ISBN: 978B008BC12E9 / B008BC12E0 Report on the Penitentiary System in the United States (Classic Reprint) by: Charles Glidden Haines

Attracted the attention, anil commanded that anxiety which its importance has demanded. This Tact is visible in the history of every civilized people, both of ancient and modern times. Wars have been waged, and vast and bloody revolutions accomplished, for the acquisition and establishment of political rights; laws have been invented and improved, from... Show More

Attracted the attention, anil commanded that anxiety which its importance has demanded. This Tact is visible in the history of every civilized people, both of ancient and modern times. Wars have been waged, and vast and bloody revolutions accomplished, for the acquisition and establishment of political rights; laws have been invented and improved, from one age to another, for the security of property and the enjoyment of civil immunities ;moral and relative obligations have been defined with a nicety that strongly marks the perfection of human discrimination; but that science which cautiously and successfully graduates punishments to offences, and, in the greatest possible degree, prevents the perpetration of crimes, is still in its infancy. In arbitrary governments, where the arm of power is the rule of law, despotism never pauses in her march over the lives and fortunes of submissive millions, to adjust a scale of punishment to suit the atrocity of guilt, or to provide for the reformation of character. We may look in vain among the populous and refined nations, that once flourished in the fairest portions of A sia, for any exceptions to this remark worthy of consideration. Ancient I ndia, so renowned for her civilization, her wealth, her ingenuity, her arts and her sciences, and filled, as she is, with the wrecks of power and splendor, was cmel in her administration of justice; and one of the earliest historians induces us to believe, that crimes were punished with that severity that destroys all proportion between the punishment and the aggression. The laws of the most polished states of Greece, not excepting A thens, when taken as a body, were grossly defective ;(6) and during the most illustrious ages of Punishment (according to a striking personification in the Hindoo Code) is the magistrate ;punishment is the inspircr of terror ;punishment is the nmir(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) Show Less