The best qualified officials will, however, be comparatively helpless without a proper system; true, they can make the best of a bad system, but with a good system their work would be powerful for good. They too, themselves, would profit, for it would interest them, and call into activity their better qualities, many of which must lie dormant under the present condition of affairs. We want a system that will help to humanize the prisoner, not to brutalize him. It will, I know, pass the wit of man to devise any plan by which the whole of our prisoners can be ‘cured’; it is impossible to invent any system that will be suitable for every prisoner, for they are varied as nature itself. But it is practicable, and it would be wise, to have a system that, while punishing the prisoner, shall not by its punishments defeat the object it has in view. The ‘terrors of the law’ have little effect upon brutalized men, for they feel themselves at war with society, and, by the treatment meted out to them in prison, society has declared itself at war with them. Consequently they come out of prison more hardened than when they entered it, and a repetition of crime is most likely to result.
Briefly, then, I would suggest: Short sentences; abolition of ticket-of-leave; interesting work and more of it; less time alone, and more with the schoolmaster; gradual improvements in conditions as a reward for industry and good behaviour; some relaxation at intervals, such as lectures with magic lanterns, concerts, etc. The Home Secretary now allows lay officers of religious organizations to conduct missions in various prisons. I would go much further, for I would have lecturers who can speak well and interestingly upon various subjects invited to speak to the prisoners. I would have good singers and first-class musicians invited occasionally to give the prisoners a concert. I would have also the prisons supplied plentifully with books, and constant additions made to the library. I would have a looking-glass in every cell, that prisoners might at any time take knowledge of themselves. I would have every warder master of a trade, or able to teach something useful, for work that interests must be the great factor in the reformation of intelligent prisoners.