And this I know that every law, That men have made for man, Since man first took his brother’s life, And the wretched world began, But scatters the wheat and saves the chaff With a most unlucky fan! This too I know and wise it were If each could know the same That every prison that men have built, Is built of bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXIX DOES IMPRISONMENT REFORM? This is a hard question to answer, although it has been asked extensively down through the ages. The answer will turn mainly on what you mean by reform. It is interesting to know that students of criminology have wrestled with the question, but cannot agree on the answer. As an abstract question it is very clear to us that imprisonment of itself cannot reform. Force cannot change a life, nor restore the image of God in the soul. When a lawbreaker is placed inside the walls of a prison, force uses the machinery of the institution to compel him to pay the penalty of the law. But it cannot reform him, nor make him a better man, nor change his nature. That work must be done by a higher Power. Not only can it be truthfully said that imprisonment does not reform the law-breaker, but in most of our prisons the culprit has only to serve a brief sentence, to come out a worse man than when he went in. This is a sad statement to make, when we think of all our boasted liberties and advanced civilization, but it is nevertheless true. For the explanation of this condition of affairs it is not necessary to look far. The fact is, the unfortunate lack of proper classification in all of our prisons makes the companionship of thieves and cutthroats so demoralizing, the fellowship so infectious, the language and habits so debasing, that out of thousands of persons who mingle together in a modern prison, few escape the contaminating influences. When a man has been charged with a crime, the first thing that is done by society is to arrest him and lock him up in a little dark dungeon, 4x6 feet, with hardly enough cubic space of air coming in through the small iron grating to make it sanitary. Here he is kept weeks and sometimes months before a trial is given him, breathing the fetid atmosphere of the institution, which after a time poisons his entire system, and paints his face with the prison pallor.