It may be added that our proposals are the only <p 230>way of
settling the oft-recurring question as to the economic competition
(by the price of commodities), and the moral competition (in the
regularity of work) which prison labour unjustly wages with free
and honest labour. As a matter of fact, as prisoners can only
remain idle or work, they must clearly be made to work. But they
must be made to work at trades which come less into competition
with free labour and it is especially necessary to give prisoners
wages equal to those of free labourers, on condition that they pay
the State for their food, clothes, and lodging, whilst the
remainder goes to indemnify their victims.
Over the prison gates I should like to carve that maxim of
universal application: ``He who will not work, neither shall he
eat.''
V.
Since the novel proposals put forward half a century ago, amongst
others by doctors Georget and Brierre de Boismont, a whole library
of volumes has been published in favour of criminal lunatic
asylums. A few voices here and there were heard in opposition or
reserve, but these have almost entirely ceased.
Criminal lunatic asylums were adopted in England as early as 1786.
In 1815 Bethlehem Hospital was appropriated to criminal lunatics,
and the Broadmoor Asylum was founded in 1863. Similar asylums
exist at Dundrum in Ireland (1850), at Perth in Scotland (1858),
at New York (1874), and in Canada (1877).
On the continent of Europe there is not to this day a regular
asylum for mad criminals, though France, <p 231>after an
experiment in treating condemned madmen at Bic<e^>tre, opened a
separate wing for them in the prison at Gaillon. Holland has
assigned to them the hospital of Bosmalen (Brabant); Germany has
special wards in the establishments at Waldheim, Bruchsaal, Halle,
and Hamburg; and Italy, after founding a special ward in 1876, at
the establishment for relapsed prisoners at Aversa, has converted
the Ambrogiana establishment at Montelupo in Tuscany, into an
asylum for insane convicts, and for prisoners under observation as
being of unsound mind. The new Italian penal code, though not
openly recognising the foundation of asylums for criminals
acquitted on the ground of insanity, has, in its general spirit of
eclecticism, given judges the power of handing them over to the
competent authority when it would be dangerous to release them
(Art. 46). At the Montelupo Asylum criminals acquitted on the
ground of insanity are also detained, at first under observation,
then by a definite order from the president of the Tribunal, who
can revoke his order on the petition of the family, or of the
authorities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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