JB/550/193/001

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1
Letter XVII. Prisons for Safe-custody merely.

A word or two respecting the condition of offenders
before conviction: or, if that expression should appear to include a
solecism, of persons accused, who, either for want of bail or as charged
with offences not bailable, have hitherto been made, through negligence
or necessity, to share by anticipation so much of the fate of convicts, as
imprisonment more or less rigid may amount to.

To persons thus circumstanced the Inspection principle
would apply, as far as safe-custody was concerned, with as much
advantage as to convicts: but, as there can be no ground for punishing them,
any otherwise than in so far as the restraint necessary for safe-custody
has the effect of punishment, there can be as little ground for subjecting
them to solitude; unless where that circumstance should also appear
necessary, either to safe-custody, or to prevent that mental infection,
which novices in the arts of dishonesty, are so much in danger of
contracting
and in debauchery the parent of dishonesty, are so much in
danger of contracting, from the masters of those arts. In this view therefore
the partitions might appear to some an unnecessary ingredient in the composition
of the building: though I confess, from the consideration just alledged,
they would not appear in that light to me. Communication
must likewise be allowed to the prisoners with their friends and legal
assistants, for the purpose of settling their affairs, and concerting their
defence.

As forced labour is punishment, labour must not here be

Identifier: | JB/550/193/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 550.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	550	Main Headings
Folio number	193	Info in main headings field
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