was, at the age of sixteen, a well-known thief. He had been repeatedly convicted; and he was then sent to Parkhurst. He behaved so ill that he was further punished at Pentonville for “three years’ continual bad conduct.” When in solitary confinement he always behaves decently; and he obtained some credit on that account at Pentonville, whence he was sent to Portsmouth. By good conduct for a little while longer he could get out; and he did get out at the end of five years—his sentence being for seven. This was on the 4th of September, 1857. Being desired to name some person of respectability who would be likely to employ him—such a precaution existing at that time, but being dispensed with now—he named his own father, who had been described in the description of the boy himself as having been eight times in prison. The family occupation was passing bad coin. In six weeks J. H. was apprehended for a fresh crime, for which he was sentenced to four years’ penal servitude. As usual, he behaved well while in solitary confinement; but, as soon as he was among comrades at Portsmouth again, he made such mischief—stirring up mutiny—that he was flogged, deprived of all advantages previously gained, and sent again to Pentonville. So he went on, between Pentonville and Portsmouth, till in February, 1861, he was actually provided with another ticket-of-leave, on the ground of good conduct!—the remission being even greater than the law allows. In six weeks he was again apprehended, for fresh crime, and was sentenced at the next assizes to ten years’ penal servitude. He arrived at the Wakefield prison with the ominous description—“Character bad: conduct in gaol very good.” We may conclude that, unless the system is looked to, J. H. will win a good many more tickets-of-leave, commit a good many more robberies, cost us his weight in money, and keep society in hot water till the end of his natural life, or till he dies by the halter. If such were the proper working of the ticket-of-leave system, society could not cry out too strongly against it, for it would be doing all that method could do towards the depravation of the convict and the destruction of the security of society.
In Dublin, meanwhile, there was a man who not only considered that the Act was made to be observed, but set all his faculties to work to administer its provisions in the soundest spirit and the completest manner. The name of Walter Crofton will be for ever remembered for this work. Captain Crofton (now Sir Walter) was till lately the Chief Director of Irish Prisons; and it was under his administration that the true method of working the system was recognised and established. The essential parts of his method are these.
Idleness is proved to be an evil and a humiliation by a fair trial of it by the new convict. He is kept idle till he obtains by good behaviour the right to work, and learns by experience that work is an honour and a privilege. He passes through three stages of trial of his conduct under discipline, at school, and at work; his conduct is recorded, and he receives marks accordingly—a certain number of marks entitling him to promotion to a higher class. In brief, his behaviour is observed, recorded, and, above all, tested, from point to point. Bad conduct prevents his rising, or sets him back, or subjects him to punishment, according to its degree; while improvement ensures benefits, more or less distant—the improvement which obtains recompense being altogether of a practical character—talk going for nothing at all from any member of a class which considers hypocrisy to be a talent and a grace.
It takes two years of unbroken good conduct to carry an offender into the first class. A convict under a three years’ sentence must pass through those two years and two months of irreproachable behaviour in the advanced class before he can obtain any remission at all. One under a seven years’ sentence must serve two years in the advanced class; and may thus obtain remission, at the very earliest, after four years’ punishment. In that advanced class marks become unnecessary. The members have now a character to sustain—a reputation of their own winning; and it is supposed that their self-respect will operate as it does outside the prison.
Earnings, small and slow, begin after the probationary stage is past. By the time the advanced class is reached the earnings are 7d. a week for the first six months, and 9d. afterwards. The great privilege of the promotion, however, is the increase of liberty. The men go to and from their work, and on business errands, with no guard but a single warder for each party. It is impossible to over-rate the importance of this gradual introduction to freedom and the ordinary transactions of industrial society.
Even now the convict is not sent roving by himself, to take his chance of good or evil in the world. The Intermediate Prison is to be his abode for a time, benefiting him morally as the Convalescent Hospital benefits the poor infirmary patient, whose disease is subdued, but whose strength is not yet sufficient to bear the roughnesses of life. The Intermediate Prison has no appearance of being a prison at all, as far as bolts and bars, soldiers and police, are concerned. Five warders were looking after sixty men when the West Riding magistrates were at one of these establishments: there was nothing to prevent anybody running away; but, out of a thousand convicts, only two had attempted it. Their work is hard, their diet is lower than in their actual imprisonment, and they have no luxury in their huts. They can spend only sixpence a week (out of the half-crown they earn), and the life is one of considerable hardship, favouring sincerity in the final stage of discipline.
Criminals of the worst class—murderers and the like—are not admitted here. Those who have life sentences have no business among those who are going out. About 75 per cent. of the convicts pass through the Intermediate Prison,—the other 25 per cent. consisting of the excluded class and of those whose health, commutation of sentence, or other circumstances interfere. Almost all, however, who are found in that establishment are grave offenders, and old offenders—often punished, but never before in the way of restoration as they are now.
