The successful management of a prison, he says, "demands special
knowledge and ability. This knowledge should first of all consist in a
comprehensive general education, so that the head of a prison may be
able to form a competent opinion in all those branches of knowledge
which bear upon the punishment of crime. He thus stands on a footing
of equality with his subordinates. If he is deficient in this
knowledge he will not be able to carry out the sentences of the law
efficiently, and the maintenance of his official authority will be
encumbered with difficulties. He must also possess an understanding of
the economic and social causes of crime as well as of its individual
causes. An understanding of its economic and social causes supposes
that he should be acquainted with the principles of sociology and
political economy; an understanding of its individual causes supposes
that he should know something of psychology. The historical,
philosophic, and legal aspects of criminal jurisprudence as well as
its formal contents ought not to be unknown ground. In the domain of
prison science he should be thoroughly at home. He ought to be
acquainted with the historical development of punishment by
imprisonment, as well as with the nature of the various prison systems
in existence among modern civilised communities. He ought to have a
clear understanding of the aim and object of imprisonment, and be
thoroughly cognisant of the legal and administrative arrangements by
which it is effected, more especially those of his own State. He
should possess a competent knowledge of all matters and regulations
bearing upon prison administration, so that his own arrangements may
be based upon a ripened judgment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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