Crime -- Great Britain; Criminal anthropology; Punishment -- Great Britain
There are three forms of religion recognised in prison: the Presbyterian,
Roman Catholic, and Episcopalian. A service is held once a week by a
clergyman of each of these Churches, and the Presbyterians go out to
prayers daily.
The chapel has a more or less ecclesiastical appearance, and is divided in
such a way that the male and the female prisoners do not see each other,
though the preacher can see both divisions. Most of the prisoners do not
attend religious services when they are at liberty, but some make an
ingenious distinction between religion and conduct. I remember one old
woman who had grown grey and almost blind after a long course of vicious
and criminal conduct. She was eloquent regarding a person whom she
described as being "nae better than an infidel." I replied that "at least
he had kept out of prison," and she replied, "Aye; but though I have been
a drunkard, a blackguard, and a thief, thank God I never neglected my
religion."
I do not know whether the Salvation Army representatives are more
effective as religious agents than the other visitors. Their work is
certainly better advertised, and they belong usually to the same social
rank as many of the prisoners. The religion they teach, if more
emotionally expressed, is not different from that taught by the other
visitors; but they can appeal to the prisoner more effectively because
they are better able than many others to appreciate and sympathise with
the difficulties and temptations under which the wrongdoer has fallen.
Many of those in prison are not there because of idleness. They have
worked harder in their day than the people who talk eloquently about the
dignity of labour. Neither are they there because, like the heathen, they
have never heard the message of the gospel. As a matter of fact, most of
them can never get away from the voice of the preacher for any long time,
for the evangelists are abroad nightly singing hymns and exhorting the
public in all the poorer working-class districts. They have worked hard
enough to earn money and are in prison because they have not known how to
spend it wisely. In prison they are not taught useful work, and as little
are they taught how to recreate themselves after work. Their day may be
divided into four parts: There is a time for eating; there is a time for
working; and what they do and what food they have has already been shown.
There is a time for sleeping: they go to bed early in the evening and rise
early in the morning. "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man----"
well, it doesn't. At any rate, the inmates of the prison have not
attracted attention hitherto on account of their wealth or their wisdom.
Then there is a time left for meditation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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