And there are
indications that we do use the dark cell, described by Dr. MacDonald,
above, as more inhumane than the lash. If this expert be correct, he
gives us a standard whereby to measure how inhumane they must be.
I cannot go on, though I have used only a fraction of my notebook.
Moreover, I am inclined to think that the physical punishments I have
instanced are not the worst that are administered in Atlanta and perhaps
in other prisons. Great ingenuity is shown in the application of mental
tortures, which have their outcome in insanity, but which never can be
investigated by commissions and inspectors. An insane man is as safe as
a dead man--if he tells tales, no one will pay attention to him. The
cat-and-mouse game is a favorite with the inhumane type of wardens. Give
your man alternations of hope and despair, and the results will soon
reward your pains. Then there are the insults, the gibes and threats,
the obscure forms of tyranny and outrage, the degradation of
manhood--there are a hundred subtle ways of destroying and corrupting
the spirit of a man. To be compelled to occupy the same cell with
certain types of criminals is a most successful form of inhumanity; and
when, as often happens, one of the two is a comparatively innocent boy,
the results are awful. "Insufficient number of cells" is the explanation
given; and at Atlanta at least there are the unfinished cell houses,
which might have been finished years ago, had the appropriations been
properly applied.
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