No matter how unexceptionable the behavior of
a prisoner were shown to be, it was open to the board to say to him, "We
hold that your liberation would be inimical to the welfare of society,
and we cannot therefore recommend it to the Department."
The prisoner, going before the board unsupported by the advice of
counsel, had no further recourse; he must go back to his cell feeling
that all his efforts to be obedient (persisted in through what
discouragements only prisoners know) had been futile; that he was not a
whit better off than was a man who had defied every regulation, and was
worse off in so far as he had taken all his pains and indulged all his
hopes for nothing. He must serve out his time; for if he renewed his
application at the next meeting of the board, he was told that nothing
could be done in his case except upon the presentation of "new
evidence."
New evidence of what? The obstacle he had to meet was the arbitrary
opinion, or fiat, of the board that it would not be a good thing to set
him free; with what argument, except his good conduct, which had already
proved unavailing, could he hope to reverse it? The decision left him
helpless and hopeless, and with a sense of despotic injustice on the
part of the authorities which was anything but conducive to good
discipline in him or in his comrades who were conversant with his fate.
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