#oswald withrow

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"A CONVICT'S GROUSE" ---- SHACKLING THE TRANSGRESSOR. By O. C. J. WITHROW. Nelson (Toronto), $2. ---- BOOKS by ex-inmates of prison are, one gathers in reading this book, unusual in Canada. Here we have had many, and most of them have been distinctly valuable, notably Whyte Mountain or Life in London's Great Prisons and Borstalians (with reservation about the latter's account of the aftercare work of the Borstal Association). Unlike these books Dr. Withrow's is full of bitterness and this is scarcely surprising since Dr. Withrow, apparently in prison for performing an operation for abortion, strenuously denies his guilt and challenges his trial.

None the less the book is of real value and anyone interested in English prisons will be interested in making comparisons. The first point of difference is the absence of contact with the outside world, not so much in the prisoner himself for that is strictly limited with us also, but in the prison life generally. That historically anomalous but none the less extremely valuable relic of the old days of local prisons, the Visiting Justices, seems to have no counterpart in Canada. Nor does that great modern improvement, the unofficial Prison Visitor, appear to have been introduced. "The law-abiding citizenhood is barred out of the penitentiary as effectively as the law-breaking community is barred in," writes Dr. Withrow, and according to him the information given to the public about prisons by the Canadian authorities is utterly unreliable. The same cannot be said of our Prison authorities.

DR. WITHROW has a sorry tale to. tell of over-crowding, lack of classification, brutal punishments inflicted by quite subordinate officials, very meagre education, farcical religious work (though he sings the praises of a few religious workers from outside), defective hospital arrangements, and so on. The governor is portrayed as a bully of low type, utterly different from any governor of an English prison of recent years. "The militarism of the system was apparent even in the outer trappings." There were some men with ridiculously long sentences though prison authorities cannot be blamed for that and one man had, we are told, a life sentence plus seventy-five years. On most of these points an Englishman may justifiably feel that we are better, but when Dr. Withrow writes: "I suggest that there be no sentences handed out from judges or magistrates immediately after the heat of a chase and a trial," the Englishman should feel a guilty con- science, for what interval between verdict and sentence is possible in the average trial before an Assize Court or Quarter Sessions?

CLAUD MULLINS.

[AL: A British review of Oswald Withrow's Shackling the Transgressor, likely from September 1933.]

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"THE BIG HOUSE"

Shackling the Transgressor. An Indictment of the Canadian Penal System. By Oswald C. J. Withrow, M.B. (Toronto), M.R.O.S. (England), L.R.C.P. (London). Nelson. (7s. 6d.)

Not so long ago an elaborate Report was Issued showing the results of an exhaustive investigation undertaken under the Federal authority into prison practice throughout the United States. In many cases brutality and corruption of a kind quite unthinkable in this country were revealed, and serious efforts are now being made in a number of the "sovereign" States to secure the necessary reforms.

Dr. Withrow, who had spent two and a half years "inside" for a crime of which he may have been guiltless - his name was subsequently restored to the Medical Register - was persuaded by the Editor of the "Toronto Globe," the most widely-known of Canadian journals, to write a detailed account of his experiences in Kingston Penitentiary. In October, 1932, disturbances occurred there, which developed into actual rioting, and when the offenders were tried in open court evidence was given of such a startling character that an open, impartial and rigorous inquiry was demanded. Up to that time Kingston had been generally regarded as a model prison.

Hygiene and "Paddling" It may be that this book exaggerates the evils of the existing system, though the author admits that convicts should not be mollycoddled and must not expect prison to be a "home from home." None the less, it is clear that the administration of this particular "Big House" needs drastic overhauling. Much of its alleged amenities seem to be mere window-dressing. For example, the famous library of many thousand volumes (the estimate given to visitors ranges from 15,000 to 25,000) is not what it is supposed to be. Out of the actual 13,943 more than half are school books (1,100 of them copies of an old arithmetic) and of the remainder hardly 1,000 have escaped serious mutilation. The educational facilities provided are practically valueless.

Hygiene is sadly neglected, and what are manifestly mental cases are not subject to specific treatment, But of all prevailing abuses the worst is the continual "paddling," i.e. flogging with a broad, heavy strap with a wooden handle, which is inflicted for very small offences. Dr. Withrow's story of the fate of Miglio, the Persian, will horrify his readers, Canada has a high reputation for her incorruptible administration of justice, and we hope and believe that the Canadian Government will lose no time in reforming Kingston and, if need be, her other five large penitentiaries,

[A review of Oswald Withrow's Shackling the Trangressor from an unknown newspaper in the UK. Likely September 1933.]