A fragment of the prison experiences of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Only fragments survive
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~11,400 words · 54 passages
Cite this work
- APAEmma Goldman. (n.d.). A fragment of the prison experiences of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/a-fragment-of-the-prison-experiences-of-emma-goldman-and-alexander-berkman
- MLAEmma Goldman. "A fragment of the prison experiences of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/a-fragment-of-the-prison-experiences-of-emma-goldman-and-alexander-berkman.
- ChicagoEmma Goldman. A fragment of the prison experiences of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/a-fragment-of-the-prison-experiences-of-emma-goldman-and-alexander-berkman.
What it is about
Prison testimony from the two-year sentence for the anti-conscription campaign.
Context and history
The title says it: a fragment, published as a pamphlet for the amnesty campaign. It reads alongside Berkman's Prison Memoirs, which are in the catalogue and are the full-length book of this same experience. This is a short article, not a book: its size in the catalogue is no defect of the copy. Much of Goldman's work took this form, in her magazine Mother Earth and in pamphlets.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
S. Penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga. February, 1918–October, 1919_ _Order from_ Stella Comyn 36 GROVE ST. NEW YORK _Ten Cents_ A FOREWORD There was a time—and that not so very long ago—when popular ignorance and superstition looked upon an insane person as one possessed of the devil or of some other evil spirit. They sought to drive the “evil one” out by beating and torturing the insane, and often even by drowning, hanging, and burning. We have fortunately passed that stage of stupid brutality. Today even the most ignorant man knows that insanity is a disease. But in regard to crime and criminals we are still in the stage of dark-age superstition. We look upon the criminal today as we did upon the insane fifty or seventy-five years ago. Most men still believe that by beating and punishing the criminal, by hanging and electrocution, we can drive the “evil spirit” out of him. This process is called reforming the criminal. Yet common sense and all human experience prove that the criminal is no more responsible for crime than the crazy man for his insanity. The pseudo-scientific theories of the Lombrosos in regard to crime and criminals have been thoroughly exploded and proven utterly fallacious. Even if the Lombroso myth that the criminal is born were true, what good would it do to punish him? There might be some social justification for his isolation, but how could the criminal, if born such, be held accountable for his criminality? But as a matter of fact—as modern criminology has proven beyond all dispute—the criminal is made, not born. He is the product of his environment, a child of poverty and desperation, of misery, greed, and ambition. He is at the same time the symbol and the proof of a diseased social condition, the miscarriage of perverted economic arrangements. Fully 97 per cent. of all crime
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