Of the conditions which
generate them, a part is the prisons and their keepers. But we are not
yet at the root of the matter--the keepers are not primarily to blame.
It is the principle which prisons illustrate which attracts and molds
keepers till they become often as bad as the men they have charge of,
and often much worse.
Prisons mean social selfishness, the disowning of our own flesh and
blood. They segregate visible consequences of social disease; but the
disease is invisibly present in all parts of the body corporate, and
can no more be healed by cutting off the visible part than we can
heal small pox by cutting out the pustules. Prisons are not the right
remedy; they inflame and disseminate the poison we would be rid of
and prevent any chance of cure. The soul of all crime is self-seeking
in place of neighborly good will; we send men to prison to get them
out of our way, and that is criminal self seeking and ill will to the
neighbor--delegating to hirelings our own proper business.
In attempting thus selfishly to extirpate crime, we commit the crime
least of all forgivable--the denial of human brotherhood and
responsibility. For that crime, no law sends us to prison; yet it is no
sentimental notion, but the truth, that it is a crime worse than those
for which we imprison men. Prisons are brimful of men less guilty before
God than is the society that condemned them.
Pages:
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279