1. One great and most powerful cause of the failure of the system, in reforming criminals in Pennsylvania, (and it may be added, in other states,) is the want of room for the convicts in the prison. During the day, two or three hundred are at work in the same yard (sawing marble,)and numerous small parties are engaged in various branches of business in rooms or workshops. At night, from thirty to forty are confined in the same sleeping rooms, the dimen sions of which are 20 by 18 feet.* In the first instance, the mere presence of numbers, and the bustle of the work going on, are sources of gratification : the conversation which most of them are enabled to hold is an additional enjoyment, and those painful reflections which solitude and silence would continually force upon them, and which would infallibly produce the most salutary effects, do not take place. It is a principle in the human mind, that company enables a man, living or dying, to bear bodily or mental suffering with more fortitude than when alone. But it is the assembling of the convicts at night that has tended, more than any other cause, to defeat the peniten tiary system. Solitude at night, is much more painful to any one without mental resources, than during the day, when the stimulus of light, and the sight of external ob jects, serve greatly to diminish the effects of ennui upon the human mind. But to one whose mind is not only un impressed with the recollection of a single good action, but filled with those of a wicked life, and of the situation it has brought him to, nightly solitude is the severest of all punishments. The depressing and sobering influ ence of such solitude is prevented, where many are con fined in the same room. It is known that, instead of sleeping, the convicts pass hours in conversation, and even form plots and schemes of future crimes;t and take pleasure in detailing scenes of villainy in which they have been engaged, and the expedients practised by them to avoid detection. Hence the older criminals serve as teach ers to the younger sinners, and prepare them for the com mission of greater crimes than those. for which they had been convicted. The seeds of infamy are thus matured in the young offender, the more wicked are confirmed in their evil ways ; and the prison, in place of answering the object for which the convicts are confined, viz. their re formation, becomes the nurse and seminary of vice. More than one convict have made declarations, upon which this conclusion is grounded. One of them, afterwards hung, (it is thought at Harrisburg) in giving an account of his progress in vice, in his dying confession, stated his hav ing passed some years in the Philadelphia prison, which he termed " the devil's school." Other facts might be stated to prove the position.
2. Another powerful cause of the defeat of the peniten tiary system, is the NUMEROUS P.XRDONS that have been granted to convicts, either at the request of the inspec tors of the prison, or of the criminals themselves, and their friends, by the governors of the state.
It has been found that artful villains, by exhibiting ap parent contrition for their crimes, and by the regularity of their conduct, and their industry, have so far imposed on the inspectors of the prison, as to induce them to re commend to the governor to grant a pardon, which has seldom or never in such cases been refused.t In some cases, they have been granted to make room for offenders recently convicted ; or as a reward to some of the crimi nals for having detected plots, and given information of intended insurrection in the prison ; and in some instances to thin the prison, in which, from its crowded state, ap prehensions were entertained of the origination of a con tagious fever, or the spreading of one that had actually appeared among the convicts. In other cases, none of the
reasons mentioned could be offered for the recommenda tion of the inspectors, or any reasonable excuse given for the exercise of the executive prerogative; as it is a fact, that wretches convicted of the most atrocious crimes have been turned loose upon society, in distant counties, even before they had reached the prison in Philadelphia, or af ter a short confinement therein. It is of incalculable im portance that more caution be used in future by the go vernors in pardoning, and by the inspectors in recom mending convicts to them, for exemption from the full penalty incurred by their crimes; and that measures be adopted to prevent the continuance of the evil, from what ever cause it may have proceeded ; for there can be no doubt, that they have emboldened the wicked in their course of iniquity, and thus tended to increase the public expenses by the repeated convictions of the same crimi nals; and, under any system of reformed management in penitentiaries, will, if continued, defeat the object of confinement, and even screen the wicked from punish ment. People also will become careless about the prose cution of an offender, when they find the laws and justice trifled with, by those appointed to see the punishment of the criminal duly inflicted ; and witnesses, for the same reason, will decline the disagreeable duty of coming for ward to aid in the conviction of offenders. Criminals will thus escape, and offenders be multiplied. The records of the Penitentiary of Philadelphia, and of those in the other states in which the penal system of Pennsylvania has been adopted, prove that repeated convictions of criminals have taken place, after pardons had been granted to them ; and the fact was stated by Governor Clinton, of New York, in his address to the legislature in the session of 1819. " We see," he observes, " offenders imprisoned on a third conviction ; and frequently the day after their re lease, by,pardon or expiration of sentence, witnesses their apprehension for new offences." Other causes that have contributed much to the little ef fect which confinement and labour in society have had upon criminals, are, 1. the number of inspectors of the prison ; 2. the short time for which they are appointed; and 3. the improper exercise of the discretion given them by the judges, in the execution of the sentences of convicts. The Inspectors are fourteen in number, and are chosen by the city corporation, and those of the Northern and Southern Liberties, to serve for one year. This number is much too great, for the experience of the world has amply proved, that however great the chance for increased wisdom in a multitude of counsellors may be, yet that a numerous executive is never efficient. The annual change of a part of them is highly prejudicial, for it often happens that after having acquired a knowledge of the duties of their office, made useful regulations, and feeling an interest in seeing them carried into effect, they are displaced by new and inexperienced persons, who go through their tour of duty with as little trouble to themselves as pos sible.