Fry, Elizabeth Gurney, 1780-1845; Prison reformers -- Biography
For the employment of prisoners she recommends such occupations as
patchwork, knitting stockings, making articles of plain needlework,
washing, ironing, housework, cooking, spinning, and weaving. It should
in all cases be _constant_, and in the worst cases, _disciplinary_
labor. She recommends, under _strict limitations_, the treadmill for
hardened, refractory, and depraved women, but only for short periods.
All needleworkers especially should receive some remuneration for their
work, which remuneration should be allowed to accumulate for their
benefit by such time as their sentences expire, in order that when they
leave prison they may possess a little money wherewith to commence the
world afresh. Her words are: "The greater portion of their allotted
share of earnings, however, must be reserved for them against the time
of their leaving prison and returning to the world. The possession of a
moderate sum of money will _then_ be found of essential importance as
the means of preventing an almost irresistible temptation, the
temptation of want and money, to the renewal of criminal practices. And
if, in laboring for this remuneration the poor criminal has also gained
possession of the _habit_ of industry, and has learned to appreciate
the sweets of regular employment, it is more than probable that this
temptation may never occur again."
Mrs. Fry quotes largely from the Act of Parliament, relative to the
matters of diet, medical attendance, clothing, bedding, and firing. It
seemed to be the fact that the provisions of this Act did not extend to
prisons which were exclusively under local jurisdiction; she therefore
recommends lady visitors and committees to see them enforced as much as
possible. While preserving even-handed justice between criminals and the
country whose laws they have outraged, by suggesting that their
treatment should be sufficiently penal to be humiliating, that their
hair should be cut short, and all personal ornaments forbidden, she
pleads earnestly for proper bedding and firing. She says: "During
inclement weather, diseases are sometimes contracted by the unfortunate
inmates of our jails, which can never afterwards be removed. I believe
it has sometimes happened that poor creatures committed to prison for
trial, have left the place of their confinement, acquitted of crime, and
yet crippled for life."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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