Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-05-28
8noSrjlle aTftklu Chronicle,
ABOUT CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT

Inc June NUMBER OF Hdr1crS' nd0dziHc
contains an article from Mr.. Charles Nord-
hoh, entitled, "What shall we do with
Scroggs," in which some sensible supges-
lions are made as to criminal punishment
IN the United States. The object of con-
hnement in prison is to protect society
from the dangerous characters who violate
iOs laws Two purposes are to be attained
oy prison discipline and confinement. One
we have stated above. The other is to re-
form the criminal--to send him back TO
society prepared 10y his discipline and
teaching during confinement to be better
citizen. The statistics of crime show that
some better mode of punishment is de-
manded. The State prisons of the several
States now contain some 10000 convicts.
The prisons of all grades in the whole
United States contain about IS 800 inmates
Most of these prisoners are between the
ages OF sixteen and forty. years. As COM
pared with the population of the country
between those ages, the convicts are as one
to four hundred and fifty. This is rather
startling statement and should warn us
OF the necessity of some more efficient sys-
tenn of criminal punishment.
What is the practical working of most of
our State Prisons Conyicts are sent
there, illiterate, depraved, hardened and
enemies to society. What is done to re-
form them? They are frequently farmed
out by the head through corrupt
agencies to contractors whose sole
object is to get the most remunerative la
Dor out Of them at the least trouble and
expense. The men about them and in
charge of them, as class, and in most
prisons, are about as bad as the convicts.
An intelligent convict, after protracted
imprisonment in Sing Sing, New York,
wrote series of articles on the manage
ment of that institution, and after giving
some startling facts of the corruption con-
nected with its management, concluded by
stating that, in his judgment, the most re-
spectacle persons about the institution
were the convicts themselves. When we
state that in 1857 the cost per head for
keeping persons was S112.54, while in 1865
the cost was 1920, our readers will see that
there was probable cause for the released
convict's statements. Under the surround
ings of our prisons, generally under politi-
cal control, what hope is there for reform
ing convicts? When the prisoners see
that even the task of reforming them is
confided, through corrupt influences to
men no better than they are, what kind of
an example is it for them? When their
term of imprisonment expires, they go out
into the world again, but with what en-
couragement to lead better lives? They
leave prison penniless, and with society
ready to frown upon them as released
convicts." The only class ready to receive
them kindly is their old associates in
crime. The State having confined them
for years, at great expense, should certain
ly take one step farther to carry out its plan
of reform. 1t might by some means enable
prisoners who really want to lead better
lives TO secure some employment when
they first leave the prison door. Start
them out on the path to reformed lives at
least, instead of leaving them penniless and
alone, confronted by new temptations and
forced almost by necessity into their old
haunts and ways.
In the absence of any such means of aid
ing prison reform, Mr.. 4ordhof, in the
article referred to, recommends the estab-
lishment of penal colony in Alaska to
which the United States could transport
its worst criminals. The country is suita-
BILE, and the policy worth trying. He
thinks that the troops and regular army
officers now in Alaska as the necessary
garrison, could look after such colony
without much extra expense. There, a
system of reform could be carried out. The
country is not sickly like the French penal
settlement of Cayenne, nor has it, like
Australia, climate in which runaway
convicts could sustain themselves in the
bush. He thinks army officers, honorable,
educated men as they are, just the class TO
superintend reforms in such colony and
their rigid discipline and freedom from
political corruptions, better calculated to
insure reformed prisoners than any sys-
tenn now in operation. The suggestion
will certainly receive the attention its i'm
portance deserves.