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Page 60
[48] At a recent meeting of the Statistical Society, Mr. Murray
Browne gave some interesting information respecting the work of
Prisoners' Aid Societies among habitual offenders. "A question,"
he said, "had been addressed to all Discharged Prisoners' Aid
Societies asking what was their experience with regard to
prisoners who had been four times arrested but not sentenced to
penal servitude, and had been arrested during a given period, say
a year. How many of them has turned out (a) satisfactory, (b)
unsatisfactory, (c) re-convicted? Detailed replies were received
from fifteen different societies, not all working in the same way,
or with the same machinery, giving a total of 253 such cases. Of
these only 95 were reported as satisfactory, 55 were reported as
unsatisfactory, 66 were re-convicted, 37 being unknown or
unaccounted for."
It has also to be remembered that a considerable proportion of
incorrigible offenders are not only mentally but also physically
unfitted to earn their living in a free community. Almost always
without a trade, and very often the children of diseased and
degenerate parents, the only kind of work which they can turn to is
rude manual labour, and this is exactly the kind of work they have not
the requisite physical strength to perform. It is only in skilled
trades that the physically weak have a chance at all, and if a feeble
person is not a skilled artisan he will, unless possessed of superior
mental gifts, find it rather a hard matter to earn a comfortable
livelihood. Should it be the case that such a person is below the
average in body and mind, to earn a livelihood becomes almost an
impossibility. Now, this is exactly the position of many habitual
criminals, and more especially of that large class of them which is
being continually convicted and reconvicted of petty offences. What
can be said of them, except to repeat that they are unfit to take a
part in working the modern industrial machine; what can be done with
them except to seclude them in such a way that they will be no longer
able to injure those who can work it.
Outside the ranks of the incorrigible and incapable there exists a
large class of offenders who are perfectly able to earn a honest
living in the world. In many cases it happens that such men require no
assistance on their liberation from prison; they can resume work
immediately their sentence has expired. All that is needed is to send
them back to the district they were tried in, and this is what is
always done if a man cannot reach his destination by mid-day on the
morning of his liberation. But in a certain number of cases discharged
prisoners require more than this; they require tools, or clothes, or
property redeemed from pledge, or a lodging, or to be sent a long
distance home, or to be emigrated. In each and all of these cases,
persons who are not incorrigible criminals are assisted to the best of
their ability and the extent of their funds by Discharged Prisoners'
Aid Societies. One or more of these admirable institutions is attached
to every Local Prison, and every year a vast amount of quiet,
conscientious work is performed. These societies are voluntary
agencies formed for the relief of discharged prisoners. Their funds
are derived partly from private subscriptions and donations, partly
from ancient bequests, and partly from a small sum annually voted by
Parliament. They are conducted on the most economic principles, the
gentlemen who form the committee or who act as secretaries and
treasurers being mostly magistrates and men of substance, who gladly
give their time and services for nothing. The only person who has to
be paid is an agent whose duty it is to see that the recommendations
of the committee with respect to assisting the discharged prisoners
are carried into effect.
A glance at the work of one of these societies will be the best way of
forming a conception of their usefulness as a whole. For this purpose
let us select the Surrey and South London Discharged Prisoners' Aid
Society. In the prison in which the work of this excellent society is
conducted, 17 per cent. of the prison population applied for aid in
1887, and 10 per cent. were assisted, the 7 per cent. refused
assistance were habitual offenders, and had often been previously
helped. Of the number assisted, consisting of 969 persons, 54 were
sent to sea, 2 were assisted to emigrate, 913 were assisted in the way
of redemption of tools, purchase of stock, purchase of clothing, and
so on. In 1888, 929 persons were assisted, 54 were sent to sea, 4 were
helped to emigrate, and 871 aided in other ways. In 1889, assistance
was rendered in 1009 cases of these 36 were sent to sea, and 973
otherwise aided. The average cost per head of sending cases to sea is
three pounds, fourteen shillings; the average cost in other cases is
half a guinea.
What is being done by the Surrey Society is only a sample of the
assistance rendered to discharged prisoners all over England. It ought
also to be stated that some of these Aid Societies undertake to look
after the destitute families of persons committed to prison, and cases
innumerable might be mentioned in which prisoners' wives and children
have been assisted and kept out of the workhouse until the release of
the bread-winner. Other societies again provide permanent homes for
destitute offenders on their discharge from prison. All that is
required of persons making use of those homes is, that they shall earn
as much as will cover a portion of the expense of providing them with
food and shelter. For this purpose work is always provided for them,
or if they prefer it, they may find occupation outside and make the
home a sort of temporary resting-place. It is hardly necessary to add
that Prisoners' Aid Societies could effect much more if they were
better supported by the public. The organisation is there; the men to
work it are there; the only impediment to their labours is a lack of
funds. If the possession of adequate funds enabled all the Prisoners'
Aid Societies to establish Homes for discharged prisoners, those
institutions might be made of the greatest service to the cause of
justice generally. It would then be easy to get a return from them of
the number of persons whose criminal life was due to sheer indolence,
and magistrates would have far less hesitation in dealing with them
than they do now. At the present time, it is sometimes difficult to
know whether an offender is willing to work if he had the opportunity,
but the existence of prisoners' homes would soon solve the question.
Reference to a man's record in one of these institutions would at once
place the magistrate in full possession of the facts, and he would be
able to give judgment with a knowledge of the offender he does not now
possess. In this way many cruel mistakes might be avoided; and, on the
other hand, many hardened offenders dealt with in a more effective
manner.
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