Criminal Sociology [96]
bodily sustenance, but also with the means of supplying their intellectual and moral needs.'' So the State maintains in idleness the majority even of those who are said to be ``sentenced to hard labour,'' and the offence, after it has served the turn of the offender, further assures him free lodging and food, shifting the burden on to honest citizens.
I cannot see by what moral or legal right the crime ought to exempt the criminal from the daily necessity of providing for his own subsistence, which he experienced before he committed the crime, and which all honest men undergo with so many sacrifices. The irony of these consequences of the classical theories could not, in fact, be more remarkable. So long as a man remains honest, in spite of pathetic misery and sorrow, the State takes no trouble to guarantee for him the means of existence by his labour. It even bans those who have the audacity to remind society that every man, by the mere fact of living, has the right to live, and that, as work is the only means of obtaining a livelihood, every man has the right (as all should recognise the duty) of working in order to live.
But as soon as any one commits a crime, the State considers it its duty to take the utmost care of him, ensuring for him comfortable lodging, plenty of food, and light labour, if it does not grant him a happy idleness! And all this, again, in the name of eternal and retributive justice.
It may be added that our proposals are the only way of settling the oft-recurring question as to the economic competition (by the price of commodities), and the moral competition (in the regularity of work) which prison labour unjustly wages with free and honest labour. As a matter of fact, as prisoners can only remain idle or work, they must clearly be made to work. But they must be made to work at trades which come less into competition with free labour and it is especially necessary to give prisoners wages equal to those of free labourers, on condition that they pay the State for their food, clothes, and lodging, whilst the remainder goes to indemnify their victims.
Over the prison gates I should like to carve that maxim of universal application: ``He who will not work, neither shall he eat.''
V.
Since the novel proposals put forward half a century ago, amongst others by doctors Georget and Brierre de Boismont, a whole library of volumes has been published in favour of criminal lunatic asylums. A few voices here and there were heard in opposition or reserve, but these have almost entirely ceased.
Criminal lunatic asylums were adopted in England as early as 1786. In 1815 Bethlehem Hospital was appropriated to criminal lunatics, and the Broadmoor Asylum was founded in 1863. Similar asylums exist at Dundrum in Ireland (1850), at Perth in Scotland (1858), at New York (1874), and in Canada (1877).
On the continent of Europe there is not to this day a regular asylum for mad criminals, though France, after an experiment in treating condemned madmen at Bicetre, opened a separate wing for them in the prison at Gaillon. Holland has assigned to them the hospital of Bosmalen (Brabant); Germany has special wards in the establishments at Waldheim, Bruchsaal, Halle, and Hamburg; and Italy, after founding a special ward in 1876, at the establishment for relapsed prisoners at Aversa, has converted the Ambrogiana establishment at Montelupo in Tuscany, into an asylum for insane convicts, and for prisoners under observation as being of unsound mind. The new Italian penal code, though not openly recognising the foundation of asylums for criminals acquitted on the ground of insanity, has, in its general spirit of eclecticism, given judges the power of handing them over to the competent authority when it would be dangerous to release them (Art. 46). At the Montelupo Asylum criminals acquitted on the ground of insanity are also detained, at first under observation, then by a definite order from the president of the Tribunal, who can revoke his order on the petition of the family, or of the authorities.
I cannot see by what moral or legal right the crime ought to exempt the criminal from the daily necessity of providing for his own subsistence, which he experienced before he committed the crime, and which all honest men undergo with so many sacrifices. The irony of these consequences of the classical theories could not, in fact, be more remarkable. So long as a man remains honest, in spite of pathetic misery and sorrow, the State takes no trouble to guarantee for him the means of existence by his labour. It even bans those who have the audacity to remind society that every man, by the mere fact of living, has the right to live, and that, as work is the only means of obtaining a livelihood, every man has the right (as all should recognise the duty) of working in order to live.
But as soon as any one commits a crime, the State considers it its duty to take the utmost care of him, ensuring for him comfortable lodging, plenty of food, and light labour, if it does not grant him a happy idleness! And all this, again, in the name of eternal and retributive justice.
It may be added that our proposals are the only way of settling the oft-recurring question as to the economic competition (by the price of commodities), and the moral competition (in the regularity of work) which prison labour unjustly wages with free and honest labour. As a matter of fact, as prisoners can only remain idle or work, they must clearly be made to work. But they must be made to work at trades which come less into competition with free labour and it is especially necessary to give prisoners wages equal to those of free labourers, on condition that they pay the State for their food, clothes, and lodging, whilst the remainder goes to indemnify their victims.
Over the prison gates I should like to carve that maxim of universal application: ``He who will not work, neither shall he eat.''
V.
Since the novel proposals put forward half a century ago, amongst others by doctors Georget and Brierre de Boismont, a whole library of volumes has been published in favour of criminal lunatic asylums. A few voices here and there were heard in opposition or reserve, but these have almost entirely ceased.
Criminal lunatic asylums were adopted in England as early as 1786. In 1815 Bethlehem Hospital was appropriated to criminal lunatics, and the Broadmoor Asylum was founded in 1863. Similar asylums exist at Dundrum in Ireland (1850), at Perth in Scotland (1858), at New York (1874), and in Canada (1877).
On the continent of Europe there is not to this day a regular asylum for mad criminals, though France, after an experiment in treating condemned madmen at Bicetre, opened a separate wing for them in the prison at Gaillon. Holland has assigned to them the hospital of Bosmalen (Brabant); Germany has special wards in the establishments at Waldheim, Bruchsaal, Halle, and Hamburg; and Italy, after founding a special ward in 1876, at the establishment for relapsed prisoners at Aversa, has converted the Ambrogiana establishment at Montelupo in Tuscany, into an asylum for insane convicts, and for prisoners under observation as being of unsound mind. The new Italian penal code, though not openly recognising the foundation of asylums for criminals acquitted on the ground of insanity, has, in its general spirit of eclecticism, given judges the power of handing them over to the competent authority when it would be dangerous to release them (Art. 46). At the Montelupo Asylum criminals acquitted on the ground of insanity are also detained, at first under observation, then by a definite order from the president of the Tribunal, who can revoke his order on the petition of the family, or of the authorities.