A Catholic View of Prison Life [pp. 42-54]

A4 CA THOZIC VIE W OF PRISON LIFE.
pastorals; that in "fashionable churches [the expression has
some warranty!] the frock-coated or silk-costumed congregation
is seldom outraged by allusion to prison life." Lacordaire once
fulminated in a Paris pulpit against the "crimes of heart which
make respectable persons criminals"; but it is not usual to hear
preachers honestly informing their congregations that they may
be much worse than prison convicts. Still less do they urge on
them their own moral responsibility in first creating a criminal
class by their own selfishness, and then not caring one straw
whether that class continue criminal or be encouraged by Christian kincness to a better life. Now, might not this subject be so
elaborated by ecclesiastics as to gain the attention of Christian
governments, so as to lead governments to call in the aid of ecclesiastics to counsel them on the most interior points? Is it a
matter of no serious interest that, say in England alone, some ten
thousand ex-convicts should be roaming about, not precisely
"seeking whom they may devour," but seeking how not to be
devoured by society? These men cannot live. They are not
allowed to live. They are driven by society to hide in holes and
corners, out of the sight of every "respectable" person. Then
they starve. Then they thieve again. Then society says: " What
can we do with the criminal classes, who are so incorrigible, and
seem to like being sent to prison?" Well, if society had to go
without a dinner for a fortnight it would probably relax its
morals on the subject of taking food when no one would make it
possible to earn it. I could not blame a man who stole my forks
and spoons if, after he had asked me to give him work, I had
pointed him out to a policeman. I should hold him to be justified
against me; and I should regard myself, not him, as the thief. Yet
this is how society acts in England; and cannot the bishops and
clergy take the subject up in earnest and teach society its duty to
ex-convicts? The two grand objects to be achieved-as I have
ventured to suggest-are, first, to make prison life probationary,
and, next, to provide homes for ex-convicts. To do either requires
a desperate amount of earnestness. And this is just what cannot
be looked for from society, but what can be looked for-can be
respectfully asked-from the clergy. The whole subject may be
"surrounded with difficulties." No one doubts that a certain
proportion of the criminal class are "bad," in the worst senses
of the unpleasant word "bad "; that they are the self-constituted
enemies of society, and that society ismnot responsible for them.
Say about one-quarter of the criminal class is "bad," one-quarter
the victims of sheer ignorance, one-quarter the mere dupes of
I 886.]
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