These tombs of the living, whom society has rejected
for ever, unlike all other prisons, will condemn their inmates to
continuous solitary immurement in cells, and to a life which may
be worse than death itself. . . . This most wretched condition,
which the free man cannot realise without horror, is to last ten
years; and it is not to be in the power of man to bring it to an
end sooner, if the prisoner, broken down by physical weakness, or
threatened by loss of reason, cannot endure it any longer.''
After this description, I am not sorry that I denounced the
cellular system as one of the madnesses of the nineteenth century.
This useless, stupid, inhuman, costly ``tomb of the living'' must
be repudiated, even when reduced to its lowest terms by the new
Italian code, wherein Parliament, accepting part of my amendment,
fixes the term of absolute seclusion at seven years.
It will be seen by this description of cellular imprisonment that
the classical criminal and prison experts have logically arrived
at the conclusion that perpetual punishment should be abolished;
and this renders recidivism possible even in murder. But it is
clear that what we ought to abolish is not perpetual separation,
but only the stupidly harsh form of isolation in cells--and this
not only in life sentences, but in all sentences.
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