Report of a committee appointed by the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New York : on the expediency of erecting an institution for the reformation of juvenile delinquents.

  • Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New York.
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of a committee appointed by the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New York : on the expediency of erecting an institution for the reformation of juvenile delinquents. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    o in depravity may prove the more certain. It is well known, that when vagrant children are taken up, on their first offence, and threatened with imprisonment, they frequently evince great penitence and contrition, entreat forgiveness on the promise of better conduct, and deprecate a confinement in gaol with cries of dis¬ tress and horror. But a familiarity with the company they find there, soon wears off this repugnance, and renders a second conviction a thing of comparative in¬ difference. Hence, to convert a prison into a real Penitentiary, there ought to be, in a collection even of juvenile offenders, at least half a dozen different class¬ es ; not regulated by age ; for it is obvious that a pri¬ soner of eighteen may be far less guilty, less hardened, and more open to the visitations of remorse and shame, than others of twelve or fourteen. The divisions should therefore depend upon an experimental enqui¬ ry into their moral character and dispositions, and a knowledge of their previous habits. The most important facts relative to the Bellevue prison, as connected with the objects of this report, will be best understood from the following answers of Ar¬ thur Burtis, Esq., superintendant of that extensive es¬ tablishment, to questions sent to him from this com¬ mittee. Ques. 1. What number of boys are sent to the Pen¬ itentiary in the course of a year, and of what ages: and what is the average number at one time in the prison ? Ans. The average number of boys sent to the peni¬ tentiary for the last three years, has been seventy-five