Eleventh Annual Report of the Inspectors of State Prisons of the State of New York : Transmitted to the Legislature January 28, 1859 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Eleventh Annual Report of the Inspectors of State Prisons of the State of New York: Transmitted to the Legislature January 28, 1859

Thus it; not unfrequently happens, that a young man who is confined for the commission of his first offence, and that perhaps a slight one, is brought in direct contact daily and hourly with one who has made crime a study during his whole life, and is thoroughly educated in all its practices. It cannot be but that this constant communication must tend to destroy all hope of reformation, and the boy who, on his first introduction into the prison, had determined to lead afterwards a life of honesty and integrity, is, from defects inherent in our system, turned loose upon society at the expiration of his term of imprisonment an ao complished criminal, and fully schooled in all the ways and prao tices of vice.

In addition to this, the convict can hardly get away from the prison before he will meet some of his associates in crime, who he has known in it, and the evil associations there found will be con tinned, and their corrupting influences strengthened and increased. These are defects that cannot be remedied in any prison con ducted on the plan of congregated labor.

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