These acts, taken in conjunction with the Menial Deficiency Act of 1913, an invaluable measure for relieving prisons of the great burden and difficulty of providing for the custody under proper conditions of a very considerable number of persons of proved mental deficiency, practically complete the legislative changes of the last 3o years, and their salutary operation, aided of course by many other social causes making for the moral betterment of the community and the raising of the general standard of life, has had an almost phenomenal result, so far as the population of prisons is concerned Fifty years ago the number of persons sent to prison in a year stood as high as over 600 per 1oo,000 of population. A gradual, though not unbroken fall took place until the year before the war when it stood at 37o. At the time of cessation of hostilities it reached its lowest point, 7o, but with the return to normal con ditions it has not risen higher than 120 and the last figure for 1926 was 115.
Before the war and the passing of the act of 1914, there had been nearly i oo,000 sentences annually to two weeks or less. For the year ending Dec., 1926, there were under 7,000.
Great Britain and the United States did not adhere to this movement, until the Paris congress, 1895; at the congress of Washington, 191o, Sir E. Ruggles Brise was elected president and this led to an invitation of the British Government to hold the next congress in London, which took place accordingly in 1925, having been postponed from 1915 owing to the outbreak of the World War.
The leading note was struck by the resolution of the London congress 1872, viz., that "moral regeneration should be the pri mary aim of prison discipline and that hope should always be a more powerful agent than fear." Although before this date, there had been spasmodic movements in many countries of Europe for the reform of prisons and prisoners, prison "sys tems," so far as they can be said to have existed at all, were devised mainly with a view to repression or deterrence ; and what has since become the leading principle in dealing with crime, viz.: The individualization of punishment, i.e., the adaptation of pun ishment to the different degrees of moral guilt and the infinite variety of mental and physical attributes, affecting responsibility, found only a very limited expression in the penal law and prison management of different countries.
Twenty-four countries are now (1928) annually represented on the international prison commission, viz. : Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Luxemburg, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and, outside Eu rope, the United States of America, Union of South Africa, British India and New Zealand, and Japan. The frequent opportunity for intercourse and exchange of views, afforded by periodical meetings of the commission at their central bureau, Berne, Switzer land, has been now for many years slowly creating a solidarite between nations, resulting in a general agreement not only as to the fundamental conditions of imprisonment, but also as to those preventive measures which obviate the necessity for imprisonment at all.
The modern school of l'hygiene preventive to which succeeding prison congresses give increasing voice and impetus, holds the field today. It advocates prevention which will operate by the elim ination of the social causes which create unhealthy environment and by the encouragement of scientific treatment of the weak in mind or in body, so that, if possible the germs of anti-social con duct may be diagnosed, before it is too late, and if possible de stroyed by appropriate handling and treatment. These are coun sels of perfection, which the future may see developed into actualities.
After 2,000 years we are coming back to the old Roman definition of prison, viz.: ad continendos, non ad puniendos. Prison will be primarily for safe custody and there will be no penal infliction beyond deprivation of liberty, which is, after all, the only and the greatest punishment. Subject to this, every pos sible effort will be made by industrial training, by education, moral and religious, by lectures and debates, by well-organized visita tion, to create a sense of dignity and self-respect and of duty to the State and to all fellow creatures. (E. R.-BR.) The establishment of prisons in America was associated with the Revolutionary War. The centre from which this innovation spread was Philadelphia, where the humanitarian influence of the Society of Friends was strongest. The movement towards the provision of prisons also owed something to the work of Beccaria and John Howard, with which the American reformers were well acquainted. The Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 ordered legis lation introducing imprisonment and this was first actually pro vided by an act of 1786, which substituted for corporal punishment in case of certain crimes "continuous hard labour, publicly and dis gracefully imposed." The early history of American prisons centres chiefly in the struggle between the Pennsylvania and Auburn systems of prison discipline. The former, introduced in the Walnut street jail at Philadelphia in 1790 and applied in the Eastern penitentiary at Cherry Hill in Philadelphia from 1829 onward, soon followed in other States. It rested upon the principle of solitary confine ment during the period of imprisonment, hoping that solitude would not only prevent vicious and degrading association with other criminals, but also promote earnest Christian reflection pro ductive of efforts at self-reformation. The records show that it produced more insanity than reformation. The State penitentiary in Auburn, N.Y., established between 1816 and 1824, provided for separate confinement at night in small cells, but allowed congregate labour in the prison shops during the day and meals in common. Silence was enforced while the prisoners were congregated so that the Auburn system became known as the "silent" system, as contrasted with the Pennsylvania or "soli tary" system. A prison on the Auburn plan was recommended as more economical to erect and administer. Due mainly to the efforts of Louis Dwight of the Prison Discipline Society of Bos ton, the Auburn system prevailed in the United States. The Pennsylvania system was experimented with briefly in Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania; in Europe, however, it was much more highly esteemed than the Auburn plan.