The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY.. OCTOBER 2, 1839.

FOURTH REPORT of the PRISON
INSPECTORS OF THE HOME DISTRICT.

TO THE RIGHT HON. THE SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT.
Raymond-buildings, Aug. 12,1839.
My Lord,—We beg leave to lay before your
Lordship our Reports upon the General Peniten-
tiary, and on the county and borough prisons in the
home district.
Upon the alterations which have taken place in
the prisons of our district within the last twelve-
month, we have but little new to remark. In the
inspection of these prisons we have not failed to
offer any suggestions which appeared to us calcu-
lated to effect the improvement of their discipline,
although we attach comparatively but little import-
ance to any changes of a minor character, so long
as the great evil of the association of prisoners is al-
lowed to continue. It affords us great pleasure to
find that a strong feeling prevails in several counties
in favour of the enlargement of the gaols, with a
view to the introduction of the separate system.
With respect to the metrorolitan prisons, they re-
main as described in our last report. In the county
of Middlesex a new prison for the untried is urgently
required in the room of the Clerkenwell Gaol, the
defects of which are great and irremediable. Strongly
as we are opposed to the silent system, which is en-
forced in the House of Correction in Coldbath-
fields, and in the convict part of the Westminster
Bridewell, we feel that it is but justice to the county
Magistrates to state that great attention is given by
them to the management of these two prisons, and
that their condition as to cleanliness, order, and dis-
cipline is highly creditable to the visiting Justices,
as well as to the officers of every description who
are connected with the management of these pri-
sons. We wish that it were in our power to say
as much in favour of the prisons belonging to the
Corporation of the City of London, which continue
to be in a most objectionable state ; and which, for
their size and importance, are unquestionably the
worst gaols in England. In confirmation of this
opinion we beg to refer to the reports in the Ap-
pendix upon the prisons of Newgate, Giltspur-
street, and the Borough Compter.
It affords us the highest gratification to know
that the views of prison discipline put forward by
us in our previous Reports have met with your Lord-
ship's concurrence and support ; and that, to carry
those views into effect, the Legislature has, on your
Lordship's recommendation, given its sanction to
three important measures ; viz. Ist. The erection
of a model prison on the separate system ; 2dly,
The rendering legal the separate system of prison
discipline ;* and 3dly, The establishment of a na-
tional prison for juvenile offenders.
Agreeably to your Lordship's direction, we have
prepared, with the able professional assistance of
Captain Jebb, and have inserted in this Report, the
plans of the model prison.
In the enactment which has recently passed,
" for the better ordering of prisons," the separate
system of prison discipline has been clearly defined.
We are particularly desirous of calling the attention
of the Magistracy to this fact, because there pre-
vails in some parts of the country an opinion that
a plan for the individual separation of prisoners
may be adopted without any material alteration in
the cells, as at present constructed, and without
those arrangements and securities which experience
has shown to be indispensable. We are the more
earnestly induced to advert to this opinion, as it was
owing to a similar misapprehension that evils of
a very serious character occurred in the
United States, when the separate confinement
of prisoners was originally introduced into that
country. We cannot, therefore, too strongly urge
on the Magistracy throughout the kingdom, and
especially in those counties in which the adoption
of the separate system is already contemplated, the
necessity of invariably and fully complying with
each of the conditions required by the 4th section
of New Prisons Act, viz. that no cell be used for
the separate confinement of any prisoner which is
not of such a size, and lighted, warmed, ventilated,
and fitted up in such a manner as may be required
by a due regard to health, and furnished with the
means of enabling the prisoner to communicate at
any time with an officer of the prison, and also that
the prisoner shall have the means of taking air and
exercise at such times as shall be deemed necessary
by the surgeon ; and shall be furnished with the
means of labour and employment, moral and reli-
gious instruction, and suitable books. It cannnot
be too constantly borne in mind that without these
securities individual separation is not the separate
system of prison discipline which is author.sed by
law ; and it is due to the advocates of that system
thus early to renounce, on their behalf, all respon-
sibility arising from the confinement of prisoners in
separate cells unaccompanied by these indispensa-
ble safeguards.
In our last annual Report we dwelt on the bene-
fits that would result from this measure, and we now
revert to the subject from a conviction that the erec-
tion of police cells would be extremely advantageous to
the discipline of the metropolitan prisons, the moral
welfare of many prisoners, and the administration of
justice in the police courts. By such an arrange-
ment most of the inconveniences and difficulties now
felt in conveying prisoners to and from the metro-
politan prisons and police courts would be obviated ;
whilst much of the time of the prison officers might be
saved, which is at present employed in attending to
the reception, cleansing, warding, and registering
of prisoners who remain but a few days, or perhaps
even hours, in custody. But this is the least con-
sideration in favour of the proposed measure. The
more knowledge we acquire of prisons the more
deep is our conviction of the importance of diminish-
ing, as much as is practicable, the number of com-
mitments. The committal of a pemson to gaol is a
very serious evil. It is almost always attended with
injurious consequences to the morals and reputation
of the prisoner, inasmuch as an acquaintanceship
with prison associates, and the routine of prison
management, have an inevitable tendency to de-
grade ; and to lessen, in after life, those restraints on
the- commission of crime which arise from the dread
of imprisonment. By the erection of police
cells many respectable persons convicted of
trivial offences, arising from a single act of in-
discretion, might be spared the moral injury and
indelible disgrace of being committed to a gaol, and
recorded in a prison register.
The juvenile delin-
quent, led astray for the first time, might then re-
ceive a sharp but short punishment, in a separate
cell, on bread and water, with or without corporal
'punishment, as the Magistrate might determine.
Many a parent might then be willing to subject his
child, or a master his apprentice, to immediate cor-
rection for a first offence, instead of being induced,
as is now too frequently the case, to pass over re-;
peated errors and delinquencies, rather than inflict
upon a youth the ruinous consequences of a com-
mitment to prison.
• We are induced, at this time, the more strongly
to call your Lordship's attention to the subject, as
the powers conferred by the new Police Act (2 and
3 Victoria, c. 47), while they will doubtless tend to
enhance the efficiency of the metropolitan police,
will also greatly increase the number of persons
committed to prison for short periods and trivial of-
fences. Such offenders will, in our opinion, be
more advantageously dealt with by being sentenced
by the Magistrates to confinement in a separate cell
attached to a police court, than by a committal to
an ordinary prison. The provision of adequate
cells at the police courts would not only place at the
disposal of the police Magistrates a salutary
mode of punishment, but it would afford great
facilities for the confinement of police offen-
ders immediately on their apprehension.
The cells
are lamentahl--
in the present police stations
cleanliness,individuals,
who deficient in space, ventilation,
and warmth. Respectable
who are placed in the hands of the police, some-
times under a false or trivial charge, are at present
frequently and necessarily confounded with criminal
offenders of the worst description. But were cells
such as we propose erected, offenders might be
taken at once to the police courts ; and parties ap-
prehended would he spared the exposure of being
taken on the followina morning through the public
streets. The police courts would thus have the

*
In our last annual Report we omitted, amongst the
authorities who have written in support of the separate
system of prison discipline, the name of Lieutenant Sibly,
R. N., Governor of Brixton House of Correction. We
have much satisfaction in now stating, that this gentleman
presented to the Lords' Committee on Gaols, in 1835,
several valuable papers on this subject, in which he ably
asserted the superiority of the separate over every other
system of prison discipline ; and he has since published it
very useful pamphlet on the same subject. Mr. Sibly's
observations are the more important inasmuch as he has
considerable practical acquaintance in his own prison, with
the working of the silent system, and speaks experiment.
ally of its various defects, and of the unavoidable evils
which attend its enforcement.