THE IDEAL OF A TRUE PRISON SYSTEM FOR A STATE
By Z[EBULON]. R[EED]. BROCKWAY
Superintendent of the Detroit House of Correction
The department of legislation, like that of organization, is capable of dual division, relating (1) to laws for the government
of the board itself; and (2) to laws providing for the control and culture of the class from which criminals spring, to laws for organizing and administering the poor-system, to all establishments for the custody of criminals, and to laws conferring such custody. The scope and general character of the legislation deemed necessary will, for the purposes of this paper, sufficiently appear from the foregoing remarks; but more definite statement as to the custody of criminals seems to be needed.
It has been intimated that one of the primary causes of crime lies in the ignorance, on the part of a certain class in
society, of the benignant design of government, and their consequent antagonism to laws whose force they feel. Criminals committed to prison, who are under the influence of this sentiment, naturally entertain much the same feeling toward their custodians; and this feeling forms the first and a very formidable obstacle to their reformation.
That a large part of the public are indifferent to the general welfare, as affected through maintenance of law, must be admitted; that those whose propensities bring them into conflict with it are antagonistic to the law and its ministers; and that this temper tends to criminal practices and hinders reformation, none will deny; but the remedy may not be so clear to our minds. It is certainly important that the criminal law should be so framed as to bring out and impress its benign spirit upon those who are subject to it. This has been attempted by putting into preamble a dignified declaration of its reformatory design; but without success. The people and the prisoners perceive its real nature. The infliction of punishment—pain—by society, is to secure obedience to law, either by intimidation or reformation. If by the former, it must be upon the ground that fear is a motive to virtuous conduct, and strengthens the moral principles, which is true neither in fact nor in theory: fear degrades humanity and develops dastards; while kindness inspires confidence, and confidence begets courage, which is moral excellence—the very essence of virtue. If by reformation, either the principle must be false or the procedure wrong; for the history of crime the world over teaches that, within certain limits, diminution, coupled with certainty, of legal penalty for crime has diminished its volume, while severity has increased it; and nobody now claims that imprisonment, under the present system, conduces to the reformation of prisoners to any great extent, or that those who impose penalties have any such hope or design.