Cruelty in the Elmira Reformatory
On the treatment of prisoners.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1894)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 11.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/cruelty-in-the-elmira-reformatory/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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IN my judgment, no human being was ever made better, nobler, by being
whipped or clubbed.

Mr. Brockway, according to his own testimony, is simply a savage. He
belongs to the Dark Ages—to the Inquisition, to the torture-chamber,
and he needs reforming more than any prisoner under his control. To
put any man within his power is in itself a crime. Mr. Brockway is a
believer in cruelty—an apostle of brutality. He beats and bruises flesh
to satisfy his conscience—his sense of duty. He wields the club himself
because he enjoys the agony he inflicts.

When a poor wretch, having reached the limit of endurance, submits or
becomes unconscious, he is regarded as reformed. During the remainder of
his term he trembles and obeys. But he is not reformed. In his heart is
the flame of hatred, the desire for revenge; and he returns to society
far worse than when he entered the prison.

Mr. Brockway should either be removed or locked up, and the Elmira
Reformatory should be superintended by some civilized man—some man with
brain enough to know, and heart enough to feel.

I do not believe that one brute, by whipping, beating and lacerating
the flesh of another, can reform him. The lash will neither develop the
brain nor cultivate the heart. There should be no bruising, no scarring
of the body in families, in schools, in reformatories, or prisons. A
civilized man does not believe in the methods of savagery. Brutality
has been tried for thousands of years and through all these years it has
been a failure.

Criminals have been flogged, mutilated and maimed, tortured in a
thousand ways, and the only effect was to demoralize, harden and
degrade society and increase the number of crimes. In the army and navy,
soldiers and sailors were flogged to death, and everywhere by church and
state the torture of the helpless was practiced and upheld.

Only a few years ago there were two hundred and twenty-three offences
punished with death in England. Those who wished to reform this savage
code were denounced as the enemies of morality and law. They were
regarded as weak and sentimental.

At last the English code was reformed through the efforts of men who
had brain and heart. But it is a significant fact that no bishop of
the Episcopal Church, sitting in the House of Lords, ever voted for the
repeal of one of those savage laws. Possibly this fact throws light
on the recent poetic and Christian declaration by Bishop Potter to the
effect that "there are certain criminals who can only be made to realize
through their hides the fact that the State has laws to which the
individual must be obedient."

This orthodox remark has the true apostolic ring, and is in perfect
accord with the history of the church. But it does not accord with the
intelligence and philanthropy of our time. Let us develop the brain by
education, the heart by kindness. Let us remember that criminals
are produced by conditions, and let us do what we can to change the
conditions and to reform the criminals.
