The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-13 00:00:00

THE TREATMENT OF CRIMINALS.

A meeting of the Juridical Society was held last
,vening, at their rooms in St. Martin's-place, Mr.
C. CLARKE presiding.
_ _

The subject of discussion was " Our Present
Treatment of Criminals," which was opened by Mr.
WORSLEY, who observed that in substituting penal
servitude for transportation we had undertaken, as
it were, to burn our own smoke; and it had been
alleged that in doing so wo had withdrawn from
a >ciely its necessary protection. The object of all
punishment was first, the safety of society ; secondly,
his reformation.. As society was in some degree
responsible for the moral condition of every indivi-
dual ceMposipg .sOciety'Was bound in inflicting
puptstknwpt for, cajtne;".to nrovide for this second
object. It was complained that the present
system. neither protected society nor reformed the
prisonei,'apd consequently that. it had altogether
failed. It- was- all important that thi3 judicial
and the executive officer should be at one, bad the
sentence which the former pronounced it was the
duty of the other to carry out; but at present the
chaplain stepped in between the tWo.to mitigate the
punishment the judicial officer awarded. Now, gaol
chaplains, from their training, were perhaps the
least competent to judge between an assumed and a
real reformation of,eriminals, and thus it was that
tickets of leave were given to the worst class of con-
victed prisoners, who were let loose again to prey
upon society. The speaker alluded to the Rev. Mr.
Devis's vport in confirmation of this view. He (Mr.
Worsley) doabted much whether a man brought up
by criminal parents and the companion of thieves
all his life was capable of reformation unless taught
very young. The ticket of leave he regarded as an
unconstitutional abatement of the punishment the
judge awarded. Quoting a recent case of burglary
committed by a ticket-of-leave man who had been
four times convicted and on a fifth conviction sen-
tenced to three years penal servitude, was let loose
on a ticket of leave, and shortly afterwards com-
mitted the crime of which ho now stands charged,
he remarked that it was mere madness to treat har-
dened criminals in this manner. Under the present
system crimes, and especially crimes attended with
violence, had largely increased. As bearing out his
opinion as to the improper interference of the Exe-
cutive at the Home-office in mitigating without suf-
ficient cause the sentences pronounced by the judges
he quoted the recent addresses of Sir W. Crofton at
Bristol, Sir C. Hamilton at Warwick, and Sir W.
Miles in Somersetshire, the latter having offered a
very valuable suggestion emanating from the chief
constable of Somersetshire, that no convict should
Lave a ticket of leave granted him unless he had a
bona fide offer of employment, and could produce re-
sponsible persons who would be answerable for his
future good conduct. The system now in operation
had been introduced at the instance of Sir J. Jebb,
not for.the purpose of reforming criminals and pro-
tecting society, hut to save expense; but it had failed
in this—the expense in cons( quence of these ticket-
of-leave men being brought up, tried, and con-
victed again and again having increased rather
than diminished. He objected strongly to the
practice of allowing persons charged with serious
crimes to elect whether they wou'd go to a jury or
be dealt with summarily, urging that in most cases
the magistrate who was called upon so to deal with
the offender could not as a rule know so much of
his antecedents as would be in all probability known
if the criminal were committed and tried by ajury.
Generally the result at which he arrived was that,
under the existing system, the law was not carried
out—that there was no concord of action between i
the judicial and executive authorities—that inside
the prison there was no means of creating fear in
the minds of the prisoner of returning to the gaol
on committing a fresh crime, but a system of com-
parative luxury and high mental and physical ali-
ment—that tickets of leave were granted without
sufficient proof of the reformation of the criminal,
and that they were seldom or never revoked,
for, as far as he (Mr. Worsley) knew, there was no
instance of such revocation—that there were no
means taken to prevent the criminal returning to
criminal life—that the evil lay_ not with the law
but with the executive, and that the punishment of
crime was costly and inefficient. He had three
suggestions to offer for the consideration of the
meeting and of the Government commission—first,
a judicious mixture of penal discipline at home and
transportation to the colonies afterwards; secondly,

that in all punishments not capital it should be pro-
vided by act of parliament that the executive should
have no rower to alter the term of punishment, but
only to regulate the discipline of the gaol, to relax
it or to heighten it according to the conduct of the
prisoner; and, thirdly, the repeal of the Summary
Jurisdiction Act.

The CHAIRMAN felt they were much indebted to
Mr. Worsley fur his suggestions. It would be for
the meeting to consider them. In regard to the
ticket-of-leave, he considered it was not only►
unconstitutional, but dangerous. The object of

the change of the law was to redu,l3 the extreme
severity of the criminal law as it formerly stood in
respect to punishment, but the earlier advocates
of milder punishment were still more strongly the
advocates of certainty of punishment, which under
the ticket-of-leave systeM was impossible. He
agreed with Mr. Worsley as co the impropriety of
acting upon the reports of gaol chaplains, who were
often deceived by the prison conduct of prisoners,
and with regard to a suggestion made by that gen-
tleman, that every convict let loose upon society
should be branded with the view of identification,
he (the chairman) concurred that if such a practice
were adopted it would be advantageous. He agreed
that the power of withdrawing the ticket-of-leave
by the interference of the Secretary of State, was
eo sufficient protection, and he would suggest that
if tickets of-leave should still be granted, it should
be in the power of any magistrate or judge before
whom the party holding it was brought, charged
with another offence, to revoke it at once.
Mr. J. WILLIAMS remarked that the public had
at length come round to an opinion he expressed
some years ago in that room, that the present system
neither reformed nor inspired fear in the criminal.
He recommended that critninalashould be sentenced
not to so much time in prison, but to so much labour,
and if that labour was not performed that he
should be reduced to a diet of bread and water,
and remain a prisoner until it was performed.
He also suggeste that the prisoners should he
associated in gangs, the members of which should
be all responsible for the conduct of the general
body,-and for the perfoitnance of the allotted
labour tasks. When the labour was completed, then
the convict should have the right to go free.
Mr. HUME WILLIAMS took a different view to
that of the previous speakers who practically by
their propositions upheld the existing system of
uncertain and varying punishments. It was unfor-
tunate that in the Beale of dietary and general treat-
ment the prisons contrasted so attractively with the
workhouses. Prisoners ought to have only such
coal(' food as, would enable them to do the work