Oriental Prisons: Prisons and Crime in India, the Andaman Islands, Burmah, China, Japan, Egypt, Turkey — John Shaqi
Oriental Prisons: Prisons and Crime in India, the Andaman Islands, Burmah, China, Japan, Egypt, TurkeyGriffiths, Arthur
Religion
Oriental Prisons: Prisons and Crime in India, the Andaman Islands, Burmah, China, Japan, Egypt, Turkey
Griffiths, Arthur
Crime -- Asia -- History; Crime -- Middle East -- History; Prisons -- Asia -- History; Prisons -- Middle East -- History
“Juvenile delinquents, casual offenders, hardened thieves sentenced
to a long term of imprisonment, are all herded together without any
possibility of proper classification or separation. The condition of
the thirty-two whom I had seen at the court on the day before was
even worse than the others; they were all penned up together without
work. There they had been for many months; and still they all were
without any attempt being made to give them instruction, which might
improve their moral and intellectual condition. This state of things
was not owing to any neglect on the part of the superintendent, a man
of enlightened benevolence, who devoted himself heart and soul to
his work. The conditions of this gaol are such that though able and
willing to remedy all these evils if authority and means were given to
him, under the existing circumstances he is powerless. There is ample
room on the premises for him to construct separate cells for all the
prisoners with only the cost of material, but this is not granted to
him; he cannot therefore carry out the printed regulations that the
prisoners are not to be made worse while in custody. The regulations
direct that the juveniles shall be separated from the adults; this is
now simply impossible. Rules are made that the prisoners shall receive
instruction, but no salary is allowed for a schoolmaster; there is
no place appropriated for instruction and no time is granted for
schooling; there are ten hours for labour, two hours are requisite for
meals and rest and during the remainder of the twenty-four hours the
prisoners are locked up. It is indeed permitted by the regulations that
some prisoners may be employed as instructors but with the proviso
that their hours of labour shall not be abridged for the purpose. Such
instructors could not be expected to exercise any good moral influence
on the other prisoners; yet to commence with these, if any educated men
were among them, might lead to some better arrangement. The old college
hall might possibly be employed as a schoolroom for a couple of hours
after sunset; but light would then be required and oil did not form a
part of the authorised expenditure. There were, then, obstacles to any
kind of instruction being imparted to the prisoners which no amount of
earnestness on the part of the officials or the superintendent could
surmount.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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