But if our jurisprudence be in one respect too favourable to the criminal, in another, as it appears to us, the balance is more than restored to its equilibrium. If, in the process of investigation, justice leans too much to the side of mercy, the inquiry once over, she quickly repents of her excessive leniency, and is careful to justify her ways by a rigorous severity. The accused, if he is not lucky enough to avail himself of the thousand avenues of escape that are open during the progress of his trial, must abandon all hope of further consideration, and look to undergo a punishment, of which the full extent cannot be estimated by any human sagacity. Once condemned, he ceases to be an object of care or solicitude, except so far as these are necessary to preserve his life and restrain his liberty. Through crime he has forfeited all claim upon the fostering care of the state. He is an alien and an outcast, and has no pretence for expecting any thing but misery.
Surely there is something vindictive in all this--something not quite consistent with the calm and unimpassioned administration of justice. The first impressions of any man of ordinary humanity must be very much against a system which fosters and encourages such a state of things. We believe that those first impressions would be confirmed by inquiry; and it is our purpose in the present article briefly to state the reasons for our belief.
The treatment of criminals under sentence of imprisonment must now be well known to the public. Repeated discussion and innumerable writings have rendered it familiar to every body. A man is condemned to undergo, let us say, three years' incarceration in a jail. A portion of the time is to be spent in hard labour. He commences his imprisonment with no other earthly object than to get through it with the least possible amount of suffering. Employment, which might, under better circumstances, be a pleasant resource, is distasteful to him because it is compulsory, and because it is productive of no benefit to himself. The hours that are unemployed are passed in company with others as bad as, or worse than, himself. They amuse themselves by recounting the history of their lives, their hairbreadth escapes, their successful villanies. Each profits by the experience of the whole number, and stores it in his memory for future guidance. Every good impulse is checked, and every better feeling stifled in the birth. There is no room in a jail for the growth of virtue; the atmosphere is not congenial to its development. The prisoner, however well disposed, cannot choose but listen to the debasing talk of those with whom he is compelled to associate. Should he resist the wicked influence for a while, he can hardly do so long. The poison will work. By little and little it insinuates itself into the mind, and vitiates all the springs of good. In the end, he yields to the irresistible force of continued bad example, and becomes as bad as the worst.