Time, toil and
money are frittered away, with nothing definite or substantial to show
for it. Intermittent and barren tasks are doubly onerous. The overseers
may not be to blame; they may be incompetent; they may be hampered by
the ignorance, incompetence or voluntary policy of the prison
authorities; the consequences, at all events, are disastrous. If a
handful of hearty, clever, driving men were given control of the various
industrial operations in the prison, the results would seem magical.
There is dry rot or something worse everywhere; and it is difficult to
believe that anything is gained by it either for the convict or for the
country. It is to be sure punishment for the former, and a bad form of
punishment, but it would be grotesque to assume that it is inflicted by
design of our lawmakers. It cannot be that the government deliberately
proposes to destroy convicts, mind and body; on the contrary, we must
suppose that it wishes to reform them and render them again useful
agents in the community. There is no way to do this better than to give
them honest and productive work while in jail, so that they may acquire
the habit of such work, and be encouraged to pursue it when they get
out.
But in order to induce them to work economically, it is indispensable to
give them continuous, intelligent, and manifestly useful work, and to
pay them for doing it.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169