Humanity and humanitarianism : with special reference to the prison systems of Great Britain and the United States, the question of criminal lunacy, and capital punishment / by William Tallack.

  • Tallack, William, 1831-1908.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Humanity and humanitarianism : with special reference to the prison systems of Great Britain and the United States, the question of criminal lunacy, and capital punishment / by William Tallack. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    HUMANITY AND HTIMANITARIANISM. KEFORMATORY INDUSTRIAL TREATMENT. There are two opposite extremes, each mischievous to all parties concerned, towards which systems of criminal treatment are in turn liable to tend. Either, with a narrow heedlessness of the causes of crime, they are apt to aim at mere vindictive chas- tisement, almost always proved by the results to be ineffectual, even for deterrence; or, with humane intentions, they permit such relaxations of needful stringency as to render the condition of the criminal more comfortable and desirable than that of the honest toiling poor, and so to increase, rather than decrease, the ranks of offenders. Hence, notwithstanding the progress of the age in many important movements, there has been comparatively little sus- tained adoption of a system combining, effectually, deterrence with reformation, by making it the basis of prison discipline to compel every offender to render both amends and restitution, so far as possible, to the State, or to those whom he has injured, and at the same time, by a sufficiently prolonged course of labour and instruction, to form such habits of industry and virtue as shall furnish to the criminal himself the education and guidance which every member of human society needs from some quarter, either private or public, but which so large a number fail to receive in time to prevent evil courses.'^ This twofold principle of treatment is both preventive and restora- The interest of society ami the interest of the convicted criminal are ally identical, and they should be made practically so.—Anacrican Pamphlet, p o