JB/121/063/001

'Click Here To Edit F2 Establishment F.2 Mr. Bentham to Mr. Nepean 21 sept 1799

Convicts consignable to Panopticon should not be purposely kept in the Jails.
Reasons - Plan of Jail confinement illegal- uneconomical - Building expence
20 times as great as in Panopticon in Cold Bath Fields - Affords no post-liberation
employment - Narrowing Panopticon would render the illegality irretrievable.

An Idea I have heard stated started (a) is that, in regard to such of the
transportable Convicts as, instead of their being disposed of according to the sentence, are
detained in the several County and other Jails, their cost (meaning their cost
to Government) is nothing at all : and that, in that consideration, Economy
might be understood to forbid their being reckoned into the number, for which
accommodation shall be provided in the Penitentiary House. —

On this head I would beg leave to observe—

1. That the economy would (I humbly apprehend) be found to be apparent only & not
real.— I have heard no reason for regarding it as proved (and surely it is not a point
to be taken for granted without proof) that the expence of keeping them in those
situations will in itself be less, than that of keeping them in the intended situations
will be, at the intended price. In the Penitentiary House their capacity
for labour will moreover be made the most of, and will be, all of it, so much
profit to the Community; which at present is all lost, except so far as the
small profit, made in the few improved Prisons, may be found to extend.

In the expence of those Convicts whatever it be to be regarded as saved,
merely by reason of its not being defrayed out of the same fund, out of
which the expence of other Convicts is defrayed? Is the burthen annihilated
is it so much as reduced, by being shifted off from one description of his
Majesty's subjects to another? from those who are most able, to those who are
less able to support it?_ From the whole Community taken together, to a
particular part _ an unequally loaded and already overloaded part_of that
same Community? (I mean the Contributions to the Poors Rates) From those whom
the law has designed to bear it, to those whom the law has not designed to
bear it?_ Ideas to this effect may present themselves on a cursory view - but
surely they will never be found to bear the test of a deliberate and comprehensive
examination.—

Parliament has prescribed two modes of providing for Convicts:
Confinement on Board the Hulks, and Transportation to New South Wales. In

Identifier: | JB/121/063/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 121.
Date_1	1799-09-21	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	121	Main Headings	Panopticon
Folio number	063	Info in main headings field	Establishment enlarged etc
Image	001	Titles	Mr Bentham to Mr Nepean / Convicts consignable to Panopticon should not be purposely kept in the Jails / Reasons
Category	Correspondence	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	"Recto" is not in the list (recto, verso) of allowed values for the "Rectoverso" property.	Page Numbering	F31 / F32 / F33 / F34
Penner		Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections	Jeremy Bentham	Paper Produced in Year
Notes public	See note to letter 1471, vol. 6	ID Number	001
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