The teaching which the prisoner receives within the prison is not much better than that given by the outer world. I have mentioned in the preceding chapter (page 291) the scandalous traffic in tobacco which is carried on in French prisons, but I thought it a feature which had disappeared from the prisons of this country until I found the same traffic mentioned in a book on English prisons. Nay, the figures and the proportions are the same: in the first place, ten shillings out of twenty for the warder; and then, exorbitant Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 313 prices charged for tobacco and other things which the warder brings to the prisoner — such is the Millbank tariff.3 The French tariff is twenty-five francs out of fifty for the warder, and then the above-mentioned exorbitant prices for tobacco.
In fact, both in the administration and in the commercial undertakings which are carried on in big prisons, there are unavoidably so many small frauds that I often heard at Clairvaux: " The real thieves, sir, are those who keep us here — not those who are in." Of course, it will be said that even the least possibility of pronouncing such a judgment ought to disappear, and that much improve- ment has been already made in that direction. I gladly admit that it is so. But it is another question as to whether it can completely dis- appear. The very fact that it still remains true of so many prisons in Europe shows how difficult it is to get rid of bribery in the administration. At any rate, the above remark is still fully justified in the case of a very great number of European prisons.
While mentioning this factor of demoraliza- 3 " Five Years' Penal Servitude," by One who has endured it, p. 61.
314 In Russian and French Prisons.
tion in prisons, I shall not, however, lay too much stress on it; not because I do not realize its exceedingly bad and wide influence; but because, even if it completely disappeared from prison-life, there would still remain in our penal institutions so many demoralizing factors, which cannot be got rid of as long as a prison remains a prison, that I prefer rather to insist upon them.
Much has been written about the moralizing effects of labour — of manual labour, — and surely I should be the last to deny them. To keep prisoners without any occupation, as they are kept in Russia, means utterly to demoralize them and to inflict on them a quite useless punishment, to kill their last energy, and to render them quite unable later to earn their living by work. But there is labour and labour. There is the free labour, which raises the man, which releases his brain from painful or morbid thoughts — the free labour which makes man feel himself a part of the immense life of the world. And there is the forced labour of the slave which degrades man, which is done reluctantly, only from fear of a worse punishment, and such is prison -labour. I do not speak of so wicked an invention as the Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 3 1 5 treadmill, which a man must move like a squirrel in a wheel, supplying a motive power which could be supplied otherwise at a much cheaper rate. I do not speak also of picking oakum, which permits a man to produce in the course of a day the value of a farthing.4 As to these kinds of labour the prisoners are fully entitled to consider them merely as the base revenge of a society which has done so little since their childhood to show them better ways towards a higher, more human life. Nothing is more revolting than to feel that one is compelled to work, not because somebody wants one's work, but merely to be punished. While all humanity work for the maintenance of their life, the man who picks oakum is condemned to perform a work which nobody needs. He is an outcast. And if he treats society as an outcast would, we can accuse nobody but ourselves.
Things do not stand better, however, with productive labour in prisons. In the world- market where produce is bought only for the bargains that can be realized on sale and pur- chase, the State can seldom be a successful competitor. So it has been compelled to in- vite private employers to give occupation to 4 Du Cane, I.e., p. 176.
3i 6 In Russian and French Prison s.
prisoners. But, to attract such employers and to induce them to sink money in factories, and to guarantee a certain amount of labour to a certain number of convicts, notwithstanding the fluctuations of the market — and this under such unfavourable circumstances as a prison and the prison-work of untrained labourers— the State has been compelled to concede the prisoners' labour for nearly nothing — not to speak of the pots de vin, which certainly have something to do with the low prices at which prisoners are hired out to employers. There- fore, the wages paid to prisoners, both by the State and private employers, are merely nominal.
We have seen in the preceding chapter that the highest full wages paid by private em- ployers at Clairvaux rarely exceed Is. 8d.9 and in most cases are below KM. for twelve hours* work, while one-half, and more, of these wages are kept by the State. At Poissy, the average wages in a private enterprise are 3d. (29 centimes) a day, and less than 2d. (19 cen- times) in the workshops of the State.5 In this country, since the Prison Commission 5 Speech of M. Dupuy (de 1'Aisne) at the French Chamber of Deputies 011 January 18, 1887.
Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 3 1 7 of 1863 discovered that convicts earn too much in penal servitude, the prisoner earns nearly nothing but a very small diminution of the term of imprisonment; and the trades carried on in prisons are such that the average daily value of the prisoner's work exceeds Is. only in skilled labour (shoemaking, tailoring, and basketmaking).6 As to the other trades, the market-value of the prisoner's work mostly varies from 3d. to lOrf.
It is obvious that, under such circumstances, the work which has no attractiveness in itself, because it gives no exercise to the mental faculties of the labourer, and is paid so badly, comes to be considered as a mere punishment. When I saw my Anarchist friends at Clairvaux making ladies' stays, or pearl-shell buttons, and earning sixpence for ten hours' work — out of which twopence were retained by the State (threepence, and more, with common-law prisoners) — I fully understood what disgust must be inspired by such work in the man who is condemned to do it. What pleasure can he find in such toil? What moralizing effect can it exercise, when the prisoner repeats again and again to himself that he is working merely 6 "The Punishment and Prevention of Crime," p. 176.
3 1 8 /;;. Russian and French Prisons.
to enrich his employer? When he has been paid eighteenpence at the end of the week, he and his comrades exclaim: " Decidedly, the real thieves are those who keep us in — not we!"
But still, my comrades who were not com- pelled to work, used to do this kind of work; and sometimes, by assiduous labour, some of them managed to realize as much as tenpence per day, instead of six, when the work implied some skill or artistic feeling. They did so, however, because they had an inducement to labour. Those who were married were in continual correspondence with their wives, who had a hard time of it as long as their husbands were in prison. Letters from home kept coming in; they could be answered. The bands which connected the prisoners with home were not broken. As to those who were not married, or had no mother to support, they had a passion — study; and they scooped away at pearl-shell in the hope of being able, at the end of the month, to order some long-desired book.
They had a passion. But what a passion can inspire the common-law prisoner, secluded from his home — from all attachments which might have connected him with the outer world?
Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 319 For, with a refinement of cruelty, those who schemed our prisons did all in their power to cut all the threads which might keep up the prisoner's connection with Society. They trampled under foot all the best feelings that the prisoner has, like other men. His wife and children are not permitted in this country to see him more than once every three months, and the letters he may write are a mere mockery. The philanthropists who have schemed our prison discipline have pushed their cold contempt for human nature so far as to permit the prisoner only to sign a printed circular! A measure the more despicable, as each prisoner, however low his intellectual development, fully understands the petty feel- ing of revenge which lies at the bottom of this measure, whatever be the excuses as to the necessity of preventing communication with the outer world.
In French prisons — at least, in the Central prisons — the visits of relatives are not so severely limited, and the governor of the jail is even entitled in exceptional cases to allow visits in a common parlour without gratings. But the Central prisons are far from the great cities; and, as the great cities supply the 320 In Russian and French Prisons.
largest numbers of convicts, and the con- demned people chiefly belong to the poorest classes, only very few women have the means to make the journey to Clairvaux for a few interviews with their husbands.
And thus the best influence to which the prisoner might be submitted, the only one which might bring a ray of light, a softer element into his life — the intercourse with his relatives and children — is systematically secluded. The prisons of old were less clean; they were less " orderly " than the modern ones; but, at any rate, under this aspect, they were more humane.
In a prisoner's greyish life, which flows without passions and emotions, all those best feelings which may improve human character soon die away. Even those workmen who like their trade and find some aesthetic satisfaction in it, lose their taste for work. Physical energy is very soon killed in prison. I re- member the years passed in prison in Russia. I entered my cell in the fortress with the firm resolution not to succumb. To maintain my bodily energy, I regularly every day walked my five miles in my cell, and twice a day I per- formed some gymnastics with my heavy oak Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 321 chair. And, when pen and ink were allowed to enter my cell, I had before me the task of recasting a large work — a great field to cover — that of submitting to a systematic re- vision the Indices of Glaciation. Later on, in France, another passion inspired me — the elaboration of the bases of what I consider a new system of philosophy — the bases of Anarchy. But, in both cases, I soon felt lassitude overtak- ing me. Bodily energy disappeared by-and-by. And I can think of no better comparison for the state of a prisoner than that of wintering in the Arctic regions. Read reports of Arctic expeditions — the old ones, those of the good- hearted Parry, or of the elder Ross. When going through them you feel a note of phy- sical and mental depression pervading the whole diary, and growing more and more dreary, until sun and hopes reappear on the horizon. That is the state of a prisoner. The brain has no longer the energy for sus- tained attention; thought is less rapid, or, rather, less persistent: it loses its depth. An American report mentioned last year that while the study of languages usually prospers with the prisoners, they are mostly unable to persevere in mathematics; and so it is.
Y Y 322 In Russian and French Prisons.
It seems to me that this depression of healthy nervous energy can be best accounted for by the want of impressions. In ordinary life thousands of sounds and colours strike our senses; thousands of small, varied facts come within our knowledge, and spur the activity of the brain. Nothing of the kind strikes the prisoner; his impressions are few, and always the same. Therefore — the eagerness of the prisoners for anything new, for any new im- pression. I cannot forget the eagerness with which I observed, when taking a walk in the fortress yard, the changes of colour on the gilt needle of the fortress, it's rosy tints at sunset, its bluish colours in the morning, its changing aspects on cloudy and bright days, in the morning and evening, winter and summer. It was the only thing which changed its aspect. The appearance of a parrot in the yard was a great event. It was a new impression. This is probably also the reason that all prisoners are so fond of illustrations; they convey new impressions in a new way. All impressions re- ceived by the prisoner, be they from his reading or from his own thoughts, pass through the medium of his imagination. And the brain, already poorly fed by a less active heart and Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 323 impoverished blood, becomes tired, worried. It loses its energy.
This circumstance probably explains also the striking want of energy, of ardour, in prison work. In fact, each time I saw at Clairvaux the prisoners lazily crossing the yards, lazily followed by a lazy warder, my imagination always transported me back to my father's house and his numerous serfs. Prison- work is slavish work; and slavish work cannot inspire a human being with the best inspiration of man — the need to work and to create. The prisoner may learn a handicraft, but he will never learn to love his work. In most in- stances he will learn to hate it.
There is another important cause of de- moralization in prisons which cannot be too much insisted upon, as it is common to all prisons and inherent in the system of depriva- tion of liberty itself. All transgressions against the established principles of morality can be traced to a want of firm Will. Most of the inmates of our prisons are people who have not had firmness enough to resist the temptations that surrounded them, or to master a passionate impulse that momentarily overpowered them. Now, in prison, as in a monastery, the prisoner Y 2 324 In Russian and French Prisons.
is secluded from all temptations of the outer world; and his intercourse with other men is so limited and so regulated that he seldom feels the influence of strong passions. But, precisely in consequence of that he has almost no opportunity for exercising and reinforcing the firmness of his Will. He is a machine. He has no choice between two courses of action; the very few opportunities of free choice which he has, are of no moment. All his life has been regulated and ordered before- hand; he has only to follow the current, to obey under the fear of a cruel punishment. In these conditions such firmness of Will as he may have had before entering the prison, disappears. And, where shall he find the strength to resist the temptations which will suddenly arise before him, as by enchantment, as soon as he has stepped outside the walls? Where will he find the strength to resist the first impulse of a passionate character, if, during many years, everything has been done to kill in him the interior force of resistance, to make him a docile tool in the hands of those who govern him?
This fact, in my opinion — and it seems to me that there can be no two opinions in the matter — is the strongest condemnation of all Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 325 systems based on depriving the condemned man of his liberty. The origin of the syste- matic suppression of all individual will in the prisoners, the systematic reduction of men to the level of unreasoning machines, carried on throughout the long years of imprisonment, is easily explained. It grew from the desire of preventing any breaches of discipline, and of keeping the greatest number of prisoners with the least possible amount of warders. And we may see throughout the bulky literature of " prison-discipline " that the greatest admira- tion is bestowed precisely on those systems which have obtained the results of discipline with the least possible number of warders. The ideal of our prisons would be a thousand automatons, rising and working, eating and going to bed, by electric currents trans- mitted to them from a single warder. But our modern and perfected systems of prisons, although realizing perhaps some im- mediate economies for the State Budget, are also the most appropriate for bringing recidive to the strikingly high figures it attains now. The less prisons approximate to their present ideal, the less the recidive.7 And it is not to 7 In Eussia the number of recMivistes is only eighteen 326 In Russian and French Prisons.
be wondered at that men accustomed to be mere machines do not prove to be the men whom society needs.
As soon as the prisoner is released, the comrades of his former life wait upon him. They receive him in brotherly guise, and, as soon as liberated, he is taken up by the current which already once has brought him to a prison. Guardians and Prisoners' Aid Societies cannot help. All they can do is to undo the bad work done by the prison, to counterbalance its bad effects in some of the released prisoners. While the influence of honest men who could have tendered a brotherly hand to the man before he was brought into the prisoner's dock, would have prevented him from committing the faults he has committed, now, after he has under- gone the prison education, their efforts will remain fruitless in most cases.
And what a contrast between the fraternal reception of the brotherhood of "magsmen" and the reception on behalf of " respectable people," who conceal under a Christian exterior a Pharisaic egotism! For them the liberated prisoner is something plague-stricken. "Who per cent., as against forty to fifty per cent, in Western Europe.
Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 327 of them would invite him into his own house, and merely say, " Here is a room, there is work for you; sit at this table, and be one of our family "? He needs most fraternal support, he is most in need of a brotherly hand stretched out to him. But, after having done all in our power to make of him a foe of society, after having inoculated him with the vices which characterize _prisons, who will tender him the brotherly hand he is in need of?
And who is the woman who would like to marry a man who has been once in a prison? We know how often women marry men " to save them;" but, apart from a very few excep- tions, they instinctively refuse those who have received prison education. And so the liberated prisoner is compelled to search for a partner in life among those women — the sad products of an abominably organized society — who have most contributed to bring him into trouble. No wonder that most of the released prisoners return to prison again after having spent but a few months at liberty!
There are few who would now dare to affirm hat prisons ought only to exercise a deterrent influence without caring for the moral im- provement of the prisoners. But what are we 328 In Russian, and French Prisons.
doing to achieve this last end? Our prisons are made for degrading all those who enter them, for killing the very last feelings of self- respect.
Everybody knows the influence of a decent dress. Even an animal is ashamed to appear amidst its like if its coat renders it conspicuous and ridiculous. A cat, which a boy would have painted with yellow and black stripes, would be ashamed to appear in this guise amidst other cats. But men begin by giving a fool's dress to those whom they pretend to moralize. When at Lyons I often saw the effect produced on prisoners by the prison dress. Mostly workmen, poorly but decently clad, they crossed the yard where I was taking my walk, and entered the room where they had to throw off their own dress and take the prison costume. And as they went out, wearing the ugly prison-dress mended with pieces of multi-coloured rags, with a round ugly cap, they felt quite ashamed of appearing before men in such ugly attire. And there are plenty of prisons, especially in this country, where the dress of the prisoner, made out of parti- coloured pieces, resembles more the dress of a mad jester of old than that of a man Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 329 whom our prison philanthropists pretend to improve.
That is a convict's first impression, and throughout his life in a prison he will be sub- mitted to a treatment which is imbued with the utmost contempt for human feelings. At Dartmoor, for instance, convicts will be con- sidered as people who dare not have the slightest feeling of decency. They will be com- pelled to parade in gangs, quite naked, before the prison authorities, and to perform in this attire a kind of gymnastics before them. " Turn round! Lift both arms! Lift the right leg! Hold up the sole of the left foot with the right hand! " And so on.8 The prisoner is no longer a man in whom any feeling of self-respect is permitted to exist. He is a thing, a mere number B 24, and he will be treated as a numbered thing. No animal could bear such treatment year after year without being utterly abashed; but those human beings, who in a few years ought to become useful members of society, are treated in this way. If the prisoner is permitted to have a walk, his walk will not be like that of other men. He will be marched in a file, 8 " Dartmoor," by late B 24, in the Daily News, 188G.
330 In Russian and French Prisons.
with a warder standing in the middle of the yard, and loudly crying, " Un-deusse, un-deusse, arch-fer, arch-fer I " If he yields to the most human of all desires — that of communicating an impression, or a thought, to a fellow-creature — he will commit a breach of discipline. And, however docile, he will do this. Before he entered the prison he may have felt reluctance to lie and deceive any- body; here he will learn to lie and deceive, until lying and deceit become his second nature. He may be sad or gay, good or bad tempered; he must not show it. He is a numbered thing, which must move about according to regula- tions. Tears may choke him; he must suppress them. Throughout the years of servitude he never will be alone; even in the solitude of his cell an eye will spy his movements and surprise the feeling he wished to keep to himself, be- cause it was a human feeling, and human feelings are not allowed in prisons. Be it compassion for a fellow-sufferer, or love for his relatives, which awakens in him; be it a desire of speaking out his sorrows to somebody beyond the persons officially appointed for that purpose; be it any of those affections which render man better, all is crushed by the Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 331 force which denies him the right to be a man. Condemned to a bestial life, all that might suggest better feelings will be carefully sup- pressed. He must not be a man, so it is ordained by the prison rules.
He must have no feelings. But woe betide him if by ill-luck the feeling of human dignity awakens within him! Woe to him if he is annoyed by a disbelief in his word; if the searching of his dress, repeated several times a day, humiliates him; if the hypocrisy of going to the chapel, when nothing attracts him there, is repugnant to him; if he betrays by a word, by the tone of his voice, the contempt he feels for a warder who carries on the traffic in tobacco and steals the last coppers of a fellow-prisoner; if the need of showing compassion to somebody makes him take pity upon a feebler comrade and share his bread with him; if he has maintained enough of human dignity to revolt against an unmerited reproach, an unmerited suspicion, a rough taunt; if he is honest enough to rebel against the small intrigues, the favouritism of the warders; — then, the prison will become a hell to him. He will be crushed by labour beyond his strength, if he is not sent to rot in the black cell.
332 In Russian and French Prisons.
The most trifling breach, of discipline, which would pass unnoticed in the hypocrite who makes his way up the prison-ladder by his base conduct, will call down a punishment upon his head; it will be treated as insubordination. And each punishment will lead to a new one. He will be brought to madness by small perse- cutions, and may be happy if ever he leaves the prison except in a coffin.
It is easy to write to the newspapers that the warders ought to be under severe control; that governors ought to be chosen amongst the very best men. Nothing easier than to build Ad- ministrative Utopias! But man is man; the warder as well as the prisoner. And when men are condemned all their life to false relations with other men, they become false themselves. Prisoners themselves, the warders become as fastidious as the prisoners. Nowhere in my life, except around the Russian monasteries, have I seen such a spirit of petty intrigue as we saw amidst the warders and the surroundings of Clairvaux. Compelled to move within a small and limited world of trivial interests, the prison authorities feel its influence. Small tittle-tattle, narrow discussions about a word said by such a prisoner and a gesture made by another, supply the material for their conversations.
Moral Influence of Prisons on Prisoners. 333 Men are men; and you cannot give so immense an authority to men over men without corrupting those to whom you give the authority. They will abuse it; and their abuses of it will be the more unscrupulous, and the more felt by the abused, the more limited and narrow is the world they live in. Compelled as they are to live in the midst of a hostile camp of prisoners, the warders cannot be models of kindness and humanity. To the league of the prisoners, they oppose the league of the warders. And, as they hold the power, they abuse it like all those who hold power in their hands. The institution makes them what they are, petty and vexatious persecutors of the prisoners. Put a Pestalozzi in their place (if only a Pestalozzi would accept the function), and he also would soon become a prison warder. And, when I take all the cir- cumstances into consideration, I really am inclined to say that still the men are better than the institution.
And a rancorous feeling against a society which always was but a step-mother to him grows within the prisoner. He accustoms him- self to hate — cordially to hate — all those " respectable " people who so wickedly kill his best feelings in him. He divides the world into two parts: that to which he and his comrades 334 In Russian and French Prisons.
belong, and the outer world represented by the governor, the warders, the employers. A brotherhood rapidly grows between all the inmates of a prison against all those who do not wear the prisoner's dress. These are the enemies. Everything which may be done to deceive them is right. The prisoner is an out- law to them; they become outlaws to him. And, as soon as he is free, he will put this morality into practice. Before having been in prison, he may have committed faults without reflection. Prison education will make him consider society as an enemy: now he will have a philosophy of his own — that which Zola summed up in the following words: " Quels gredinsles honnetes gens! " Not only exasperation against Society does the prison develop in its inmates; not only does it systematically kill in them every feeling of self-respect, dignity, compassion and love, and favour the growth of opposite feelings, — it inoculates the prisoner with vices which be- long to the most abject category of reprobates. It is known in what threatening proportions crimes against decency are growing all over the Continent, as well as in this country. Many causes contribute towards this growth; but Moral Influence oj Prisons on Prisoners. 335 amidst these various causes one occupies a marked rank; it is the pestilential influence of our prisons. In this direction, the deteriorating influence of prisons on society is felt perhaps more strongly than in any other.