“HIS MAJESTY’S GUESTS”

Evening Star, Issue 20422, 1 March 1930, Page 24

“HIS MAJESTY’S GUESTS”

SECRETS OF THE CELLS /’Written by B. E. Baugh an, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] The subject of ibis article is a book, tailed ‘His Majesty’s Guests,’ and written by one “ Warden,” who explains in the first pages that he has for twentyfive years been an officer in the English prison service; so that one must admit his right to speak on the subject from his own angle of vision. And the angle is unusual, 'so that the speech is the more .welcome. The prisons that “Warden” lias served in have been those of Dartmoor, Portland, and Parkhurst. All are “ penal ” prisons,” and apparently the writer’s knowledge about them all is up to date. To Princeton, on Dartmoor, 1 remember once to have been taken, as a child, on a pleasure party; and never shall I forgot the gloom of that place, oven on a fine day (but perhaps it was, as usual, raining), and the horrible spectacle presented by a gang of convicts going, I suppose, to or fiopi work on the moor, but like no other workmen I had ever seen; for their queer, grotesque clothing was sprinkled all over with arrow-heads, their caps were perched on shaven skulls, and their faces, scowling up at our carriage-load of sightseers, afflicted my childish mind for many days after with a heavy sense of evil. I have always thought Princetown ever since as a ‘kind of hell .and reading this book has but deepened that sinister impression. But I used to think of its inhabitants ns demons, whereas now 1 know too well that they were but human beings, and the ‘‘evil ” that I sensed quite accurately in tny childish %va,y was not all or only in them. And reading this book has deepened that conviction, too. A newspaper editor in New Zealand once observed that the reason the community sends wrongdoers to prison generally is because they really don t k)iow what else to do with them. And 1 think this is true, and that such a policy nowadays is but a confession of ignorance. England, of late, Jins been trying other methods ,and 'she is finding them succeed. How .1 wish we would copy her! Tier Borstals for boys, unlike ours are arranged, like her great schools, in “ houses ” or groups, whose “ housemaster ” studies the weaknesses of character in each individual of his hock (and the “strengths,” too, let us hope, since these are the true “growing points”), ami studies, too, how to help the lad overcome them. At Wakefield Prison there is a real attempt at some kind of community life, not mere “ individualised punishment,” but corporate welfare, whereby each may realise that he is indeed part of a whole, and a part that matters—the very thing most law-breakers don’t properly understand at nil, whence their offences. And T don’t think that the men at Wakefield would have been _ refused the community right in a tiine of national disaster that was a-efusoc our own prisoners at Mount Eden wr.o wished to contribute to the West Coast earthquake fund, but for some departmental reason were not allowed to do so. I think the Wakefield authorities would have hailed with delight that little manifest spark of social feeling, and advertised it, too. For in England they arc trying to reduce crime, and certainly they are redlining prisons. They have been at it since the beginning of the century, and what is the result? . “The country is becoming more law-abiding, and the law is increasingly disinclined to send people to prison when they are likely to benefit more front discipline and guidance,” says Mr Shortt, a former Home Secretary. Tf people are becoming more lawabiding in a country that is altering some of its prisons into schools of social teaching, and has closed twenty-four others in recent years, does it not look as though there may ho something in ordinary imprisonment that really makes men and women worse, and leads to crime? 1 have long been thinking so myself, and now hero is Warden," in this book, witli twenty-five years’ experience ol “ penal prisons,” going ever so much further than I have been able to dp, roundly asserting that prison life does not reform, and showing at least pome of the reasons why. “Over and over again,” he writes. “ our great jurists have laid it down that punishment in the modern sense is not vengeful reprisal ■ . • but 1 am profoundly convinced that, if the searchlight of complete publicity were to Imj turned on the prisons the amazing hypocrisy -. of the “exports” would bo instantly revealed, and an agitation like nothing since the days of John Howard would be set afoot to alter an intolerable state of affairs.”

Why, what can he possibly mean? Are not oiir prisoners all clean ami clothed and nourished and sheltered? Do they not quite often., in New Zealand at any rate, even put on weight? What more can he done tor law-break-ers? One might reply; “-What less can ho clone for farm slock?” It is not the physical part of the prisoner that is tortured nowadays, hut it is the mental, the emotional, the social—in a word, the human. “ T was mentally and morally starved there,” a man From one of our healthiest penal institutions, often proudly boasted of by members of the Prison Hoard, told me once. “It is the utter monotony which kills,” cries “ Warden,” and the calculated repression, which is as stupid as it is cruel.” “ How can we ho unselfish hero?” wrote a man in prison to mo once, “ What have wo that we can share? It is a case of every man for himself,” ho added in effect, ing how utterly “ unsocialising ” the whole discipline is. “ A groat _ deal Of prison ' crime ’ arises out of irrita tion”, (“Somehow I can’t seem to keep my temper here” —how often have I heard that!) “From the moment a man sets toot in prison ho is confronted with a whole series of ‘shalt nots,’ ” till he must cither rebel or grow passive as a clod. “ It lias been very truly said that the best citizen makes tho worst prisoner, and vice versa,” says this prison officer. “ And altogether of the utter fallacy of extreme severity as a remedy for crime,” our author tells us that ho is “thoroughly convinced.” My contention is that there is a way in which the worst type of criminal can be reformed. It is not an easy matter; there is no set rule to follow. Crime is not a simple matter at all. It may have its roots in heredity; it may bo due to extreme need on some desperate occasion; it may be' duo to evil environment and bad influences. There are countless reasons lor its existence, and 1 am persuaded,” writes this experienced and thoughtful man, “there are as many methods for its eradication.” Hut the only method actually adopted is, he adds, “ the mediioval one of putting the criminal in prison. . , . if medicine, or science, or mechanics had stood still as criminal justice has, then wo would certainly have been still in the good old days of tho coaches, the leech, and the courier.” I am certain that such efficiency of detective measures as would make capture almost certain

would lie :i!i excellent deterrent to many a criminal,” lie says, echoing in Ids way tbo modern dictum of practically all criminologists that the best deterrent for crime is “ swift and certain detection ” —which, be it noted wcli, is precisely what we have not got in ■ this country. “But threat of excessive sentence only ministers to his sense of social injustice, and makes him more desperate. 1 ’ And he illustrates this by the comment of an old prisoner on the proposal to stiffen sentences. “Well, I am sixty years old. I have never carried u gun in my life. . . . J have nothing against the police—in fact, 1 once pulled a bobby out of a canal when ho was drowning. But if the judges are going to talk about stiffening sentences for chaps like us, then I’m going to do something dilferent!’’

About Hogging our author is especially interesting. This form of punishment is often urged by those whoso sentiments as spin its value are considerably more full-grown than is their knowledge; so that anyone with direct experience of its application, and results should ho a welcome witness. “ Warden ’’ tells us that he has assisted in flogging, “ a duty undertaken quite conscientiously, because 1 was ordered to do it, and also because 1 believed it right.” He adds, “ the result of my experiences will he best appreciated when L say that, had I fieen ordered to assist at a flogging during my later years, I should have found some excuse to bo off duty ... I would also like to say this. In all my experience 1 bate never known a single man receive the ‘cat’ without being definitely the worse for it, physically and spiritually. The effect is invariably to harden, to brutalise. ] have known many men who have had the ‘ cat ’ in their younger days, and the effect has always been the same.

. . . never knew one of its victims who was not a worse man in every sense afterwards than he was before.

. . . It destroys that last little spark of sentiment > that might, some day, under some influence or other, kindle fires that might purge them. It increases their contempt lor morals, hardens them unspeakably, and turns them out of prison greater human ghouls than when they entered. There is no doubt about that. Chaplains, prison visitors, and social workers will all support my contention. The ‘cat’ practically in every case confirms criminality in the victim for ever. . . . To give (it) is pure vengeance and nothing else. After that, refonn'is hopeless—they become as hard as nails.”

If that is so (and ho is right in claiming the support of other witnesses), and since the criminal in New Zealand almost always comes back into the community, wo shall have to give up the'idea, of flogging as a'fit punishment. For who can think “greater human ghouls ” would make nice neighbours ? Well, but what will reform these wretched folk then? Preaching religion to them? “ Warden ” is struck like others of us, at the very small effect this lias. A chaplain who will be a friend is one tiling, a mere preacher is something else; ihc fact is, prisoners want everything “ humanised ” (which is just what they never get); they vVant religion applied to

them, not preached at them. “ \ou should return good for evil.” £ once suggested to a girl in prison. *. ”by should 1? The magistrate don’t,” returned, she. “ The Christian ethic is widely divorced,” writes “ Warden ” “ from the practice of criminal justice. Gentleness and meekness are strange words to use to men who have felt the sting of the ‘cat.’ Purity is an ideal which seems absurdly impossible in an atmosphere impregnate with vice.” In everything pertaining to education he has more faith. Mus'ic, lectures, ho maintains, do anything but “pamper” a prisoner, they humanise him—and partly, one knows, because they bring him the sight of friendly faces, women’s among them. The of .really “socialising” either sex without the help of the other, without, the care of pets, children, and the sick, is, when you come to consider the way we outside prison ever grew. ■ ourselves, into responsible citizens, about as rational ns trying to wash without, water, or cook without heat. It is more than j tlie ordinary amount of human attentions, not loss, that the offender needs. “ Repression only results in disastrous outbreak, cruelty breeds cruelty, baldness begets hardness,” says “ Warden,” who has seen it all happen. And here is his summing-up; “ I have been so impressed during all my years of experience, with the response on the purl of the very worst of criminals, to gestures of friendship and sympathy that I am absolutely convinced it is only along those lines that reform is possible.” And I, am sure of it—if to those we add understanding.