review his position.
There is only one principle in penology that is worth any consideration; it is to find out why a man does wrong, and make it not worth his while. There is nothing to be gained by assuming that individual peculiarities may be disregarded, and there is everything to be lost thereby. If we would make the best of him we should restrict the liberty of the offender as little as possible consistent with the well-being of the community, and enlarge it gradually as reason is shown for doing so. We cannot injure him without injuring ourselves, and we ought to set about to make the best rather than the worst of him.
THE END
INDEX