Abstract
The timeless dialogue between those who seek to punish and those who try to reform wrongdoers is well documented in this fascinating book about a major episode in the early history of Australia. Its hero, Alexander Maconochie, deserves a place in the roll of honour along with Pinel and Howard and others who released patients and prisoners from their chains. In 1840 the British Government and the New South Wales governor gave Maconochie a lukewarm licence to pioneer the use of a carefully thought out token economy (his ‘mark’ system) to improve the lot of convicts in the dreaded penal settlement of Norfolk Island. Maconochie was a pioneer of behaviour therapy long before Pavlov or Watson.
Maconochie's ideas had begun to form in London where he had been the first secretary of the Geographical Society and the first professor of Geography at London University. They took further shape while he was secretary to John Franklin, Governor of Van Diemen's Land, at a time when 100 lashes was fairly standard punishment for even trivial misdemeanours and many convicts saw death as a welcome relief. There were constant attempts to undermine advocates of a more humane approach that finally ended Maconochie's authority as head of the prison settlement. Settlers were outraged at the thought of well-behaved convicts who earned sufficient marks (tokens of good behaviour) having their sentences shortened and being freed to live in the colony. That it took almost a year to get a reply to a letter sent from Norfolk Island to London meant there was precious little chance of a dialogue to correct misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the situation.
The book's ball-by-ball account of how the mark system was implemented is illuminating. Beforehand Maconochie did a detailed tour of inspection of the convict settlement. He found that the possession of a ‘pipe, a newspaper, a little tea, some (unusual) article of clothing… or the omission of some mark of respect … or even an imputation of sullenness' were deemed ‘unpardonable crimes’. At meal times prisoners had to tear their food with their fingers and teeth and mostly had to drink out of a bucket. There were no facilities for worship or books. The regime's brutality contrasted sharply with the beauty and fertility of the island.
An educated prisoner said the superintendent's opening speech to the ‘old’ prisoners on the island ‘drew Tears from the eyes of the most hardened and depraved beings, gave us to understand that it had been the pleasure of our most Gracious Queen to forward him to that Island for the purpose of ascertaining how far the system of discipline by which we had for many years been governed was susceptible of improvement. He purposed introducing measures by which alone the industrious and otherwise well-conducted could purchase their Freedom.’ Marks were awarded or lost daily according to prisoners' conduct as evaluated by the overseers. With their marks convicts could buy tea, sugar, tobacco, fresh provisions. Prisoners could choose their own companions to form Messes of six in which each was responsible for the conduct of the other and all lost marks if any one was caught transgressing.
Two months after the mark system began the convicts were given a holiday to celebrate Queen Victoria's 21st birthday and were allowed to wander over the island as they pleased. They had special food and an open-air lunch. With a mixture of rum and lemonade they toasted the Queen. Convict musicians played the national anthem. Convict players performed a comic opera, songs and ballads, a speech from Shakespeare's Richard III, and another playlet, and saw a display of fireworks paid for, like the rum, by Maconochie himself. At 8 pm when the bugle sounded the end of the holiday every single prisoner returned to their sleeping quarters. There had been no misdemeanours throughout the day. The superintendent put up a congratulatory notice for the prisoners.
Prisoners and other observers recorded a dramatic and lasting improvement in the convicts' behaviour from the start of the new regime onward, even though there were naturally some lapses and Maconochie sanctioned occasional lashings. By July 1845, of 920 ‘old hands’ discharged to Sydney no more than 20 (about 2%) had come into conflict with the law. Of freed prisoners who went to Van Diemens’ Land, a year later only 3% had committed offences despite hostility from the locals, serious unemployment and the prevalence of violence in the society as a whole.
The strong evidence of efficacy of the new humane regime was ignored by those who condemned it and constantly sought to sabotage the reforms. There was uproar that Maconochie should have dared to give prisoners rum with which to toast the Queen on her birthday, and that his mark system was applied to recidivists as well as new prisoners. Certain staff in Norfolk Island, the Governor and many colonists in New South Wales and civil servants in London all worked against him. The mark system cost slightly more than the earlier one. A new politician in London became responsible for the settlements, and the ship bringing the news of Maconochie's dismissal arrived in Sydney in May 1843 having crossed with another ship in mid-ocean which was bearing to London a fairly favourable report on conditions in Norfolk Island. He handed over responsibility to his successor in February 1844.
This book is a riveting read for anyone interested in penal conditions, the politics of punishment and reward, and the mechanics of transforming barbaric into enlightened conditions of detention. The story is as relevant to our world today as to the 19th century.