The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-06 00:00:00

IMPRISONMENT FOR FIRST OFFENCES,

Mr. Davis, the ordinary of Nerrgatc, made a report
principally on the effects of imprisonment upon youth-
ful delinquents to the Court of Aldermen on the la,t
day of meeting. The following are extracts :
" I Aaiun on this occasion draw the attention of the
court not so much to the causes of crime in the metro-
polis, upon which on past opportunities I have said
much, as I should wish to point out to the magistrates
what are the effects of imprisonment. For I think
these present a subject fur profound consideration and
are matter of very great importance, not merely to the
nation at large, but to a numerons and comparatively
helpless body of our fellow-creatures. My own feeling
has been for several years growing as my experience has
become mere extended into a strong persuasion that we
now have a vast deal too much imprisonment."
After stating that he did not allude to imprisonment
for daring outrages, the Ordinary proceeds :
"But while there have been during the last 20 years
the most commendable efforts made to improve the con-
struction, management, discipline, and dietary of pri-
sons, there has been also, in my opinion, a mistaken
zeal on the part of Parliament to multiply petty offences.
"The suppression for the cry of Sweep' in the streets
makes the West-end of London a great deal more quiet;
but the poor sweep's bey who perseveres in his cry and:
is unable to pay the fine imposed for his offence is coin
mitted to prison in default. lie becomes, for the sake
of a quiet street, initiated in thieving ; ho is taught the
usefulness of his art for entering houses or chapels by
the flues or chimneys, and eventually is converted into
an expert burglar, to the terror of the same quiet
streets, and I think to the confusion of such unwise
legislation. A boy in the thoughtlessness of childhood
throws is steno, breaks a window, is fined, then impri-
soned in default, learns tricks of dishonesty, coiner.' a
second time to prison, is sent to a refuge, apprenticed,
quarrels with his master who will not let him go to
plays, buys a pistol, shoots his master, and finally is
executed at the Old Bailey. When the Legislature
passed the law that made the cry of `Sweep' punish-
able by fine or imprisonment, or when the same result
took place for throwing a stone, no one contemplated
such effects from the brief imprisonment inflicted as led
in one of these instances to a serious burglary, by enter-
ing the house at the chimney, and to the death of the
other at the usual place of execution for the metropolis.
But both facts are of importance, as indicating the
powerful tendency an imprisonment for a slight offence
has in producing a state of mind that ended in two of
the most serious crimes against the peace and security
of society ; and they seem to me t• point out that it
would be far better, for a first offence of such a trivial
character, to adopt some other mode of punishment than
imprisonment, by which new mode we might neither
spare the rod,' nor 'spoil the child.'
"In the list of new ()fences, which years ago were
not offences by enactment, might be found, ringing
door-bells in the streets, blowing a horn, shaking a mat,
telling a falsehood about a seaman's register ticket,
stealing a turnip, an egg, a penny, under circumstances
of great temptation, by a mere child trundling an iron
hoop, sweeping mud down a gully hole, getting drunk,
impertinence in a cabman or conductor of an omnibus,
insubordination in a workman, &c., all of which are a
fertile source of mischief in the metropolis by reason of
imprisonment. Scarcely an Act of Parliament passes
on sewers, nuisances, poor law, watching, lighting, water
companies, dock or gas improvement, but that new of-
fences are created to add to the already burdened prison.
The resnit is that a fresh supply of persons springs up,
ruined in character by imprisonment and reckless by
despair of ever recovering their position in society, who
rush madly into crime, and become formidable and
dangerous to the community. The loss of position thus
produced frequently entails a much severer punishment
than that imposed by the law. Persons damaged in
character lose their employment ; want engenders evil
thoughts, and slight temptations suffice, where the mind
is willing, to lead into crimes that are followed by
consequences still more disastrous. And when the
greater part of these evils may be traced to the inti-
macies formed in prisons, the only reasonable conclusion
to be drawn from this state of things is, that every
humane suggestion should be listened to, and every
means adopted to spare, if possible, a first imprison-
ment.

" But it is in prisons where neither silence nor separa-
tion is enforced, and where they cannot be carried out,
that the greatest contamination and corruption are
effected. The conversations in which thieves delight to
indulge, of their daring exploits, hair-breadth escapes,
their hardened deceitfulness, their monstrous lies and
inventions, aro detailed into willing ears, and their
hearers too often become apt pupils. Notwithstanding
the classification of prisoners to a certain extent, and the
most marked separation between known and unknown
offenders, those brought as inmates for the first time
are, and must be, more or less exposed to those evils ;
and when we know that these things are so, the results
from a first imprisonment cannot be too closely watched,
nor, I think, too carefully avoided.
" Young girls of the description referred to become a
serious evil in the seductions they effect, and in the in-
fluence their pernicious vices hold over boys of their own
age unrestrained by moral feeling. These girls do not
so much become the inmates of a prison as they become
the companions of those who live by dishonesty. And
there are few lives more demoralising than the lives of
such persons as get their living in the street. Exposed
as they aro to temptations of every kind, having in many
,u4tAlacea no settled home, pa4iing lArgi Portion of

r PRICE SD.

their leisure in beer•houses, and there associating with
the refuse of society, one imprisonment makes the beg-
gar, the shoe black, the costermouger of to-day become
to-morrow an expert and dexterous thief.
"But among first offenders, while there is much to
dread from the corruption of a prison and loss of cha-
racter connected with imprisonment, there is also much
that is satisfactory. During tho present year we re-
ceived 200 prisoners from the Middlesex House of Correc-
tion, who passed through their punishment in No*gate,
and gave me additional means of observation on their
conduct, motives, and intention,. The daily service in
the prison has a decided and s zlutary influence on many.
As f;,r as we can judge of what is in the mind by what
is said and done by individuals, many instances of sincere
penittnee are found among prisoners. Generally speak-
ing, in Newgate, seven out of eight do not return to the
same prison again. And if we include all whose subse-
Tient history we get to know, considerably more than
one-half never come more than once under the fearful
penalties of the criminal law."
The Ordinary then urges the necessity of keeping
persons imprisoned ft,r the first time in a state of silence,
but quite apart from each ether ; and proceeds to point
out, by the effects of imprisonment, how. and why the
present system fails.
" Imprisonment fails among many of the juvenile
offenders, and the reasons of this failure are several.
The manner in which these children have been brought
up has much to do with the unfortunate results of their
imprisonment. When for some little offence these par-
ties are brought for the first time within prison walls
they exhibit great terror and dismay, indicating the de-
terring effects of prisons on the mass of the population.
Such terror soon wears off. They then find themselves
fed regularly at stated times (to them an entire change)
they are compulsorily kept clean ; their bedding is suffi-
cient ;if medical aid be necessary, it is at hand. They
are, therefore, positively improved by their punishment;
and could they be allowed to run in and out at pleasure,
they would, I am sure, become voluntary inmates for a
large portion of their time.
To poriumg experienced in the character of this
class of the community, the failure of imprisonment in
effecting a reform is a matter of no astonishment. When
brought within the walls of a prison they rapidly become
much worse. The exciting life of a thief attracts them ;
the dexterity required pleases them ; to its shame and
degradation they are insensible. Its pleasure and pro-
fit outweigh every other consideratioi. And the expla-
nation is before you why for thirty or forty times
these urchins are imprisoned ; and the secret, or,
rather, the reason why incarceration fails is palpable.
Yon cannot, in fact, punish such boys. Your dietary is
an improvement on their mode of living, and nothing
you can inflict will degrade them. They are brought
up in such a precarious and hardy manner that public
feeling and common propriety will allow of none to be
so kept in prison as they are fed out of its walls. lam
greatly in hopes that long periods of imprisonment with
this class, and the employment of that long interval
in industrial pursuits, may have a happy effect ; but I
have great doubts that many will not prefer (for some
years, at least,) their evil courses to their reformed
habits. The sending abroad of such prisoners after their
probationary imprisonment adds greatly to the hopes
of their doing well, and, at least, takes away the fear
of their again becoming troublesome to the community
here. Imprisonment fails also with many who make
dishonesty a trade, and the reasons that apply here to
account for this defect are of a character much different
from the other, though to a great extent the other
reasoning applies.
" A regular London thief has by his life become in a
great degree spoiled fur the useful purposes of society. The
degraded habits of this class are in a considerable degree
unknown. The most uncomfortable lodgings in the
narrowest alleys, and in the dirtiest houses of the metro-
polis,
are their habitatiocs. No one who has net visited
these abodes of misery can conceive the intense poverty
and the utter degradation in which these parties live.
It will answer no beneficial purpose to unveil these
scenes. It suffices to say that there is no poverty so
severe, and in many cases there are no sufferings so
hopeless, as those endured by the lowest class of the dis-
honest population. They are not, except in extreme
sickness, fever, or pestilence, burdensome on the poor
rate. Their pursuits are incompatible with the visita-
tations of relieving officers ; and they pine and suffer a
great deal more than the community, by the plunder of
whom they live, are aware or believe."
After making several comments upon the ticket-of-
leave system; and the punishments inflicted for offences
committed by hardened criminals, the Ordinary con-
cludes an elaborate report, bearing strong indications of
thought and experience, is these words—" I think more
towards the suppression of crime is to be done by avoid-
ing first imprisonments for small offences than by the
costly and uncertain attempt at the reformation of dis-
charged offenders."