Wards of the State; An Unofficial View of Prison and the Prisoner (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III PENAL SERVITUDE: A TASTE OF LIFE AT PORTLAND A Sentence of penal servitude may be for three years or for life. Intermediate between these extremes are sentences of five, seven, fifteen, and twenty years. By " steady industry," allied to what is called in prison " good conduct" (a matter of mere passive obedience), a prisoner may earn remission of about one-fourth of the judge's award. This, under the " mark" system, means that he must pile up all the marks he can, and forfeit of them as few as may be. Jabez Balfour, whose prison life lasted ten years and five months, says that during the whole of this existence?the most monotonous, depressing, exacting, and irksome that can be imagined?he lost never a mark that could be won, had never a scratch against his name. Praise to whom praise is due ! That this constitutes a splendid record let the words which follow testify. " The life of a convict," says Mr. Balfour, " a life regulated by two or three gentlemen in Whitehall?is not to be judged by any of the standards which are applicable to a life of freedom. Seclusion, silence, shame, separation from one's fellows, aminute and pedantic control exercised by others over all one's actions, a steady, persistent course of off1cial snubbing from morn till eve?these are its normal conditions. The man who is brave enough to accept them and adapt himself to them may grow at length so accustomed, so acclimatised, to their influence, as to pass at least a tolerable existence. But this demands exceptional qualities and a tremendous effort." A life sentence signifies in general some twenty years, but the prisoner is not necessarily released at the end of this frightful term. I saw at Portland a convict, a reprieved murderer, who had been confined for five-and-twenty years....