No. 3

I have received your Despatch of the 28th September No. 133
written on the receipt of my Circular Despatch of the 18th June last
and enclosing in answer to that Despatch a report from the Colonial
Secretary of a visit of surprize paid by him to the Prison of
Victoria.

The Colonial Secretary reports that the Goal is clean, that no
substantial exception can be taken to the management, that although
the prisoners cannot be classified for want of means, they are well
cared for, well fed, and well clothed, that they make no complaints,
and that the absence of complaint is sufficient of itself to show
that the management cannot be unsatisfactory.

On this reasoning you make no remark and I cannot therefore but
fear that you in some degree misapprehend the object of my Circular
Despatch of the 18th June and of the enquiries which preceded it.

It had been found some few years ago that in a considerable
number of the prisons in this country, not perhaps otherwise
illmanaged, the essential object of imprisonment in repressing crime
and affording security to person and property, had been lost sight
of. Industrial employment not only in the later stages of
imprisonment but in all stages, had been substituted, with a
shot-sighted view to profit for strictly penal labour by the
bread-wheel or crank or by shot drill. Separation had been very
imperfectly provided for. Dietaries had been on too high a scale.
The time allotted for sleep had been unduly prolonged. Remissions
were loosely granted without applying the labour test, by which alone
it is generally practicable to ascertain that they have been
earned. The result was that recommitments from the 2nd, 3rd,
4th and, for still higher numbers of times had become numerous, and
a large increase was accruing to the class of offenders who, when not
in prison, pass their lives in the habitual commission of crime.

When careful enquiry had disclosed this state of things at home
and what was amiss had been to a great extent corrected by
legislative and administrative action, it was deemed expedient to
enquire into the prison systems of the Colonies and ascertain whether
and to what extent the same evils might exist in them and the same
remedies be applicable. You were furnished with the result of the
enquiry in the digest and report accompanying my Despatch of the 18th
June. The particulars noted respecting the prison in Vancouver's
Island and that in British Columbia are to be found at p.p. 30, 59,
and 60. Amongst other things it is stated that there is no strictly
penal labour, no separation, not even classification except of a very
partial character, a high diet, and in Vancouver's Island twelve
hours for sleep, and that tickets of leave are granted on condition
of quitting the Colony.

I do not enter upon the question in what degree peculiar local
circumstances and the character of the races to be dealt with or the
nature of the offences commonly committed, may render the principles
of prison discipline adopted in this Country unsuitable to British
Columbia; but it is a question which deserves your attention, and on
reverting to the report of the Colonial Secretary enclosed in your
Despatch you will perceive that it has been written without reference
to the questions at issue and apparently in ignorance of them.

If you will again direct your attention to the Prison Digest and
Report Part II, or merely to the "general summary" at p. 87, you will
find a statement of the principles of Prison Discipline laid down by
the Lord Chief Justice of England in 1863 which may be said to have a
universal applicability, and a further statement of the penal means
by which, in this country and probably in most other countries,
effect may best be given to those principles.

On receiving what is there written I assure myself that you will
find it worthy of the active and attentive consideration which you
are in the habit of devoting to all subjects affecting important
public interests.