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Origins of Parole &
Its History in NY©

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Before Maconochie and Crofton

But the concept of prisoners earning early release actually predates Maconochie and Crofton. Philip Gidley King launched it in the Australian prison colony of New South Wales during his tenure (1800-1806) as its governor when he began issuing so-called tickets-of-leave. The tickets released selected prisoners to be on their own provided they kept to two conditions: made their own living and stayed law-abiding. Selections among prisoners were made, at least initially, on pragmatic assessments of their skills and wills to make good and not make trouble.

 

[Sketch of Maconochie]
Capt. Alexander Maconochie (sketch).

Governor King introduced the system, not from any reformist zeal, but to solve his own particular prisoner overpopulation problem. In New South Wales, those prisoners who could not be indentured out to private employers providing them with shelter, sustenance and some remittance had to be cared for by – and remain in the custody of – the colony's government.

 

Often, despite the colony’s private employers not hiring any more prisoners and despite the colony’s own prison being filled to overflowing, the mother country kept sending still more prisoners.

 

Thus, Gov. King sought to relieve some of his prisoner population pressures by issuing leave tickets to those inmates whose talents and tendencies were seen as offering the best prospect of their staying on their own and staying out of trouble.

 

At first, there was no element of “earning” the ticket-of-leave; rather one “earned” not having it revoked. But soon, the prisoners realized that if they learned skills associated with the tasks they were assigned in custody and if they exhibited capacity for sustained effort without unruliness, they improved their chances of being judged good prospects for “the ticket.”

 

[Philip King sketch]
Philip King, born 1758 in Cornwall, joined the British navy at age 12 and served in America. Later he joined the fleet that in 1788 first colonized Australia with convicts, civilians and marines. As governor of New South Wales (1800-06), he made many improvements in penal management, agriculture, health, education, exploration and settlement while seeking peaceful relations with native peoples.

Because so many did make good once given the opportunity, the tickets-of-leave became a focus of prisoner life in the colony. Around the tickets developed expectations, practices, abuses and reforms in the decades that followed their introduction. Maconochie’s “marks” system had more than a quarter century of tickets-of-leave history as part of the background from which the plan emerged and to which it was addressed.

 

What Captain Maconochie and Sir Crofton did was craft pre-release and post-release programs focused on improving the seeker and holder of the tickets-of-leave and thereby also improve chances that their “leaves” would be successful.

 

Early Releases, American-style

In America, prison officials and state governors had granted pardons, commutations and other forms of early release long before the Maconochie-Crofton marks systems or the Cincinnati statement of progressive penal principles. Indeed, so many were being granted to prisoners at New York’s first state penitentiary, Greenwich Village’s “Newgate,” in the early 19th Century that the ratio of early release prisoners to those released after serving full sentences often ran as much as 10-to-1.

 

What prompted New York State authorities to engaged in such liberal early release practices was precisely what had prompted New South Wales authorities to issue leave tickets – prison overpopulation, not prisoner reformation. Just as leave tickets in the Australian prison colony developed without much plan or program and gave rise to confusion and collusion, so did the early release practices involving New York’s imprisoned felons. Sometimes commutations not being granted as inmates had anticipated led to work stoppages, sabotage and riots.

 

[Norval Morris book cover]
The evolution and emergence of New York State's first penitentiary, situated in Greenwich Village and commonly called Newgate (sketch above), is retold in Penitentiary Origins in the City of New York elsewhere on this web site.

In an attempt to deal with prison overpopulation and often-chaotic situations involving commutations, the State Legislature in 1817 revised laws governing prison sentences and releases. By making theft of $25 or less a petty larceny, the lawmakers effectively depopulated by half the number of thieves being sent to Newgate. By authorizing prison officials to abridge an inmate’s term by up to one-quarter for both good behavior and an acceptable work record, the New York legislators introduced some rational order into release practices. Incidentally, in doing so, they wrote what some regard as the first “good time” law in the country.

 

Note that this pioneering legislation constituted an empowerment of prison officials, not an entitlement for prisoners. Also the law did not set up a system of grades marking the inmate’s reformation and advancing him in progressive stages toward early release. But it did add, at least theoretically, a possible incentive to induce better behavior and production.

Copyright © 2001 by Thomas C. McCarthy, New York City

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