Unlike Real Society

The reason for the lack of success in "curing" criminals of their crime through the prison system was well expressed by Thomas Osbourne, governor of Sing Sing prison in which he introduced a measure of self government. "It endeavours," he said, "to make men industrious by driving them to work; to make them virtuous by removing temptation; to make them respect the law by forcing them to obey the edicts of an autocrat; to make them far-sighted by giving them no chance to exercise foresight; to give them initiative by treating them in large groups; in short, to prepare them again for society by placing them in conditions as unlike real society as they could well be made." Only when all these defects have been treated, will there be any possibility of a prison serving the function of rehabilitating a man to fit in with society. Yet even in the most modern prisons only some of these blocks to reformation have been removed.