I beg to inclose herewith for your information a copy of my reply,
transmitted to Mr. Wines, president of the International Penitentiary
Commission, to his letter requesting information on the state of prisons,
and the administration of criminal justice, &c., in Morocco.
[Inclosure in 331.]
Mr. Mathews to Mr.
Wines.
United
States Consulate,
Tangier, July 20,
1879.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of
your circular letters hearing date September 6, 1877, and November 8,
1878, relative to the state of prisons and the administration of
criminal justice, &c., and requesting information on the subject as
regards the country where I am residing.
Reformatory institutions for the prevention of crime in the young have no
existence in Morocco. The administration of criminal justice is
radically bad, and is conducted on no principle of improving the moral
character of the people, and owing to injustice of the executive, the
innocent being punished almost as frequently as the guilty; punishment
loses much of its influence as a deterrent from the commission of
crime.
A criminal who has the means of purchasing by bribes his liberation from
prison finds greater facility in obtaining his freedom than a poor
innocent man who has been unjustly condemned to imprisonment.
The prisons in Morocco are in the most lamentable condition of barbarism.
No care or attention whatever is bestowed upon the prisoners, no medical
assistance is afforded them when sick, and they are left dependent on
the charity of their friends for their subsistence; a small ration of
the poorest bread being all that is supplied to those who would perish
were it withheld from them.
There is one useful custom, however, which obtains generally in Moorish
prisons, and that is that poor prisoners have facilities afforded them
by their jailers to learn or practice some trade by which they may
maintain themselves; basket and rope making are the industries most
commonly practiced. The jailer gives them instructions and often
supplies material, and he is paid by a part profit when the articles are
manufactured and sold.
Little is known of the state of the prisoners in the interior of Morocco.
The prison at Tangier (this town being the seat of the foreign
representatives) is situated in the Kasbah, or citadel. Part of the
interior can be seen from an aperture in the den, from which at all
times issues an affluvium that makes a long inspection undesirable; it
is a damp, dark chamber, as dreary and dreadful a place of confinement
as can ever be conceived.
The prison at Fez, the capital, although not very extensive, is always
much crowded, at times containing over a thousand inmates, and as the
food supplied to those who have no friends is very limited in quantity
and very bad in quality, and the sanitary condition of the place is bad
in the extreme, the mortality among the prisoners is appalling.
Little is to be learned from the prison system, or more probably want of
system, in such a country as Morocco, unless it be the experience of
what a wretched state of things can exist in uncivilized and barbarious
countries, and under the most arbitrary and despotic system of
government.
There is no code of laws in the Empire of Morocco, but instead of a civil
they have a religious code. The practice of jurisprudence is reduced to
the application of certain principles to be found in the Koran, and is
the practical knowledge of the precedents established in the various
jurisdictions. There are kadis and governors in the cities and countries
for the administration of justice and notaries or talbes to certify
deeds, and all which relates to the security of property. The laws of
the Koran admit no evidence but from those professing the Mohammedan
religion.
All litigations concerning property, succession, and the various claims
of interest are brought before the kadi of each town or district of the
province.
The kadis or judges are appointed by the Sultan, with a salary barely
enough for subsistence.
The governors of cities are also appointed by the Sultan, and are
entirely unpaid by the state. It is their duty to maintain order, and
they can punish by fine, imprisonment, and the bastinado. Capital
punishment alone is inflicted by direct order of the Sultan.
The governor also levies taxes for the imperial treasury, and it is in
connection with this part of his duties that he is induced to exercise
his functions of inflicting tines in a most arbitrary and irregular
fashion. Sheikhs and umkadams are also unpaid officials.
The result of such a state of things is that the unpaid governors and
sheikhs squeeze the people committed to their charge as much as lies
within their power. Pillage, extortion, corruption, and injustice are
universal; so with the almost unpaid kadis or judges the longest purse
invariably prevails. Justice is not administered; it is sold. Even the
police are unpaid or receive only a slender allowance, which is
supplemented by what they can extract from those who come within their
clutches. The judgments of the governors are always arbitrary, and
generally consist in distributing
[Page 846]
the bastinado with equal liberality to the guilty
and innocent, committing them to some days’ imprisonment, whence they
are released by money. The rich, therefore, rarely suffer any great
punishment, though they should have been concerned in criminal
affairs.
To this wretched system of administration the chronic state of disorder
which always exists is in greater part to be attributed.
I have, &c.,
