Page:A Note on Pauperism.pdf/10



The same problem applies to prisoners. It always appears the greatest non sequitur to give e.g. to a forger 'five years' penal servitude,' i.e. provision and lodging in prison. What has that to do with his crime? But, if you sentence him to repay (say) twice the amount he had stolen, his sustenance to be repaid meanwhile to the State out of his earnings, and let him go whenever he had done so, that would be something like a reformatory.

The object is: to teach a man that it is dearer to steal than to work. Hitherto the object of our laws seems to have been to teach that it is dearer to work than to steal, and not only this, but that it is dearer to work than to beg.

Labour should be made to pay better than thieving. At present, it pays worse. To gaol governors it is well known that certain 'excellent' prisoners, very good artisans who work well at their trade in prison, will leave it as soon as they are out, because they have a better trade 'to look to,' viz. professional thieving.

As for the common run of prisoners, we know what their educational imprisonments do for them. Take an example which appeared the other day. B, aged 8, entered the 'professional dishonesty' trade in 1856; during the next twelve years up to the present date, was in prison eleven times, some of these considerable terms, one for four years; in fact, he merely came out of prison to perform the forty or fifty successful thefts—the 'three months of safe and pleasant practice'—which is the average de rigueur before being re-caught; and to go in again. He is now 20. We ask ourselves why we are put to the expense of keeping him in prison. Is it merely to prevent him from stealing during that time? Had he been made to work out the value (or twice the value) of his theft, he would have learnt that it is dearer to steal than to work. It certainly costs a great deal more at present to give him this prison provision and home than it does to provide permanent maintenance for honest starving people.

And the remedy, we are told, for this increasing crime is to pay for more police, for more supervision of criminals out of prison, and we suppose for more imprisonments!