In Russian and French Prisons

In Russian and French Prisons
by P. Kropotkin
London: Ward and Downey
1887
INTRODUCTORY
In our busy life, preoccupied as we are with the numberless petty
affairs of everyday existence, we are all too much inclined to pass by,
many great evils which affect Society without giving them the attention
they really deserve. If sensational "revelations" about some dark side of
our life occasionally find their way into the daily Press; if they succeed
in shaking our indifference and awaken public attention, we may have
in the papers, for a month or two, excellent articles and letters on the
subject. Many well-meant things may then be said, the most humane
feelings expressed. But the agitation soon subsides; and, after having
asked for some new regulations or laws, in addition to the hundreds of
thousands of regulations and laws already in force; after having made
some microscopic attempts at combating by a few individual efforts a
deep-rooted evil which ought to be combated by the combined efforts
of Society at large, we soon return to our daily occupations without
caring much about what has been done. It is good enough if, after all
the noise, things have not gone from bad to worse.
If this remark is true with regard to so many features of our public life,
it is especially so with regard to prisons and prisoners.' To use Miss
Linda Gilbert's--the American Mrs. Fry's--words, "After a man has
been confined to a felon's cell, Society loses all interest in and care for
him." Provided be has "bread to eat, water to drink, and plenty of work
to do," Society considers itself as having fulfilled all its duties towards
him. From time to time, somebody acquainted with prisons starts an
agitation against the bad state of our jails and lock-ups. Society

recognizes that something ought to be done to remedy the evil. But the
efforts of the reformers are broken by the inertia of the organized
system; they have to fight against the widely-spread prejudices against
all those who have fallen under the ban of the law; and soon they are
left to themselves in their struggle against an immense evil. Such was
the fate of John Howard, and of how many others? A few kindhearted
and energetic men and women continue, of course, amidst the general
indifference, to do their work of improving the condition of prisoners,
or rather of mitigating the bad effects of prisons on their inmates. But,
guided as they are merely by philanthropic feeling, they seldom venture
to criticize the principles of penal institutions; still less do they search
for the causes which every year bring millions of human beings within
the enclosure of prison walls. They try to mitigate the evil; they seldom
attempt to grapple with it at its source.
Every year something like a hundred thousand men, women, and
children are locked up in the jails of Great Britain alone--very nearly
one million in those of the whole of Europe. Nearly 1,200,000£. of
public money are spent every year, in this country alone, for convict
and local prisons; very nearly ten millions in Europe--not to speak of
the expenses involved by the maintenance of the huge machinery which
supplies prisons with inmates. But, apart from a few philanthropists and
professional men, who cares about the results achieved at so heavy an
expenditure? Are our prisons worth the enormous outlay in human
labour yearly devoted to them? Do they Guarantee Society against the
recurrence of the evils which they are supposed to combat?
Having had in my life several opportunities of giving more than a
passing attention to these great questions, I have thought that it would
be useful to put together the observations which I have been enabled to
make on prisons and the reflections they have suggested.
My first acquaintance with prisons and exile was made in Siberia, in
connection with a committee for the reform of the Russian penal
system. There I had the opportunity of learning the state of things with
regard both to exile in Siberia and to prisons in Russia, and then my
attention was attracted first to the great question of crime and

punishment. Later on, in 1874 to 1876, 1 was kept, awaiting trial,
nearly two years in the fortress of Peter and Paul at St. Petersburg, and
could appreciate the terrible effects of protracted cellular confinement
upon my fellow-prisoners. Thence I was transferred to the
newly-opened House of Detention, which is considered as a model
prison for Russia, and thence again to a military prison at the St.
Petersburg Military Hospital.
When in this country, I was called upon, in 1881, to describe the
treatment of political prisoners in Russia, in order to tell the truth in the
face of the systematic misrepresentation of the matter