New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-02-15
RIGHTS OF CONVICTs.

RIGHTS OF CONVICTs.
When person has violated those laws
which society has provided for its protec.
ton he may be punished by prescribed
penalties. If he has taken life he must
lose his own life. Society thereby loses
two lives, it is true. nor can the loss OF
one life compensate or console for the
loss Of another. The penalty exacted,
therefore. is not reformatory of the GRIM
inal, since he can never again injure So
ciety nor reform himself after he has paid
the death penalty. The punishment for
offense against the peace or property OF
society is inflicted on the twofold prin-
ciple of reforming the morals of the
offender and indemnifying society not
only for the wrong done. but giving a
certain assurance against a repetition by
improving the industry and morals Of the
] offender.
But in all this principle Of atonement.
warning and indemnity. the condemned
has never forfeited the rights of humanity.
nor has he conceded to society power
beyond the exact limit defined for the OBJ
jects of punishment. Hence the criminal
under sentence of death is entitled to sui.
| ficient means of human comfort. to the
commiseration of friends. the counsel of
defense, and the consolation Of religion.
| He has forfeited his life when sentenced.
His animal comforts, his intellectual and
| spiritual freedom can not be abridged.
No penalty under a republican form Of
government can reach either Of these
sacred and inalienable rights.
With those convicts who have forfeited
to society confinement Of their persons
and sequestration of their labor. the
same rights survive and subsist. 1t is not
now, and under free government, that
man can be chained to the oar, or
plunged into the mine. or marched in
chains to mend highways. Society has
no right to more than the toll of a convict.
so applied as that he may amend his
morals as well as improve his ability to
earn an honest subsistence. The very uni
form prescribed is only intended to render
the identification of an escaped convict
more easy. 1t is not part of the penalty,
or it would compel the convict to wear
ever afterward the prison garb and
cropped hair. as under more barbarous
system he could have been branded in
the cheek with the indelible record Of his
act Of wrong.
we never expect those who seek to fur n
the laws into source Of personal gain to
care for the reasons of their enactment,
but the argument of those who labored to
substitute the system Of penitential labor
for capital punishment placed their object
upon very high moral grounds. We will
not restate them at length. Few who hire
a convict to pick cotton or mena levee
could understand the reasoning, but it
was plea for life, for amendment, for
reinstatement, for restitution. These phi
lanthropists hoped the offender would
find in the penitentiary friends, teachers,
instruction in religion and industry; that
he would come forth new man. and
better man; that he would gratefully &C.
knowledge the parental care Of society.
and restore by his instructed and dis
ciplined industry a thousand fold what
he might have been punished for
having appropriated wrongfully. The
philanthropists never thought they
were re-enacting the punishment which
the Algerines inflicted upon men for the
crime of Christianity. 1t was not int ended
to send men who had duly paid the law.
full penalty, as ticket-of-leave men branded
through life. 1t was never supposed that
these offenders would become bond slaves
slaves of any master. to be employed in
any service. Wise advocates Of the COM
mutation of death or exile. for labor or
tutelage. did not suppose that these Of
tenders were sold to the State. to be hired,
driven, sccurged, chained and star we'd.
They did not contemplate them as objects
of popular scorn. when driv en- to
their task. in the conspicuous badge
of their shame. They never inn
agined that these creatures would
be discharged upon society more de-
based, more ignorant--except Of the
means of vice-more hardened, and abso-
lutely unable to maintain themselves by
the abridged life term and capacity Tor
labor. Yet such seem the results of the
system of penal labor as exhibited in
Louisiana. The Legislature has done
we'll in examining the penitential slavery
proven to exist. They should revert to
the reasons of the system as the founders
explained them. There should be
prison discipline reform. The purpose of
the law should be rigidly enforced; but
there are rights which humanity can
never forfeit. These should be guaran-
teed to those who have even no right to
be heard by suffrage. Society has rights
invested in the rigid execution of this
labor contract. 1t is that these offenders
shall be qualified in the prison to resume
their derelict duties, and qualified to re-
store to society an indemnity for the cost
they may have occasioned others by their
crimes, conviction and instruction.
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