E BAGNE SUPPRESSED WHAT WILL BE DONE WITH THE CONVICTS?

Mr. Picanon, former governor of New Caledonia and French Guiana, charged by the penal reform commission with the report that this commission was to submit, sets out in the following article, which he was kind enough to write for the Petit Parisien, the various solutions that should lead to the abolition of the penal colony decided by Mr. Edouard Herriot.

The President of the Council has decided to abolish the colonial penal colonies. This excellent measure is not without raising practical difficulties.

Appointed to be part of the commission charged, after the investigation of Mr. Albert Londres in the Petit Parisien, with seeking improvements to be made to the transportation system, I believe I can make the following suggestions here:

It does not seem impracticable to repatriate the 4,500 convicts sentenced to forced labor currently serving their sentences in Guyana and the few hundred old convicts still existing in New Caledonia and whom it would be right not to forget. What would be done with them in France? There seem to be enough places available in our central prisons to receive them.

It is then that we could perhaps consider penitentiary methods inspired more by modern ideas than by the repressive conditions of the past. Two goals are to be pursued, on the one hand, the execution of the sentence; on the other hand, the amendment of the guilty party. Theoretically, this was what the law wanted. In practice, the result has only been weakly achieved.

What could not be obtained from convicts in an extreme climate could become possible on the territory of the metropolis. For example, the repatriated convicts would be divided into two categories: those who have given proof of reform in the penal colony and those whose conduct still requires close supervision.

The first would be assigned to public interest work: building or repairing roads, improving ports and even to agricultural enterprises. As for the others, they would be employed inside the central houses, it being understood that as they improve, they could, in turn, move on to outdoor work. The fate of convicts currently serving their sentence being thus settled, it would be necessary to take care of the released ones.

These belong to two categories:

1° Released prisoners required to reside in the colony, either for a time equal to that of their sentence (sentences of less than 8 years), or for life: this is what is commonly called "doubling";
2° Those who are released from any penal obligation, but who, due to lack of resources, have not been able to return to France.

I am in favor of the legal abolition of "doubling". Just as convicts currently serving their sentence would be repatriated, in order to complete their sentence in the metropolis, it would seem fair that those released who have already paid their debt to society be brought back to France. To this end, those released prisoners who are subject to the obligation of residence in the colony would be relieved, by way of pardon, of this obligation.

There is, in the two penal colonies, another category of convicts: these are the relegated. Relegation is an accessory punishment. Its sole purpose is to remove from the national soil the man who has undergone several convictions. It is obvious that the measure taken by the President of the Council can only be general.

The relegated will therefore also have to be brought back to France. What will be their fate? Could we not create for them, on the soil of the metropolis, industrial and agricultural colonies of amendment. They would thus have the ability to redeem themselves through work, which is impossible in the colony. But what to do with individuals who cannot be transported: lunatics, lepers, paralytics and others? There, I am of the opinion that large pardons should intervene.

These sick people who, from now on, are no longer subjected to forced labor, would be relieved of their sentence and treated as incurable, by the colony, which would receive, if necessary, a small subsidy from the metropolis. Finally, the situation of the very small number of deportees from Devil's Island would have to be settled. Their punishment could be served in a fortified enclosure of the metropolis.

These could be, in their broad outlines, the means of applying the measure so opportunely decided by the President of the Council. Transportation to the colonies had only resulted, despite the generous illusions from which it proceeded, in negative results.

This opinion is not only that of a few killjoys; it is shared by all those who have been able to appreciate on the spot the functioning of this institution. The good reputation of France abroad can only gain from the abolition of colonial penal colonies, which will leave free room for the fruitful initiative of our colonists.

E. PICANON, Inspector General of the Colonies, of the reserve cadre, former governor of New Caledonia and French Guiana, member of the commission for prison reform in the colonies.