The proportion which re-commitments bear to first offences has always been considered of importance, as they indicate the efficacy of the correctional system of a prison, or the improving moral condition of the people; the diminution of re-committals having relation to the former, and the decrease in first committals to the latter. A great length of time must elapse, however, before the promoters of either the one or the other can perceive any marked effect from their endeavours. In the mean while, as "it must needs be that offences come," it would perhaps be more desirable that criminality should be confined to a class apartseparable from the sound portion of the community-rather than that the same quantity of criminality should be infused throughout the whole mass-tainting and disgracing, more or less, every part of it. The former condition of things obtains, probably, to a considerable extent in large towns; the latter in the smaller towns and rural districts. The following table will show the rate of re-commitments to the Preston gaol, for felony, during the last five years : * Seven persons connected in a single robbery. for felon. Comtls. Comtls. Comtls. re-Comts re-Comtls. Centsl. 3rd 4th Total propo. of 1079, aver. about 216 yearly | 162 aver. 32.40 From this table it is pretty evident that the re-commitments almost form a constant quantity; and that repeated crimes are not the result of circumstances commonly instrumental in the production of first offences, but of demoralised habits, which operate independently of most other causes likely to tempt or urge to crime. A reference to the second and last lines of the above table will show an increase, in the total commitments for felony, of 13 and 22 per cent. upon the five years' average; and a decrease, in the proportion of re-commitments, from 17 to 13 per cent. But the most momentous thing connected with re-committals is the age of the delinquents, or rather the age at which they were first sent to prison. The 162 cases of re-committal enumerated in the above table, comprise only 143 offenders, nineteen criminals having been committed within the five years for third or fourth offences. Of these 143 offenders, (Table, No. 10.) 29 were first indicted when under the age of 15 46 { 28 were first indicted at the age of 15, 16, and 17 18, 19, and 20 from 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 In table No. 6, is seen the centesimal proportion which each class of criminals, as regards age, bears to the whole amount of general commitments. In the following table I repeat some particulars from No. 6, for the sake of contrasting them with the results of the table given above. Table, No. 11. The above affords a statistical proof of the accuracy of the general opinion that early profligacy is most difficult of reformation; but it could scarcely have been supposed that more than half the instances of a repetition of crime are to be found in persons who began their bad practices under 21 years old, while such instances amount to 40 per cent. in persons under 18. a Ignorance, idleness, and parental neglect, are, no doubt, greatly instrumental in creating such proneness to crime in young persons; but all these are little in comparison with the mischief done, and unavoidably done-under the present system of discipline-in the very place intended for their correction. However bad a child may be previous to its entrance into gaol, he generally feels a certain degree of terror associated with the idea of a prison, and consequently a hesitation in the commission of any crime which might lead to it. The prison once entered, however, the dread of it formerly entertained, now appears to be groundless; and the little culprit finds himself surrounded by those who make him ashamed, not for what he has done, but for the little that he has done! I have seen children who, upon the first day of their imprisonment, were crying with shame and apprehension, become in " little week" careless and indifferent, reckless and turbulent; and I have seen, in too many instances, such children committed again and again upon charges of felony, and eventually sentenced to transportation. Ambition evinces itself in various ways; and it is a melancholy truth, that many young delinquents soon acquire an ambition to excel in crime, an emulation to rival the exploits of the boasting villains with whom they are associated in gaol. Some years ago, this was shown in a remarkable manner:-Two boys, committed for their first offence, were confined in the same yard with two daring and long-practised thieves. The two latter were transported, the two former sentenced to a few weeks' imprisonment: they were soon re-committed, however, for fresh offences, having in the mean time assumed the names of the two convicts who had been the object of their depraved admiration! I have more than once seen a young prisoner, upon his re-commitment after a short liberation, enter the chapel, the morning after his arrival, with a kind of swagger, glancing towards his old companions with an air which exhibited much less of shame than of triumph. For these great evils I venture to urge that, in the absence of a more perfect system of prison discipline, a summary mode of conviction for trifling offences in young criminals, greater facilities for admitting them to bail, or more frequent sessions, are highly necessary. * Would it not even be better that society should waive its strict demands for justice, in the case of some young offenders, rather than that hatred of the crime should lead to an irreparable injury upon the criminal, a being entitled to compassion for its infancy and ignorance? * A child of twelve years of age, the son of a decent tradesman, was committed for the sessions under a very trifling charge. As he must have waited three months in prison before his trial, with some difficulty I got him bailed; and the grand jury subsequently ignored the bill against him. This would have been done had he remained in prison during the three months; but in that case his feelings and habits must have undergone a shock from which they might never have recovered. It must be mentioned, too, that very frequently the grand jury will not find bills against young offenders in what they consider trifling cases; and then the culprits, after weeks of contamination in a prison, are set at liberty, the more fully prepared for further crime, because they carry away with them an impression that the law has no punishment for what they have hitherto been guilty of." With regard to more frequent sessions, having had reason to suppose that the influx of prisoners charged with felony is less immediately after a session than before it; I ascertained that, during the three years ending last July, the aggregate of committals for the first three weeks after the sessions amounted to 139, and those for the three weeks immediately preceding the sessions to 175; there being only two out of the twelve quarters in which more persons were committed at the beginning than at the end of a quarter. Several causes may be assigned for this. In trifling cases, magistrates are often willing to commit, with the certainty that the delinquent must remain thirteen, or even sixteen weeks, awaiting his trial; sometimes, too, offenders are so circumstanced that it is almost certain they will not abscond, even though they are aware of the suspicions attached to them; their apprehension is consequently unnecessary until the near approach of the sessions. I am of opinion, also, that the public administration of justice at the sessions, has an effect upon the criminal part of the population; and that the examples then made operate as a warning, which is more powerful in proportion as it is more recent. The sessions of April, 1834, exhibited a calendar of 95 felonious offences; and some appeal cases being left in arrear, it was deemed expedient to hold an intermediate sessions in May, at which only 17 prisoners were tried for felony, and at the following regular sessions only 19; the amount for the two being smaller than for any previous quarter sessions since October, 1828. This instance is, however, an isolated one, and must not be rated above its value in estimating the advantages of more frequent sessions. The hundreds of Blackburn, Amounderness, and Leyland, furnish the cases for trial at the Preston sessions, which, as already seen, amount to 277; and the hundred of Lonsdale, those for the Lancaster sessions, amounting in the last year to 19. If to these be added the indictments at the Lancaster assizes, amounting in March and August last to 43, we shall have the proportion of felonious offences to the population in the four hundreds, viz. 339 offences to 343,108 inhabitants; or 1 to 1012. The estimate for 1835,* between the criminality of the whole county to the population, was 1 to 481. This high proportion arises, of course, from the inclusion of Liverpool and Manchester in the account. But the two hundreds which comprise those towns do not present a greater proportion of manufacturing population than the four hundreds; and I, therefore, infer that to large towns, and not to a manufacturing population, are we to look for the principal causes of the great proportions of criminality.† The following is a table of committals from July, 1836, to July, 1837, distinguishing the offences, and ages of offenders, and the causes of offence : * Companion to British Almanac for 1836. + According to the census of 1831, the males employed in agriculture, in retail trade, or in handicraft, and the merchants, professions, &c. amounted to 37,435 in the four hundreds; while the manufacturing and labouring population amounted to 35,548. In the two hundreds of Salford and West Derby, the above classes were respectively 115,487 and 109,900. |