Читать книгу The New York Tombs Inside and Out!. Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison онлайн

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The only sure remedy for the present day criminal is the indeterminate sentence; he should be detained in prison under the most rigorous discipline, till he is reformed or cured of his insane notions. It is nothing short of a crime to turn such people loose to scourge society after a few months or years’ detention in prison.

European criminologists are unanimous in advocating the most restrictive measures for incorrigibles, such as hard labor, longer imprisonment and more repressive humiliation, or if necessary, deportation and exile. Professor Prins of Brussels says, “The solution of the question of the incorrigible lies in a progressive aggravation of punishment and the absence of all prison luxury.” After reading a mass of opinions on what should be done with the criminal incorrigible and how he should be punished, all of which had not a ray of hope in it for his higher nature, we thought of the British soldier in India half a century ago, who was called up for sentence before a court martial; he had suffered all sorts of imprisonment, corporal punishment and all manner of deprivation and humiliations, but all to no purpose; the punishments only hardened him. But now a new commander came on the scene who, after hearing all that could be said against him, dismissed him with an admonition, saying that they forgave him, asking him from henceforth to go and sin no more. The effect of this was that he broke down and wept like a child. He had steeled his heart to every kind of punishment, but when they tried kindness it touched him.