A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis: Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their PreventionColquhoun, Patrick
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A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis: Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their Prevention
Colquhoun, Patrick
Crime -- England -- London; Police -- England -- London
The advantages in contemplation are to be attained by carrying into
effect a _proposal for a new and less expensive mode of employing and
reforming Convicts_, which has been offered to the consideration of
Government by JEREMY BENTHAM, Esq. and which appears to have been
fully investigated by the Finance Committee, who state it (p. 20, of
Report 28,) "to be no small recommendation to the plan, that the
Contractor proposes to employ the prisoners on his own account,
receiving a proportionally smaller sum from the Public for their
maintenance.--That the great and important advantages which
distinguish that plan from any other which has been hitherto
suggested, consist in the certain employment and industrious
livelihood which it insures to those whose terms of confinement are
expired. In the responsibility which the Contractor proposes to take
upon himself, for the future good behaviour of Criminals entrusted to
his care, even when they shall be no longer under his control: in the
publicity which is meant to be given to the whole conduct and effect
of the Establishment, _moral_, _medical_, and _oeconomical_, as well
by an annual report of the state and proceedings, as by the constant
facility of inspection, which will in an unusual manner be afforded by
the very form and construction of the building, upon which the prompt
and easy exercise of the superintending power of the Governor himself
principally depends."
These advantages appear to the Committee of more importance, when the
periods of the enlargement of the several Convicts now on board the
Hulks are taken into consideration. The pernicious effects produced
upon the unfortunate persons confined in these seminaries of vice; and
the circumstance of 1411 destined to be enlarged in the course of 7
years, to afflict the Society from which they have been separated--the
Committee consider as deserving of very serious consideration: and
they conclude their view of the subject by expressing, an uncommon
degree of solicitude, that no delay should take place in the execution
of the contract with Mr. Bentham, "because it would deprive the Public
for a longer time of the benefits of a plan, which they cannot but
look to as likely to be productive of the most essential advantage,
both in point of oeconomy and Police."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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