मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

And, last, I embodied the gist of it all in a written petition. With this last direction, the
Commission took leave of me.
The Commission had called for similar written statements from three or four of
other political prisoners. Petitions were sent to the Commission from all parts of the
settlement through the leaders of the prisoners working in the colony, as was previously
arranged by us. These referred to matters special to the districts in which they worked.
Two of the statements by political prisoners were very plain-spoken. All of us spoke with
one voice and had unanimously made out a case for our release. And we had all
demanded a thorough overhauling of the system of prison administration in the islands of
the Andamans. A major portion of the political prisoners had represented that the
Andamans should no longer be used as a prison settlement. In the newspaper world of
India there was a similar appeal for closing up the settlement. In the 'Bengali' of Calcutta,
a series of articles had appeared in support of that policy. For no one in India knew in
detail the exact difference between mending and ending the system as a whole. The
prisoners in India were totally ignorant about it. Therefore, the case for ending it was not
so well made out in Indian newspapers in that matter of opinion. In my own statement on
the subject, I had given all the facts relevant to the point at issue. This difference of view-
point led later on to the sharp opposition by me to the general tendency among the
prisoners of the Andamans. I give below an outline of my statement on prison
administration as also on the legal and the practical aspect of the whole question :—
"The ideal of the administration should be to improve the prisoner, to level him up
physically, intellectually and morally, and not merely to punish him as a matter of
revenge. The punishment and discipline should be strictly enforced only with an eye to
that improvement.
The punishment should be deterrent and not execessive. It is needed because
human nature has not yet completely shed off its cruel and beastly instincts, and only the
fear of punishment can make the ordinary class of prisoners abstain from crime. Moral
responsibility has no share in it. Therefore, the punishment and discipline should be in
strict proportion to the nature of the crime and to the nature and propensities of the
prisoner himself. As far as possible caning and hanging should be the rarest of all
punishments, if their total abolition is found to be impossible today. Those convicts alone
should be visited by that extreme penalty of the law, who are found to be absolutely
irreclaimable. The juvenile criminals should not be classed with ordinary prisoners. Their
youth, their impressionable disposition, their repentence, should be taken into particular
consideration in the sentence to be passed upon them, and as regards the prisoner with
whom they should be herded. They are more to be pitied than punished for their offences,
and they should be weeded out for a kindlier and more sympathetic treatment. A milder
attitude towards them is eminently desirable, while those who appear to be distinctly anti-
social may be reserved for stricter discipline and severe punishment. As they improve,
the latter may be included in the former class of prisoners, as individual cases, as the
former may change places, individually, if they show no sign of improvement whatever.