THE IDEAL OF A TRUE PRISON SYSTEM FOR A STATE
By Z[EBULON]. R[EED]. BROCKWAY
Superintendent of the Detroit House of Correction
As, in poetry and the fine arts, ideality forms one of the chief constituents of creative genius, so, in political affairs and civil progress, it is an essential element. It is the image of the real—that which may be; not of the visionary, the fanciful. Plans for improving society, deduced from cloistral meditation, may be chimerical; but practical reforms come from actual contact with the classes considered. A prison system, devised by the philosopher, may or may not be practicable; but a system, drawn from experience, is likely to be true; and such is the ideal I wish to evolve.
The prison system of a state, being a department of the state government, should partake of the same spirit with the
other parts; and, since all good government is beneficent and promotive of the prosperity and happiness of society at large, through its individual members, a true prison system will seek this end for that portion of society, for whose special benefit it is created. The true interests of the individual are never antagonistic to, but always identical with, those of society. Whatever may be their character or conduct, this remains ever true. No social ostracism can change it. Disregard of this principle is sure to bring disaster in one form or another. Legalized degradation or destruction of any class or any criminal inflicts injury upon the whole social organism directly or reflexively; while efforts for the highest and best welfare of any person or any portion of society promote the general good—positively when successful, negatively always, and necessarily upon the active agents of such efforts, whether successful or not.
Not only should there be unity of spirit in the general government and the prison system of the state, but identity of aim. The grand aim of government is to protect the people in the exercise of all the liberty they can rightfully claim, and thus to secure the highest development of their natural faculties and powers. So the central aim of a true prison system is the protection of society against crime, not the punishment of the criminals. Punishment the instrument, protection the object; and, since it is clear that there can be no real protection against crime without preventing it, prevention must be placed fundamentally in the principles of a true prison system. This widens the scope of a prison system, embracing causes of crime, mediate and immediate, and the classes from which criminals come, as well as the treatment of criminals themselves. It includes, of course, a system of prisons, but much more than this, if it is to be of any great service.