Old Bailey experience. Criminal jurisprudence and the actual working of our penal code of laws. Also, an essay on prison discipline, to which is added a history of the crimes committed by offenders in the present day / By the author of 'The schoolmaster's experience in Newgate' [i.e. T. Wontner].

  • Wontner, Thomas.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Old Bailey experience. Criminal jurisprudence and the actual working of our penal code of laws. Also, an essay on prison discipline, to which is added a history of the crimes committed by offenders in the present day / By the author of 'The schoolmaster's experience in Newgate' [i.e. T. Wontner]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Thirdly. Increased by the severity of the laws, rendering the ignorant more reckless and desperate. Fourthly. Legislating by wholesale for crime ; that is. not considering the kind of offender more than the offence; not looking more to the causes which bring individuals into the commission of crime than the crime itself. Fifthly. The want of consideration on the part of the rich towards the poor. - Sixthly. Laws so constructed as to divide society, and set one part against the other, tending to destroy the bond of re- ciprocity between the upper and lower classes. And lastly. Want of agricultural employment for the poor. Remedial measures.—First, only to be found in abrogating the present system of education for the poor, substituting moral and intellectual for rote tuition. Secondly. Legislating for the improvement of the mind, more than the punishment of the body. Thirdly. The repeal of all our penal laws, they being sanguinary and uncertain, consequently unjust in their operation. Fourthly. The substitution of a regular ameliorated code, intelligible and plain to all men who can read ; so constructed as to afford a fair opportunity to the first and casual offender for reformation^ making punishment more certain, but less severe; particularly distinguishing the habitual delinquent from those who lapse into the commission of crime from ac- cidental causes. Not to attempt Eodem collyrio mederi omnibus. Fifthly. A general amelioration of the condition of the poor, by giving them agricultural employment on waste, or land appropriated to that purpose; thus removing the super- abundant population from large towns to the country. Bomim summum quo tendimus omnes.