The Twin Hells: A Thrilling Narrative of Life in the Kansas and Missouri PenitentiariesReynolds, John N. (John Newton)
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The Twin Hells: A Thrilling Narrative of Life in the Kansas and Missouri Penitentiaries
Reynolds, John N. (John Newton)
Prisons -- Kansas; Prisons -- Missouri
The State should not provide this machine for the moral destruction
of her unfortunate youth. If this be the real and true condition of
affairs, what can be done to change them? I would suggest the erection,
at once, of a reformatory. Classify the prisoners. Let those who are in
for the first offense be separated from those who are professional and
debased criminals. Give these youthful offenders the benefit of schools,
connected with the reformatory. Let them have moral instruction, and
many of these young men will be reclaimed, However well a criminal is
treated, when behind prison walls, however good the advantages granted
him, all this will avail but little, if some provision is not made to
aid him when he leaves the prison. Many prisoners, at the time of their
discharge, may be, in heart, as pure as angels, and resolve to lead
good lives, yet they are convicts, and carry out with them the shame and
disgrace of such a life. They must live even if they are disgraced. They
must have work. Who will employ a convict? Should a man, just from
the prison, come to you and frankly inform you that he was recently
discharged from a felon's cell, that he had been convicted of
horse-stealing, for instance, and wanted employment with you on the
farm, how many of you, my readers, would give him work? You would be
afraid of him. You would decline his services, and who could blame
you? But the convict must live, and it is easily seen, how, that after
applying to several for work and being refused each time on account of
his past trouble, he would, after a time, become discouraged and return
to a life of a criminal. Hunger drives him to deeds of desperation, and
more especially is this the case if he have a wife or helpless children
depending upon him. On his discharge from the prison the State presents
him, with a shoddy suit of clothes (very cheap), buys him a ticket
for the town from which he came, and then lets him shift for himself.
Disgraced, penniless, friendless, helpless, how is it possible for
anyone of them ever to secure another foothold in life.
Something should be done, to help these men to secure work for a time
after their discharge from prison. This would prevent a vast majority of
criminals from returning to the prison after their first term. That my
views on this subject may not be considered visionary, and that I may
not be regarded as standing alone in my suggestions, I will give a
portion of the report of Rev. J. Gierlow, ex-chaplain of the Missouri
penitentiary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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