Remarks on prisons / By Stevenson MacGill.

  • Stevenson Macgill
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on prisons / By Stevenson MacGill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    \ 3 their crimes have incurred. It is obvious, however, that even with respect to such persons, justice and humanity require, that no evils be added, which are not implied in the design of their imprisonment, and the nature of their sentence. These observations apply, with equal force, to the case of persons, the direct punishment of whose crimes is imprisonment. The law may connect such circum- stances of hardship with privation of liberty, as their crimes have merited, and the interests of the community may require. But what these circumstances are, the sentence of the Judge should pronounce. Such evils as the law did not contemplate in the punishment of their crimes, whether they arise from the harshness and caprice of superintendants, a bad establishment, or careless management, are equally contrary to equity, humanity, and good government. The confinement of persons for debt, is a case which still remains to be considered. The just causes for imprisonment, on account of debt, seem, to me, to be chiefly the following: to prevent the debtor from leaving the country, before a fair account of his estate has been given, and his conduct been fully investigated*, or, as a punishment of negligence, profligacy, fraud, obstinacy, dishonest schemes, or any criminal actions, which the debtor has committed. t
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