Remarks on the principles of criminal legislation, and the practice of prison discipline / by George Combe.

  • George Combe
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the principles of criminal legislation, and the practice of prison discipline / by George Combe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The Act substitutes penal servitude for transportation, according to the following scale:— Instead of transportation for seven years, penal servitude for four years. Instead of transportation exceeding seven years and under ten, penal servitude for not less than four, and not exceeding six years. Instead of transportation exceeding ten years, and not exceed- ing fifteen years, penal servitude for not less tlian six, and not exceeding eight years. Instead of transportation exceeding fifteen years, penal seivi- tude for a term not less than six, and not exceeding ten years. Instead of transportation for life, penal servitude for life. Sect. VI. defines penal sei-vitude to mean confinement in any prison in the United Kingdom, or in any river, port, or harbour of the same, in which persons under sentence or order of trans- portation may now be confined; or in any other prison in Great Britain, or in any part of her Majesty's dominions beyond the seas, as one of the principal Secretaries of State may direct, accompanied by hard labour and all other penal inflictions in force at the time of passing the Act. The Queen and the Lord- Lieutenant of I]'eland continue to enjoy the power of pardoning ofi'enders and mitigating punishments. After four, six, or more yesu's, then, spent in penal serNatude, the great mass of our convicts will be returned into the bosom of society. The reader will judge of their probable influence on tlie population when he is told, on the authority of Mr. Burt, that the number of criminals yearly consigned to the prisons of England, Wales, and Scotland, ranges not very wide of 150,000. Of these, the number convicted of offences whicli render them hable to transportation, ranges somewhere about 30,000, and of these the number actually sentenced to transportation is (in round numbers) about 3000. In four years, therefore, from the 1st of September last, the prison gates will annually open and send forth these large numbers of convicted felons into the ordinary walks of life. Can any question be of graver importance to eacli of us than—How, during the years of confinement, shall these prisoners, consisting of individuals of each sex, be fitted to re- enter society ? Two of the works named in our title are devoted to the solution of this problem ; and to give an idea of the extent to whicli past experience has enabled the best informed official administrators of prisons to decide on the nature of the treatment which should be pursued to fit the convicts for civil life, we shall first advert to the suggestions offered by Jolni Howard nearly eighty years ago, and then select a few passages from each of