The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-05-09 00:00:00

TREATMENT OF CRIMINALS.

A QUESTION has been brought before the House
of Lords by the late Chancellor, Lord ST. LEONARDS,
respecting the new mode of treating criminals,
by granting them tickets of leave, to anticipate
their term of imprisonment, as a reward for good
conduct. He instanced the case of a man who,
shortly after his liberation, was 'again apprehended
for a fresh offence, which he attributed to starva-
tion, owing to his having been unable to ,obtain
employment,The police, as he stated, having warned
those who might have employed him of his con-
dition as a discharged felon. Upon this Lord ST.
LEONARDS took occasion to con4emn the system
as inefficacious for the object proposed, and called
upon the Government to give their serious atten-
tion•to a subject of such importance. It appears,
upon further inquiry, that the statement was un
true as far as concerns the alleged conduct •of the
police, and that the destitution of the man was
owing to his dissipated habits ; but this explana-
tion does not much affect the necessity for some
more effectual means being taken for the reforma-
tion of criminals. It is useless to discharge a
prisoner with a ticket of leave if, when he is at
liberty, he have no means of obtaining employ-
ment, and, only newly reformed from evil cotrrses,
he has to resist the still stronger temptation of
destitution. Instead of gaols being comfortable
lodging-houses for those who would submit to
almost anything rather than apply themselves to
steady labour, prison discipline should have suffi-
cient terrors to awe the most hardened froia
recklessly hazarding. -an encounter of them.
But, in order that criminals should be
reformed from their vicious courses, it is abso-
lutely indispensable that provision be made for
them on the termination ,of their imprisonment,
so that the excuse of want of employment may
be altogether removed. This is partially done in
some places by what is called an Asylum for Dis-
charged Prisoners, supported by voluntary contri-
butions ; but such aid is manifestly inadequate for
the purpose required, and the aid of the State
should be offered to carry out the intention fully.
Such an institution should be established in every
county, and whether supported by a grant from
the Consolidated Fund, or from the county rate,
it would prove a far more economical expenditure
than the immense sums annually raised for the
prosecution and punishment of offenders against
the laws. It is a subject in which the whole com-
munity is largely and directly interested, for every
offence against property involves a loss in the
goods abstracted, a second loss in the punishment
of the offender, and a third in the diminution of
so much productive labour. In every way it is a
serious evil; and while 'the reformation of the
offender is the object to he especially sought, it
can only be accomplished by affording him the
means of honest labour, which his want of charac-
ter has denied to him from society at large. For
this reason it becomes an imperative duty, from
motives of self-interest as well as of humanity, that
such means should be provided, and the attention
of the Legislature cannot too soon be called to
the subject.