The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 3, January 1864) — John Shaqi
The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 3, January 1864)Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
History
The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 3, January 1864)
Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
Charities -- Periodicals; Prisons -- Periodicals
With all these the Society has relations by means of the Committee on
the County Prison, and to prevent interference in labors, and to secure
attendance at all the cells, the Committee is divided into classes, to
each of which is assigned a particular division of the prison, though a
member of the Committee is permitted to visit the inmates of any of the
cells, in addition to those specially assigned him. But it can scarcely
be doubted that where one visitor is punctual and faithful in his
labors, the interference of others may rather tend to disturb the mind
of prisoners than to aid them in the new path of duty upon which they
have hesitatingly entered. Such matters are, of course, left to the
judgment of visitors, who can easily discern when the ground is fully
occupied by a successful laborer. Too much culture is said to be almost
as fatal to vegetation as entire neglect. Frequency of interference by
persons of varied habits and different modes of approaching the
prisoner, can scarcely be productive of good, although each one
separately operating, might, with God’s blessing, work out an
incalculable amount of improvement.
The laborers at the County Prison are not so numerous as at the
Penitentiary, in proportion to the number and character of the inmates.
The County Prison is a less desirable field of labor. At the
Penitentiary the inmates have a fixed and protracted residence, and may
be approached by the same teacher so long as hopes are entertained that
“the continual dropping” of moral truths “will wear the stone” of his
heart. And his separation from those whose language or presence might
encourage his resoluteness in wrong intention, leaves him almost
entirely within the influence of those whose duty and pleasure it is to
make his banishment from bad society the means of his reformation.
At the County Prison, one large class of prisoners, by far the largest,
is always changing. Day by day the _vans_ arrive, crowded with wretches
who have entered upon the path of vice, and are hastening down that
terrible declivity. Incarceration for all crimes, commences here, even
though the criminal should be consigned to the Penitentiary when
convicted. The vicious, the drunkard, the disorderly, the peace-breaker,
and the vagrant, are committed to the prison, and must abide their
monthly incarceration, unless “sooner released by course of law.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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