Observations on the penitentiary system and penal code of Pennsylvania, with suggestions for their improvement / by James Mease.
- James Mease
- Date:
- 1828
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on the penitentiary system and penal code of Pennsylvania, with suggestions for their improvement / by James Mease. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![litude; that it is the most beneficial means of working reform; far better than corporal punishment, which, when severe, hardens them more than any thing else. He adds, reflec- tion with low diet, are the causes of the good effect of soli- tary confinement. Mr. Stokes, governor of the house of correction at Horsley, says, that solitary confinement is a much greater punishment without work than with it. To the question, * Do you think a convict would go out better, if he had been employed during the month of confinement you speak of?' the reply is, no, nor half. The prisoner who is employed, passes his time smooth and comfortable, and he has a portion of his earnings; but if he has no labour, and kept under the discipline of the prison, it is a tight piece of punishment to go through. My opinion is, that if they are kept according to the rules of the prison, and have no labour, that one month would do more than six, [with labour.] I am certain, that a man who is kept there without labour once, will not be very ready to come there again.* A convict lately in the Philadelphia prison, was asked, Did you stay in Rhode Island, after your release from the solitary cells, there? Oh, no, I gave them wide sea-room. He re- newed his depredations, but in Pennsylvania, where the cells are reserved for punishing atrocious and turbulent convicts. For such characters, darkness and bread and water for diet, ought to be joined to solitude. The probable increased effi- cacy of total abstraction of light, must be obvious to all, and as to its absolute effect, there can be no doubt, having been repeatedly proved. The governor of the jail at Devises, says, that he had only one occasion to use the dark cell, in the case of the same prisoner, twice. He considered punish- ment in a dark cell for one day, had a greater effect upon a prisoner, than to keep him on bread and water for a month.t In prisons, where work is deemed preferable to solitary * Evidence before the committee of the House of Commons, in 1819, p. 391—quoted in the Edinburgh Review, No. 70, p. 295. f Evidence, p. 359.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21140297_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
