Crime -- England -- London -- History -- 19th century; London (England) -- Moral conditions; London (England) -- Social conditions
“Suppose a man of this sort in prison. His eyes are opened, and he sees
before him the gulf of remediless ruin into which he will soon be
plunged. He knows well enough that the money earned by thieving goes as
fast as it comes, and that there is no prospect of his ever being able to
retire on his ill-gotten gains. He comes out of prison, determined to
reform. But where is he to go? What is he to do? How is he to live?
Whatever may have been done for him in prison, is of little or no avail,
if as soon as he leaves the gaol he must go into the world branded with
crime, unprotected and unhelped. The discharged prisoner must be
friendly with some one, and he must live. His criminal friends will
entertain him on the understood condition that they are repaid from the
booty of his next depredation. Thus the first food he eats, and the
first friendly chat he has, becomes the half necessitating initiative of
future crime. Frequently the newly discharged prisoner passes through a
round of riot and drunkenness immediately on his release from a long
incarceration, as any other man would do in similar circumstances, and
who has no fixed principles to sustain him. And so by reason of the
rebound of newly acquired liberty, and the influence of the old set, the
man is again demoralized. The discharged prisoner leaves gaol with good
resolves, but the moment he enters the world, there rises before him the
dark and spectral danger of being hunted down by the police, and being
recognised and insulted, of being shunned and despised by his fellow
workmen, of being everywhere contemned and forsaken.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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