Crime -- Great Britain; Criminal anthropology; Punishment -- Great Britain
worked, and it is quite conceivable that she might have been working there
yet, if she had not known that the reward of restraining herself would be
not so much a change in character, as freedom from any supervision when a
fixed term had expired.
The cause of the failure of the Inebriate Home did not lie in the
character of the inmates or of the officials who were placed over them,
but in the defect inherent in all institutions; the fact that the manner
of living in them differs essentially from anything that obtains outside.
They are all founded more or less on the military model, and the military
model and the industrial model are different. Far more than most of us
suspect we are the creatures of habit:--often of habit acquired slowly,
gradually, and unconsciously. To remove ourselves from one place to
another implies the breaking off from some habits, but it also implies the
formation of others. It did not need the experience of the Inebriate Home
to let us know that men might be removed from the opportunity of drinking
for long periods and, on return to their former conditions, resume the
habit. Years of imprisonment, where teetotalism is rigidly enforced and
where the diet is of a non-stimulating character, did not make the men who
were submitted to it abstain from drinking on their release. The
objectionable habit can only be cured through being replaced by something
which is of equal interest, has greater power, and enables the man to live
his life without being a nuisance to his neighbours.
When men or women are placed in association with one another, they have to
find some common bond of interest. In every voluntary association this is
recognised. Religion causes some to cut themselves off from the world and
to devote their lives to its pursuit. Men differing in social positions,
in age, in experience, in character, in temperament, join together to form
a community. The one thing they have in common is their form of belief.
They may differ as widely as possible in their views on other subjects,
but these differences are not the thing that holds them together. They
would rather tend of themselves to break up the association, since
disagreement drives people apart. The differences are only tolerable
because of the bond of agreement which is strong enough to compensate
them. On this subject and around it they may talk. The experience of each
will interest the other, will enlighten him, will at any rate be
considered by him. The same is true of political associations. Differences
there are amongst the members, but these differences cannot go beyond the
point at which some common agreement balances them, without breaking up
the association.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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