Part 1

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TERMS:--ONE DOLLAR A YEAR IN ADVANCE.

THE PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL OF PRISON DISCIPLINE AND PHILANTHROPY.

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF “THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR ALLEVIATING THE MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS,” INSTITUTED 1787.

VOL. IV.--NO. II.

APRIL 1849.

PHILADELPHIA: E. C. AND J. BIDDLE, SOUTHWEST CORNER OF FIFTH AND MINOR STREETS.

CONTENTS OF NO. II.

ART. I.--HOUSES OF REFUGE, 49

II.--MORTALITY AND CRIME, 63

III.--STATE PENITENTIARIES, 70

NOTICES.

No. 1.--Institutions for the Insane, 79

2.--The precise present character of transportation explained, with suggestions by Ignotus, 86

3.--Statistics of Truantry and of Juvenile Vagrancy in the City of Boston, 88

4.--The London Christian Observer’s notice of Rev. Mr. Field’s work on the Advantages of the Separate System of Imprisonment, 92

5.--Kentucky State Penitentiary, 93

6.--An Inquiry into the Alleged Tendency of the Separation of Convicts, one from the other, to Produce Disease and Derangement, 94

7.--New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, 95

8.--Shelter for Colored Orphans, 95

9.--Paupers and Prisoners in Cincinnati, 95

10.--Insane Asylum in North Carolina, 95

11.--Corrupt Police, 96

CONSTITUTION

OF THE

“_Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons_.”

When we consider that the obligations of benevolence, which are founded on the precepts and examples of the Author of Christianity, are not cancelled by the follies or crimes of our fellow-creatures: and when we reflect upon the miseries which penury, hunger, cold, unnecessary severity, unwholesome apartments, and guilt, (the usual attendants of prisons,) involve with them, it becomes us to extend our compassion to that part of mankind who are the subjects of those miseries. By the aid of humanity, their undue and illegal sufferings may be prevented; the links which should bind the whole family of mankind together, under all circumstances, be preserved unbroken; and such degrees and modes of punishment may be discovered and suggested, as may, instead of continuing habits of vice, become the means of restoring our fellow-creatures to virtue and happiness. From a conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles, the subscribers have associated themselves under the title of “THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR ALLEVIATING THE MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS.”

For effecting these purposes, they have adopted the following CONSTITUTION.

ARTICLE I.--The officers of the Society shall consist of a President, two Vice-Presidents, two Secretaries, a Treasurer, two Counsellors, and an Acting Committee, all of whom, except the Acting Committee, shall be chosen annually, by ballot, on the second Second-day, called Monday, in the month called January.

(See 3d page of Cover.)

APRIL, 1849.

VOL IV.--NO. II.

ART. I.--HOUSES OF REFUGE.

I. _Twenty-first Annual Report of the Managers of the Philadelphia House of Refuge to the Legislature and to the Contributors thereto._ 1849, pp. 32.

II. _Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents to the Legislature of the State and the Corporation of the City of New York._ 1849, pp. 50.

We need, in some parts of the United States, a grade of penal institutions between what are called Houses of Refuge, or of Reformation for Juvenile Delinquents on the one hand, and the highest and best class of penitentiaries on the other.

As they are at present, our institutions of this class are neither schools nor prisons. They employ the inmates at labor and instruct them, as far as practicable, in the elements of useful knowledge and thus far they resemble the Industrial Schools of Europe. But they are places of close confinement--they have regulations and a police, not unlike those of a prison, and their inmates are sent thither as _offenders_--though _juvenile_ offenders. The worst that can be said of some of them is, that they are incorrigible truants--of others, that they are past parental control, (and in this respect, perhaps, “more sinned against than sinning;”) but some are adroit thieves and bold burglars--some skilful forgers--some incendiaries, and some assaulters with intent to kill. Their ages, too, range from eight to sixteen or even eighteen, and their size and physical strength are equally various.

This is a motley group to bring into the relation of schoolmates or fellow-apprentices, and their care-takers must possess rare endowments, so to administer discipline, as to prevent much harm from being done to some in connection with all the good they do to others. For, that they have done immeasurable good, no one who has investigated their operations and results, can for a moment doubt. They have fully justified the high anticipations which were entertained concerning them at an early period of their history. “No disciplinary institution in our country,” said the Rev. Dr. Alexander of New Jersey, “promises to effect more for society, than a House of Refuge for juvenile delinquents. If it were ever lawful to rejoice in an event produced by crime, it would be, that these unhappy youth are, by the commission of a crime, snatched from the sink of pollution in which they have been immersed, and put to regular business, and educated as well as most children in the land.”[1]

Having fully sustained their claim to confidence, as a system of reformatory means, we naturally desire to see them rendered as effective as possible. And to this end we would have them adhere punctiliously to the original design for which they were instituted. This was not to inflict a penalty, but to interpose a shield--not to bring suffering upon the guilty, but to supply instruction, wholesome discipline and kind offices to the neglected and exposed. They may easily be perverted by opening their doors to youth (“young in years, but old in sinning”) who are thought to require some milder discipline than the penitentiary affords, but whose offences are really as rank and as indicative of deep-seated depravity as those of the oldest and the worst.

In determining, in any given case, whether to admit or reject an applicant, the managers of a House of Refuge would be governed, we presume, chiefly by the _character_, though in some degree by the size and physical strength of the individual, as a subject of mild, parental discipline. The question, how far a residence in the institution will be likely to bring about his radical reformation and the establishment of good habits has the first place; and another, and scarcely less important question would be, what influence will his admission have on others? If he is perverse and stubborn, and at the same time overgrown in size, so as require a disproportionate measure of care and vigilance, (in which case other and more hopeful subjects must be, to an equal extent, neglected,) his admission would seem inexpedient. Provision exists, or should be made for such an one elsewhere. So, also, if one is presented, deformed in body, deficient in mind, or of sickly constitution, and not likely to succeed in acquiring the knowledge of a trade, or unfitted to bear the proper discipline, he has higher claims on some other form of public charity. A House of Refuge is not meant for him, nor is it likely to benefit him.

An institution designed to keep boys and girls in due order and subordination, ought to be able to dispense with some of the more revolting appendages of a prison--such as unscaleable walls--narrow stone cells--and massive bars and bolts. We admit that all these are necessary the moment it receives a sturdy, hardened, hackneyed rogue of eighteen, sixteen or even fourteen; but it is a pity to force upon the whole establishment the gloomy appearance of a prison, rather than reject half a dozen youth of extra age and size, whom parents or friends naturally feel disposed to save from a felon’s doom.

The inquiry of chief interest, however, relates to _character_. What has been his career up to this time? Who have been his associates? To what species of crime has he been chiefly addicted? Has he, in the fury of unbridled passion, attempted the life of another? of his parent, or associate, or enemy? Has he deliberately forged another’s name? Has he been familiar with scenes of outrage and tumult? Is he a frequenter of the haunts of infamy? Has he good fellowship with a large circle of like characters with himself? These questions, or any of them, if answered affirmatively, would go far to turn the scale against his admission. The acts we have supposed, indicate in the perpetrator of them, a confirmed habit or propensity, which may, perhaps, be corrected; but not by the ordinary discipline of a proper House of Refuge. Nor should the attempt be made to employ it on so unpromising a subject, at the risk of introducing more evil than we can possibly hope to prevent. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive any good reason why a burglar or incendiary at sixteen, should be called a “delinquent,” and put to school, while the same grade of criminals at twenty, are called convicts, and sent to the penitentiary. Age, by itself, is a very unsafe criterion by which to determine the turpitude of crime or the appropriateness of punishment.

We do not say that no cases of this class can occur, in which the admission of the party to a House of Refuge, would be expedient; but, as a general thing, we should be disposed to confine its benign influence to those whose proclivity to a criminal career is but feebly though decidedly developed; whose delinquencies exist rather in an impatience or contempt of domestic restraints, than in deliberate violations of public law. The discipline, as well as the construction of Refuge-buildings and the usual means of safe custody, evidently contemplate a very young class of boys and girls, say from eight to twelve years of age, who may be incorrigible truants, disobedient to parents, insubordinate to masters, petty thieves, street-strollers, without a home or worse,--uneducated, unaccustomed to any kind of restraint. Such youth come under the discipline of an establishment, like our Houses of Refuge, with a prospect of great advantage.

Even those who have acquired fixed habits of lying, stealing, deceit and violence, are, at this age, physically reducible to order and industry. They are incapable of using dangerous weapons with effect--they are not likely to combine for outbreaks, nor to plot escapes. With wholesome food, and an hour or two’s recreation every day, they can be made to conform to stringent regulations, without great or long continued severity of discipline. Active employment in some handicraft, daily schooling, and proper religious culture, soon work a wonderful transformation in such a class of children, and if they can only be continued long enough to make their new course of life _habitual_, so that to be idle shall be as irksome to them as it once was to work, and to speak the truth shall be as easy as it once was to lie, the benefit of such an institution could not be overrated.

If the discrimination we have suggested, should be faithfully observed, we should find a very large class of youth who require penal discipline of a severer type, and for whom no provision is now made except in the penitentiary, which is quite as ill adapted to meet the exigency at this point, as the Refuge is at the other. We should, therefore, be disposed to take the most promising youthful inmates of the penitentiary, and the least suitable or most unpromising of the older inmates of some of the Houses of Refuge for juvenile delinquents, and provide an institution for them, that shall combine the severity of the former with the leniency of the latter. This idea is substantially embraced in the Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight, and is recognized to some extent in the new State Reform School at Westborough, Massachusetts.

The origin and peculiarities of these institutions, involve the vast and interesting subject of juvenile delinquency; its causes, effects and preventives, upon an investigation of which we promise ourselves some future opportunity to enter. As it is, our limits require us to pass abruptly to a few general remarks upon the present condition of our principal institutions designed for its correction.

From the twenty-first report of the Philadelphia House of Refuge, we learn, that during the year 1848, one hundred and sixty-eight inmates were received, (129 boys and 39 girls,) and 153 discharged, (116 boys, and 37 girls,) of whom, 89 were by indentures. Of the commitments, 86 were by request of parents or near friends. The average age of both sexes was a fraction over 14 years; but so far as the prospect of reformation is concerned, a girl is as old at 14 as a boy is at 18. There was only one death in the House during the year. Of the 65 boys indentured, 30 went to farmers; and of the 24 girls all were indentured to housewifery. The occupations of the inmates are, cane-chair seating, (48,) umbrella furniture, (57,) and razor-strop making, (71.) The income from the labor of boys during the year, was $5,598,88, and the total expenditures of the establishment, were $13,987,39. The principal of this institution has, at our request, furnished some valuable suggestions respecting the methods of administration and discipline, in establishments of this class, of which we gladly avail ourselves in the present connection.

He ranks classification, among the most obvious, important and difficult objects to be attained in such an institution. He admits that education, moral, intellectual, and religious, is all important; but he insists, that habits of industry and obedience, should be regarded as among the first and most desirable fruits of it. The power of habit, he thus forcibly describes:

“A boy, who has been unaccustomed to obey his parents, or respect his superiors, and has been allowed to spend most of his time in idleness before he is brought to the Refuge, if kept regularly at work, and at the same time compelled to obey those who have the care of him, will, in time, become so accustomed to labor, that he will even, in some cases, prefer it to idleness, and obedience will also become habitual. But this must be a work of time. He should be kept until he is thoroughly weaned from his former indolent ways. I have known boys who have remained three or four years in our institution and who have run away from their masters soon after they were bound out, come back to the city and resort to their old haunts and habits; but finding few if any of their old associates, they have soon felt that their former habits were not so pleasant, and having lost all relish for a vagabond life, have voluntarily returned to the house and asked admission and employment as a boon!”

He justly animadverts upon the unreasonableness of those who expect “a House of Refuge will accomplish, in a few months, what respectable and even religious parents find it difficult to do even in a series of years.” They have their children from the first hour of their existence, and through all that precious period of childhood, while they are comparatively strangers to evil habits and associations, and yet how often do they fail to secure their standing in good habits and sound principles? How preposterous then, must be the expectation that the House of Refuge will take them, when their moral and intellectual nature is so completely perverted and corrupted, and thoroughly reform them in a few months!

Touching the employment of boys in the institution, and after they leave it, many difficulties are experienced. The modes of labor which are adopted, are, of course, fitted to the age and physical ability of such children, but are by no means calculated to prepare them for that sort of life, which most of them expect to lead. To remove them completely from the temptations and exposures of city life, is considered very desirable; and hence, to place them with farmers in the country, where the means of indulging vicious inclinations are supposed to be few and far between, is always preferred to placing them with mechanics, where they will be likely to find associates who will be the subjects or agents of corruption. But to bind a boy to a farmer till he is of age, is regarded by most parents as a very undesirable disposition to make of him, and when a boy is thus bound, he generally understands that his parents or friends will readily connive at his escape. The general wish is, that they should be bound to trades, if bound at all.

It seems to be admitted that, as a general thing, city boys are not likely to make good farmers, unless put to it very young, and by degrees accustomed to hard work. “The routine of labor pursued in the Refuge, does not seem fitted to prepare boys for that kind of life, to which the greater part of them are destined. A boy here, works from five to seven hours a day at very light work, in a room that is warmed and made comfortable in winter, and sheltered from the wet and heat of summer. He has from one to two hours for play every day, and an abundance of playmates. After living in this way about one year, (sometimes a little less, and sometimes more than a year,) he is bound to a farmer, who makes him work, perhaps ten or twelve hours in a day, and at labor which is much harder than any thing he has been accustomed to before. He has, perhaps, repeatedly been told, while in the Refuge, to behave well, and he should soon have a good place, and it has been told in such a way, that to be with a farmer is, in his mind, to be in a kind of paradise. But when he finds hard work, no time for play, frequent exposure to heat and cold, few or no companions, it is not strange that some are disappointed and disposed to abscond.”

In contrast with this mode of proceeding, our correspondent proposes the following outline. “If it were possible,” he says, “I would keep every boy at least three years, and I would have him understand, when he comes into the Refuge, that he must not expect to be discharged in less than three years, so that his mind should be at ease on that point. I would have them employed at trades, that would be useful to them after their discharge. In three years they would acquire so much knowledge of a common trade, that their services would become desirable to respectable mechanics. In three years, if properly disciplined, their habits of industry, obedience, &c., would acquire a degree of strength. They would become weaned from their old associates and habits. In three years the older ones, (if too old for apprentices,) would become sufficiently acquainted with their business to earn their living. Their parents would not feel that their time was lost. They would see, and the boys themselves would see, that they are acquiring that sort of knowledge that will be useful to them in after life. Many of our older boys think now, that their time is in a good degree lost. They know, indeed, that the intellectual education they acquire will be of service to them, but they feel, at the same time, that they are not learning any thing that will secure them a livelihood after their discharge.”

Among the obvious evils of a short continuance in the Refuge, (besides the impracticability of forming new habits in the children,) are, (1.) The state of constant restlessness in the alternation of hope and disappointment, respecting a release. Parents are permitted to visit their children once in two months, and in these visits the principal subject of conversation is about their “getting out.” The children are constantly urging their parents to have them released, and the parents are equally constant in promising to do so. This excites much uneasiness in the former, and neutralizes what would otherwise be the useful discipline of the house; and, (2.) The institution is deprived of the fruits of its good discipline as fast, nearly, as they appear. “By constantly sending out the best, we lose their influence, which might be of much service with the more vicious. If, in any community, the best members were constantly leaving, and only bad members coming in to supply their places, the condition of that community, with regard to morals, would become very low, if not hopeless.”

These opinions, formed from an intimate acquaintance with the practical working of the system, are entitled to weight. We do not adopt nor reject them. We do not say that any material modification of the present rules of admission, or of the form of discipline is practicable. But, if the views we have ever held respecting the design of a House of Refuge are just, viz., to rescue those whose childhood lies all _open to evil examples and influences, and to put them under treatment, which shall resemble, in its main features, that of a good home_, then are we clear, that a more rigid discrimination in the admission of inmates should be observed. The most hopeful subjects of such domestic discipline, are those who have not past into that stage of moral and intellectual stupor and impenetrability, on which ordinary sympathies fall as water-drops upon a marble slab. Notwithstanding the sad neglects and abuses they have suffered, there are still impulses in their young natures, which can be worked upon by kind words and approving smiles, and indeed, their present unhappy condition is owing, in no small measure, to the absence of such influences from the place which (for want of a better) they call their _home_. We have known cases, not a few, in which the manifestation of a real interest in the welfare of a child at a favorable moment, has been, in its effects, like the gushing forth of a living spring from the smitten rock. And it is in this view, that we most highly commend a recent measure in the institution, whose report is now under review, viz., the employment of an intelligent, judicious, capable female, to supervise with maternal care and tenderness the moral and physical condition of the boys.

We all know with how many chords the human heart is strung, which vibrate only to the soft breath of sympathy. A gentle accent--a trifling act of kindness, or even a glance of pity, will awaken their harmonies, and fill the heart of the rudest child with what may well pass for rapture. There is a period, however, at which these better feelings become comparatively incapable of excitement. They have either lost their vitality by abuse or neglect, or they have been overborne and swallowed up by the ebbless tide of vicious associations and indulgencies. The voice of virtuous charmers is no longer heard, charm they never so wisely.

But we cannot enlarge on this fruitful topic, suffice it to say that some of the defects of the present system are remediable, as we have already intimated, and others are inseparable from the very nature and design of the institution, and can only be set over against the greater good.