The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1888-01-05

selected the lessee by LEGISLATIVE
enactment.
Besides this, there is the superinten.
dent of the penitentiary, elected NV
the Legislature, whose powers ~
supervise and control the convicts ~
all matters of health, diet, punisbman,
and work, have never been abridgsS
or cuTtailed by the Legislature. Wifi
all these precautions and safeguards
abuses will creep in, despite the hes,
efforts and intentions of the lessee
under the law as it now stands. and
beg tn suggest some changes which
in my Judgment, would largely cor.
rect these evils.
LEGISLATION NEEDED.
LIST. The State ought to suffer SOM.
reward for good behavior on the mar,
of convicts. think every conyict
sentenced for a longer period than siv
months ought to have 20 per cent. de.
Quoted from the term for good hebo.
vior; and in the case of life copvicts
if a man served fifteen years and
maintained good character he should
be discharged. A man who lives nm.
rightly for fifteen years, can certainly
be trusted in society. The time de-
Quoted for good behavior would NOT
only be a powerful incentive to tbe
prisoner to reform and to do his prison
duty without compulsion, but it would
add to his cheerfulness and content.
ment, thereby insuring better health
and decrease the rate of mortality
among them. Many of them 90 into
decline from mere mental depression
and despair. 1t takes man of strong
nerve and brave spirit to bear up un.
der the deprivations and duties of
prison life at the best cut off from
all social intercourse with the world
from relatives and friends, and it NAV
be from loving wife and children and
the comforts of home; deprived of his
own vOlitiOn to come and 90, to eat
and sleep except as permitted, and he
verifies the truth that "the way oftbe
transgressor is hard" If you take
from man all spirit, and hope, and
cheerfulness, you make him a reckless
desperate, or he succumbs to the sur
roundings and becomes mOrOse, then
detected, loses his appetite, and
thenceforth must be driven to do his
duty until he lands in the hospital and
perhaps from there into the grave. OF
the two characters | prefer the
desperate. for you can do nothing
with man whose spirit is broken;
whose hope is gone. Let the Legisla-
ture, therefore, remedy this evil by
holding out hope to the prisoner that
he will be rewarded for good behavior
and faithful work and it will remove
largely one of the most prolific sour
ces of evil connected with the prison.
I'd. The State ought to establish and
maintain at its own expense prison
hospital, where all convicts who are
ply sically unable at the time of con-
victiOn to perform hard labor should
he sent, and let the sentence begin
when the prisoner is discharged from
the hospital. 1t is a travesty upon the
law to sentence an individual to "hard
labor in the State Penitentiary" for
five years or for any period, who at
the time, is unable to do any kind of
labor-not even to wait upon himself
But such is the case, and it occurs
often. There are now patients i'll the
prison hospital who have never done
one hours work since they were SEN
fenced, and who probably never will,
and who instead of being punished by
the sentence, are better off than before
conviction. Then the prisoners who
become permanently disabled ought to
90 into the State Hospital.
3. Then the law ought to be so
amended as to require the Board of
Control to employ the requisite num-
Der of sergcants, say one for each
hundred and fifty convicts, who shall
be paid by the State so as to make
them entirely Independent of the
lessees or contractors and who shall
be sworn to faithfully observe all the
requirements of the law in the treat
ment and management Ofthe cOnvlcts,
and whose relations to the contractor
or lessee shall he prescribed by the
Board of Control, having in view the
rights of the lessee or contractor to
good, efficient and faithful work, as
the proper treatment of the prisoners.
4. Then no contract 81 lease ought
to be for a longer period than two
years, for the obvious reason that
each Legislature ought to be free to
make such changes and inaugurate
such reforms in the system as might
be made apparent and needful by the
enlightened progress of the age.
s. Then there ought to be a chap
lain employed and paid by the State
who shall give all his time to the ser
vice of the cOnvicts, looking after
their moral and spiritual needs. If
these changes We're made, think the
present system would work most
admirably.
The law-making power ought never
to lose sight of the objects of state
prison, first to prevent crime by
furnishing the convicts, thus lettering
others from its commission.
I'd, To reform the criminal. Any
system which makes the life of con-
Wet an easy or pleasant one makes
the penitentiary an asylum and not a
prison, and offers a premium lot
crime instead of preventing it; ana
any system which does not afford all
possible means for reformation Is
alike at fault.
These are the great objects OF
State prison and any desire that the
State should make money out OF the
labor of its cOnvicts at the expense OF
either of these great objects is degrad-
ing to the civilization of the age; but
if these two objects, the prevention Oh
crime and the reformation OF the
ooo 10 ann,nacSa1 and that