CHAPTER I._Criminal Sociology

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CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY

ENRICO FERRI

PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL LAW

DEPUTY IN THE ITALIAN PARLIMENT, ETC.

PREFACE.

THE following pages are a translation of that portion of Professor

Ferri's volume on Criminal Sociology which is immediately

concerned with the practical problems of criminality. The Report

of the Government committee appointed to inquire into the

treatment of habitual drunkards, the Report of the committee of

inquiry into the best means of identifying habitual criminals, the

revision of the English criminal returns, the Reports of

committees appointed to inquire into the administration of prisons

and the best methods of dealing with habitual offenders, vagrants,

beggars, inebriate and juvenile delinquents, are all evidence of

the fact that the formidable problem of crime is again pressing

its way to the front and demanding re-examination at the hands of

the present generation. The real dimensions of the question, as

Professor Ferri points out, are partially hidden by the

superficial interpretations which are so often placed upon the

returns relating to crime. If the population of prisons or

penitentiaries should happen to be declining, this is immediately

interpreted to mean that crime is on the decrease. And

yet a cursory examination of the facts is sufficient to show that

a decrease in the prison population is merely the result of

shorter sentences and the substitution of fines or other similar

penalties for imprisonment. If the list of offences for trial

before a judge and jury should exhibit any symptoms of diminution,

this circumstance is immediately seized upon as a proof that the

criminal population is declining, and yet the diminution may

merely arise from the fact that large numbers of cases which used

to be tried before a jury are now dealt with summarily by a

magistrate. In other words, what we witness is a change of

judicial procedure, but not necessarily a decrease of crime.

Again, when it is pointed out that the number of persons for trial

for indictable offences in England and Wales amounted to 53,044 in

1874-8 and 56,472 in 1889-93, we are at a loss to see what colour

these figures give to the statement that there has been a real and

substantial decrease of crime. The increase, it is true, may not

be keeping pace with the growth of the general population, but, as

an eminent judge recently stated from the bench, this is to be

accounted for by the fact that the public is every year becoming

more lenient and more unwilling to prosecute. But an increase of

leniency, however excellent in itself, is not to be confounded

with a decrease of crime. In the study of social phenomena our

paramount duty is to look at facts and not appearances.

But whether criminality is keeping pace with the growth of

population or not it is a problem of great magnitude all

the same, and it will not be solved, as Professor Ferri points

out, by a mere resort to punishments of greater rigour and

severity. On this matter he is at one with the Scotch

departmental committee appointed to inquire into the best means of

dealing with habitual offenders, vagrants, and juveniles. As far

as the suppression of vagrancy is concerned the members of the

committee are unanimously of opinion that ``the severest

enactments of the general law are futile, and that the best

results have been obtained by the milder provisions of more recent

statutes.'' They also speak of the ``utter inadequacy of the

present system in all the variety of detail which it offers to

deter the habitual offender from a course of life which devolves

the cost of his maintenance on the prison and the poorhouse when

he is not preying directly on the public.'' The committee state

that they have had testimony from a large number of witnesses

supporting the view that ``long sentences of imprisonment effect

no good result,'' and they arrive at the conclusion that to double

the present sentences would not diminish the number of habitual

offenders. In this conclusion they are at one with the views of

the Royal Commission on Penal Servitude, which acquiesced in the

objection to the penal servitude system on the ground that it

``not only fails to reform offenders, but in the case of the less

hardened criminals and especially first offenders produces a

deteriorating effect.'' A similar opinion was recently expressed

by the Prisons Committee presided over by Mr. Herbert Gladstone.

As soon as punishment reaches a point at which it makes

men worse than they were before, it becomes useless as an

instrument of reformation or social defence.

The proper method of arriving at a more or less satisfactory

solution of the criminal problem is to inquire into the causes

which are producing the criminal population, and to institute

remedies based upon the results of such an inquiry. Professor

Ferri's volume has this object in view. The first chanter, on the

data of Criminal Anthropology, is an inquiry into the individual

conditions which tend to produce criminal habits of mind and

action. The second chapter, on the data of criminal statistics,

is an examination of the adverse social conditions which tend to

drive certain sections of the population into crime. It is

Professor Ferri's contention that the volume of crime will not be

materially diminished by codes of criminal law however skilfully

they may be constructed, but by an amelioration of the adverse

individual and social conditions of the community as a whole.

Crime is a product of these adverse conditions, and the only

effective way of grappling with it is to do away as far as

possible with the causes from which it springs. Although criminal

codes can do comparatively little towards the reduction of crime,

they are absolutely essential for the protection of society.

Accordingly, the last chapter, on Practical Reforms, is intended

to show how criminal law and prison administration may be made

more effective for purposes of social defence.

W. D. M.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Origin of Criminal Sociology, 1--Origin of Criminal Anthropology,

4--Methods of Criminal Anthropology, 4--Relation between Criminal

Anthropology and Criminal Sociology, 5--Criminal Anthropology

studies the organic and mental constitution of the criminal, 7--

The criminal skull and brain, 7--Criminal physiognomy, 8--Physical

insensibility among criminals, 9--Criminal heredity, 9--Criminal

psychology, 9--Moral insensibility among criminals, 10--The

criminal mind, 10. II. The data of criminal anthropology only

applies to the habitual or congenital criminal, 11--The occasional

and habitual criminal, 11--Comparison between the criminal and

non-criminal skull, 12--Anomalies in the criminal skull, 12--The

habitual criminal, 13--The crimes of habitual criminals, 14--The

criminal type confined to habitual criminals, 18--The proportion

of habitual criminals in the criminal population, 18--Forms of

habitual criminality, 19--Forms of occasional criminality, 21--

Classification of criminals, 23--Criminal lunatics, 26--Moral

insanity, 26--Born criminals, 28--Criminals by acquired habit,

30--Criminal precocity, 31--Nature of juvenile crime, 32--Relapsed

criminals, 35--Precocity and relapse among criminals, 38--

Criminals of passion, 39--Occasional criminals, 41--Differences

between

PAGE

the occasional and the born criminal, 41--Criminal types shade

into each other, 44--Numbers of several classes of criminals, 46--

Value of a proper classification of criminals, 47--A fourfold

classification, 48.

CHAPTER II.

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL STATISTICS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Value of criminal statistics, 51--The three factors of crime, 52--

Anthropological factors, 53--Physical factors, 53--Social factors,

53--Crime a product of complex conditions, 54--Social conditions

do not explain crime, 55--Effects of temperature on crime, 58--

Crime a result of biological as well as social conditions, 59--The

measures to be taken against crime are of two kinds, preventive

and eliminative, 61--The fluctuations of crime chiefly produced by

social causes, 61--Steadiness of the graver forms of crime, 63--

Effect of judicial procedure on criminal statistics, 64--Crimes

against the person are high when crimes against property are low,

64--Is crime increasing or decreasing? 64--Official optimism in

criminal statistics, 67--Density of population and crime, 73--

Conditions on which the fluctuations of crime depend, 77--

Quetelet's law of the mechanical regularity of crime, 80--The

effect of environment on crime, 81--The effect of punishment on

crime, 82--The value of punishment is over-estimated, 82--

Statistical proofs of this, 86--Biological and sociological

proofs, 92--Crime is diminished by prevention not by repression,

96--Legislators and administrators rely too much on repression,

98--The basis of the belief in punishment, 99--Natural and legal

punishment, 103--The discipline of consequences, 104--The

uncertainty of legal punishment, 105--Want of foresight among

criminals, 105--Penal codes cannot alter invincible tendencies,

106--Force is no remedy, 107--Negative value of punishment, 109.

II. Substitutes for punishment, 110--The elimination of the causes

of crime, 113--Economic remedies for crime, 114--Drink and crime,

116--Drunkenness an effect of bad social conditions, 120--Taxation

of drink, 120--Laws against

PAGE

drink, 121--Social amelioration a substitute for penal law, 121--

Social legislation and crime, 122--Political amelioration as a

preventive of crime, 124--Decentralisation a preventive, 126--

Legal and administrative preventives, 128--Prisoners' Aid

Societies, 130--Education and crime, 130--Popular entertainments

and crime, 131--Physical education as a remedy for crime, 131--To

diminish crime its causes must be eliminated, 132--The aim and

scope of penal substitutes, 134--Difficulty of applying penal

substitutes, 137--Difference between social and police prevention,

139--Limited efficacy of punishment, 140--Summary of conclusions,

141.

CHAPTER III.

PRACTICAL REFORMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143

Criminal sociology and penal legislation, 143--Classification

of punishments, 144--The reform of criminal procedure, 145--The

two principles of judicial procedure, 147--Principles

determining the nature of the sentence, 147--Present principles of

penal procedure a reaction against medi<ae>val abuses, 147--The

``presumption of innocence,'' 148--The verdict of ``Not Proven,''

149--The right of appeal, 151--A second trial, 151--Reparation to

the victims of crime, 152--Need for a Ministry of Justice, 153--

Public and private prosecutors, 154--The growing tendency to drop

criminal charges, 155--The tendency to minimise the official

returns of crime, 156--Roman penal law, 156--Revision of judicial

errors, 158--Reparation to persons wrongly convicted, 158--

Provision of funds for this purpose, 160--Reparation to persons

wrongly prosecuted, 161--Many criminal offences should be tried as

civil offences, 162--The object of a criminal trial, 163. II. The

crime and the criminal, 164--The stages of a criminal trial, 165--

The evidence, 166--Anthropological evidence, 166--The utilisation

of hypnotism, 168--Psychological and psycho-pathological evidence,

168--The credibility of witnesses, 168 Expert evidence, 169--An

advocate of the poor, 172--The judge and his qualifications, 172--

Civil and criminal judges should be distinct functionaries,

173--The student of law should study criminals, 174--Training of

police and prison officers, 174--The status of the criminal judge,

175--The authority of the judge, 176. III. The jury, 177--Origin

of the jury, 178--Advantages of the jury, 179--Defects of the

jury, 180--The jury as a protection to liberty, 182--The jury and

criminal law, 184--Juries untrained and irresponsible, 186--

Numbers fatal to wisdom, 188--Defects of judges, 193--Difference

between the English and Continental jury, 194--Social evolution

and the jury, 196--The jury compared to the electorate, 197--How

to utilise the jury, 198. IV. Existing prison systems a failure,

201--Defects of existing penal systems, 201--The abuse of short

sentences, 202--The growth of recidivism, 203--Garofalo's scheme

of punishments, 204--Von Liszt's scheme of punishments, 206--The

basis of a rational system of punishment, 207--The indeterminate

sentence, 207--Flogging, 210--The indefinite sentence for habitual

offenders, 211--Van Hamel's proposals as to sentences, 212--The

liberation of prisoners on an indefinite sentence, 213--The

supervision of punishment, 213--Conditional release, 215--Good

conduct test in prisons, 216--Police supervision, 216--

Indemnification of the victims Of crime, 217--The duty of the

State towards the victims of crime, 222--Defensive measures must

be adapted to the different classes of criminals, 225--Uniformity

of punishment, 225--The prison staff, 227--Classification of

prisoners, 227--Prison labour, 228. V. Asylums for criminal

lunatics, 230--The treatment of insane criminals, 232--Crime and

madness, 234--Classification of asylums for criminal lunatics,

237--The treatment of born criminals, 238--The death penalty,

239--Extension of the death penalty, 243--Inadequacy of the death

penalty, 245--Imprisonment for life, 246--Transportation, 248--

Labour settlements, 249--Establishments for habitual criminals,

250--Criminal heredity, 251--Incorrigible offenders, 252--

Cumulative sentences, 253--Uncorrected or incorrigible criminals,

254--Cellular prisons, 256--Solitary confinement, 257--The

progressive system of imprisonment, 257--The evils of cellular

imprisonment, 260 --The cell does not secure separation, 262--

Costliness of the cellular system, 263--Labour under the cellular

system, 264--Open-air work the best for prisoners, 265--The

treatment of habitual criminals, 266--The treatment of occasional

criminals, 267--The treatment of young offenders, 268--

Futility of short sentences, 268--Substitutes for short sentences,

269--Compulsory work without imprisonment, 271 --Conditional

sentences, 271--Conditional sentences in Belgium, 273--Conditional

sentences in the United States, 275--Objections to conditional

sentences, 276--When the conditional sentence is legitimate, 282--

The treatment of criminals of passion, 282--Conclusion, 284.

INTRODUCTION.

_THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINAL LAW_.

DURING the past twelve or fourteen years Italy has poured forth a

stream of new ideas on the subject of crime and criminals; and

only the short-sightedness of her enemies or the vanity of her

flatterers can fail to recognise in this stream something more

than the outcome of individual labours.

A new departure in science is a simple phenomenon of nature,

determined in its origin and progress, like all such phenomena, by

conditions of time and place. Attention must be drawn to these

conditions at the outset, for it is only by accurately defining

them that the scientific conscience of the student of sociology is

developed and confirmed.

The experimental philosophy of the latter half of our century,

combined with human biology and psychology, and with the natural

study of human society, had already produced an intellectual

atmosphere decidedly favourable to a practical inquiry into the

criminal manifestations of individual and social life.

To these general conditions must be added the plain and everyday

contrast between the metaphysical perfection of criminal law and

the progressive increase of crime, as well as the contrast between

legal theories of crime and the study of the mental

characteristics of a large number of criminals.

From this point onwards, nothing could be more natural than the

rise of a new school, whose object was to make an experimental

study of social pathology in respect of its criminal symptoms, in

order to bring theories of crime and punishment into harmony with

everyday facts. This is the positive school of criminal law,

whereof the fundamental purpose is to study the natural genesis of

criminality in the criminal, and in the physical and social

conditions of his life, so as to apply the most effectual remedies

to the various causes of crime.

Thus we are not concerned merely with the construction of a theory

of anthropology or psychology, or a system of criminal statistics,

nor merely with the setting of abstract legal theories against

other theories which are still more abstract. Our task is to show

that the basis of every theory concerning the self-defence of the

community against evil-doers must be the observation of the

individual and of society in their criminal activity. In one

word, our task is to construct a criminal sociology.

For, as it seems to me, all that general sociology can do is to

furnish the more ordinary and universal inferences concerning the

life of communities; and upon this canvas the several sciences of

sociology are delineated by the specialised observation of each

distinct order of social facts. In this manner we may

construct a political sociology, an economic sociology, a legal

sociology, by studying the special laws of normal or social

activity amongst human beings, after previously studying the more

general laws of individual and collective existence. And thus we

may construct a criminal sociology, by studying, with such an aim

and by such a method, the abnormal and anti-social actions of

human beings--or, in other words, by studying crime and criminals.

Neither the Romans, great exponents as they were of the civil law,

nor the practical spirits of the Middle Ages, had been able to lay

down a philosophic system of criminal law. It was Beccaria,

influenced far more by sentiment than by scientific precision, who

gave a great impetus to the doctrine of crimes and punishments by

summarising the ideas and sentiments of his age.[1] Out of the

various germs contained in his generous initiative there has been

developed, to his well-deserved credit, the classical school of

criminal law.

[1] Desjardins, in the Introduction to his ``Cahiers des <E'>tats

G<e'>n<e'>raux en 1789 et la L<e'>gislation Criminelle,'' Paris,

1883, gives a good description of the state of public opinion in

that age. He speaks also of the charges which were brought

against the advocates of the new doctrines concerning crime, that

they upset the moral and social order of things. Nowadays,

charges against the experimental school are cited from these same

advocates; for the revolutionary of yesterday is very often the

conservative of to-day.

This school had, and still has, a practical purpose, namely, to

diminish all punishments, and to abolish a certain number, by a

magnanimous reaction of humanity against the arbitrary harshness

of medi<ae>val times. It had also, and still has, a method of its

own, namely, to study crime from its first principles, as

an abstract entity dependent upon law.

Here and there since the time of Beccaria another stream of theory

has made itself manifest. Thus there is the correctional school,

which Roeder brought into special prominence not many years ago.

But though it flourished in Germany, less in Italy and France, and

somewhat more in Spain, it had no long existence as an independent

school, for it was only too easily confuted by the close sequence

of inexorable facts. Moreover, it could do no more than oppose a

few humanitarian arguments on the reformation of offenders to the

traditional arguments of the theories of jurisprudence, of

absolute and relative justice, of intimidation, utility, and the

like.

No doubt the principle that punishment ought to have a reforming

effect upon the criminal survives as a rudimentary organ in nearly

all the schools which concern themselves with crime. But this is

only a secondary principle, and as it were the indirect object of

punishment; and besides, the observations of anthropology,

psychology, and criminal statistics have finally disposed of it,

having established the fact that, under any system of punishment,

with the most severe or the most indulgent methods, there are

always certain types of criminals, representing a large number of

individuals, in regard to whom amendment is simply impossible, or

very transitory, on account of their organic and moral

degeneration. Nor must we forget that, since the natural roots of

crime spring not only from the individual organism, but also, in

large measure, from its physical and social environment,

correction of the individual is not sufficient to prevent

relapse if we do not also, to the best of our ability, reform the

social environment. The utility and the duty of reformation none

the less survive, even for the positive school, whenever it is

possible, and for certain classes of criminals; but, as a

fundamental principle of a scientific theory, it has passed away.

Hitherto, then, the classical school stands alone, with varying

shades of opinion, but one and distinct as a method, and as a body

of principles and consequences. And whilst it has achieved its

aim in the most recent penal codes, with a great, and too

frequently an excessive diminution of punishments, so in respect

of theory, in Italy, Germany, and France it has crowned its work

with a series of masterpieces amongst which I will only mention

Carrara's ``Programme of Criminal Law.'' As the author tells us

in one of his later editions, from the <_a!> priori_ principle

that ``crime is a fact dependent upon law, an infraction rather

than an action,'' he deduced--and that by the sheer force of an

admirable logic--a complete symmetrical scheme of legal and

abstract consequences, wherein judges are compelled, whether they

like it or not, to determine the position of every criminal who

comes before them.

But now the classical school, which sprang from the marvellous

little work of Beccaria, has completed its historic cycle. It has

yielded all it could, and writers of the present day who still

cling to it can only recast the old material. The youngest of

them, indeed, are condemned to a sort of Byzantine discussion of

scholastic formulas, and to a sterile process of scientific

rumination.

And meantime, outside our universities and academies, criminality

continues to grow, and the punishments hitherto inflicted, though

they can neither protect nor indemnify the honest, succeed in

corrupting and degrading evil-doers. And whilst our treatises and

codes (which are too often mere treatises cut up into segments)

lose themselves in the fog of their legal abstractions, we feel

more strongly every day, in police courts and at assizes, the

necessity for those biological and sociological studies of crime

and criminals which, when logically directed, can throw light as

nothing else can upon the administration of

the penal law.

CHAPTER I.

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY.

THE experimental school of criminal sociology took its original

title from its studies of anthropology; it is still commonly

regarded as little more than a ``criminal anthropology school.''

And though this title no longer corresponds with the development

of the school, which also takes into account and investigates the

data of psychology, statistics, and sociology, it is none the less

true that the most characteristic impetus of the new scientific

movement was due to anthropological studies. This was

conspicuously the case when Lombroso, giving a scientific form to

sundry scattered and fragmentary observations upon criminals,

added fresh life to them by a collection of inquiries which were

not only original but also governed by a distinct idea, and

established the new science of criminal anthropology.

It is possible, of course, to discover a very early origin for

criminal anthropology, as for general anthropology; for, as Pascal

said, man has always been the most wonderful object of study to

himself. For observations on physiognomy in particular we may go

as far backwards as to Plato, and his comparisons of the human

face and character with those of the brutes, or even to

Aristotle, who still earlier observed the physical and

psychological correspondence between the passions of men and their

facial expression. And after the medi<ae>val gropings in

chiromancy, metoscopy, podomancy and so forth, one comes to the

seventeenth century studies in physiognomy by the Jesuit

Niquetius, by Cortes, Cardanus, De la Chambre, Della Porta, &c.,

who were precursors of Gall, Spurzheim, and Lavater on one side,

and, on the other, of the modern scientific study of the emotions,

with their expression in face and gesture, conducted by Camper,

Bell, Engel, Burgess, Duchenne, Gratiolet, Piderit, Mantegazza,

Schaffhausen, Schack, Heiment, and above all by Darwin.

With regard to the special observation of criminals, over and

above the limited statements of the old physiognomists and

phrenologists, Lauvergne (1841) in France and Attomyr (1842) in

Germany had accurately applied the theories of Gall to the

examination of convicts; and their works, in spite of certain

exaggerations of phrenology, are still a valuable treasury of

observations in anthropology. In Italy, De Rolandis (1835) had

published his observations on a deceased criminal; in America,

Sampson (1846) had traced the connection between criminality and

cerebral organisation; in Germany, Camper (1854) published a study

on the physiognomy of murderers; and Ave Lallemant (1858-62)

produced a long work on criminals, from the psychological point of

view.

But the science of criminal anthropology, more strictly

speaking, only begins with the observations of English gaol

surgeons and other learned men, such as Forbes Winslow (1854),

Mayhew (1860), Thomson (1870), Wilson (1870), Nicolson (1872),

Maudsley (1873), and with the very notable work of Despine (1868),

which indeed gave rise to the inquiries of Thomson, and which, in

spite of its lack of synthetic treatment and systematic unity, is

still, taken in conjunction with the work of Ave Lallemant, the

most important inquiry in the psychological domain anterior to the

work of Lombroso.

Nevertheless, it was only with the first edition of ``The

Criminal'' (1876) that criminal anthropology asserted itself as an

independent science, distinct from the main trunk of general

anthropology, itself quite recent in its origin, having come into

existence with the works of Daubenton, Blumenbach, Soemmering,

Camper, White, and Pritchard.

The work of Lombroso set out with two original faults: the mistake

of having given undue importance, at any rate apparently, to the

data of craniology and anthropometry, rather than to those of

psychology; and, secondly, that of having mixed up, in the first

two editions, all criminals in a single class. In later editions

these defects were eliminated, Lombroso having adopted the

observation which I made in the first instance, as to the various

anthropological categories of criminals. This does not prevent

certain critics of criminal anthropology from repeating, with a

strange monotony, the venerable objections as to the

``impossibility of distinguishing a criminal from an honest man by

the shape of his skull,'' or of ``measuring human

responsibility in accordance with different craniological

types.''[2]

[2] Vol. ii. of the fourth edition of ``The Criminal'' (1889) is

specially concerned with the epileptic and idiotic criminal

(referred to alcoholism, hysteria, mattoidism) whether occasional

or subject to violent impulse; whilst vol. i. is concerned only

with congenital criminality and moral insanity.

But these original faults in no way obscure the two following

noteworthy facts--that within a few years after the publication of

``The Criminal'' there were published, in Italy and elsewhere, a

whole library of studies in criminal anthropology, and that a new

school has been established, having a distinct method and

scientific developments, which are no longer to be looked for in

the classical school of criminal law.

What, then, is criminal anthropology? And of what nature are its

fundamental data, which lead us up to the general conclusions of

criminal sociology?

If general anthropology is, according to the definition of M. de

Quatrefages, the natural history of man, as zoology is the natural

history of animals, criminal anthropology is but the study of a

single variety of mankind. In other words, it is the natural

history of the criminal man.

Criminal anthropology studies the criminal man in his organic and

psychical constitution, and in his life as related to his physical

and social environment--just as anthropology has done for man in

general, and for the various races of mankind. So that, as

already said, whilst the classical observers of crime study

various offences in their abstract character, on the

assumption that the criminal, apart from particular cases which

are evident and appreciable, is a man of the ordinary type, under

normal conditions of intelligence and feeling, the anthropological

observers of crime, on the other hand, study the criminal first of

all by means of direct observations, in anatomical and

physiological laboratories, in prisons and madhouses, organically

and physically, comparing him with the typical characteristics of

the normal man, as well as with those of the mad and the

degenerate.

Before recounting the general data of criminal anthropology, it is

necessary to lay particular stress upon a remark which I made in

the original edition of this work, but which our opponents have

too frequently ignored.

We must carefully discriminate between the technical value of

anthropological data concerning the criminal man and their

scientific function in criminal sociology.

For the student of criminal anthropology, who builds up the

natural history of the criminal, every characteristic has an

anatomical, or a physiological, or a psychological value in

itself, apart from the sociological conclusions which it may be

possible to draw from it. The technical inquiry into these bio-

psychical characteristics is the special work of this new science

of criminal anthropology.

Now these data, which are the conclusions of the anthropologist,

are but starting-points for the criminal sociologist, from which

he has to reach his legal and social conclusions. Criminal

anthropology is to criminal sociology, in its scientific

function, what the biological sciences, in description and

experimentation, are to clinical practice.

In other words, the criminal sociologist is not in duty bound to

conduct for himself the inquiries of criminal anthropology, just

as the clinical operator is not bound to be a physiologist or an

anatomist. No doubt the direct observation of criminals is a very

serviceable study, even for the criminal sociologist; but the only

duty of the latter is to base his legal and social inferences upon

the positive data of criminal anthropology for the biological

aspects of crime, and upon statistical data for the influences of

physical and social environment, instead of contenting himself

with mere abstract legal syllogisms.

On the other hand it is clear that sundry questions which have a

direct bearing upon criminal anthropology--as, for instance, in

regard to some particular biological characteristic, or to its

evolutionary significance--have no immediate obligation or value

for criminal sociology, which employs only the fundamental and

most indubitable data of criminal anthropology. So that it is but

a clumsy way of propounding the question to ask, as it is too

frequently asked: ``What connection can there be between the

cephalic index, or the transverse measurement of a murderer's jaw,

and his responsibility for the crime which he has committed?''

The scientific function of the anthropological data is a very

different thing, and the only legitimate question which sociology

can put to anthropology is this:--``Is the criminal, and in what

respects is he, a normal or an abnormal man? And if he is,

or when he is abnormal, whence is the abnormality derived? Is it

congenital or contracted, capable or incapable of rectification?''

This is all; and yet it is sufficient to enable the student of

crime to arrive at positive conclusions concerning the measures

which society can take in order to defend itself against crime;

whilst he can draw other conclusions from criminal statistics.

As for the principal data hitherto established by criminal

anthropology, whilst we must refer the reader for detailed

information to the works of specialists, we may repeat that this

new science studies the criminal in his organic and in his

psychical constitution, for these are the two inseparable aspects

of human existence.

A beginning has naturally been made with the organic study of the

criminal, both anatomical and physiological, since we must study

the organ before the function, and the physical before the moral.

This, however, has given rise to a host of misconceptions and one-

sided criticisms, which have not yet ceased; for criminal

anthropology has been charged, by such as consider only the most

conspicuous data with narrowing crime down to the mere result of

conformations of the skull or convolutions of the brain. The fact

is that purely morphological observations are but preliminary

steps to the histological and physiological study of the brain,

and of the body as a whole.

As for craniology, especially in regard to the two distinct and

characteristic types of criminals--murderers and thieves, an

incontestable inferiority has been noted in the shape of the head,

by comparison with normal men, together with a greater frequency

of hereditary and pathological departures from the normal type.

Similarly an examination of the brains of criminals, whilst it

reveals in them an inferiority of form and histological type,

gives also, in a great majority of cases, indications of disease

which were frequently undetected in their lifetime. Thus M.

Dally, who for twenty years past has displayed exceptional acumen

in problems of this kind, said that ``all the criminals who had

been subjected to autopsy (after execution) gave evidence of

cerebral injury.''[3]

[3] In a discussion at the Medico-Psychological Society of Paris;

``Proceedings'' for 1881, i. 93, 266, 280, 483.

Observations of the physiognomy of criminals, which no one will

undervalue who has studied criminals in their lifetime, with

adequate knowledge, as well as other physical inquiries, external

and internal, have shown the existence of remarkable types, from

the greater frequency of the tattooed man to exceptionally

abnormal conditions of the frame and the organs, dating from

birth, together with many forms of contracted disease.

Finally, inquiries of a physiological nature into the reflex

action of the body, and especially into general and specific

sensibility, and sensibility to pain, and into reflex action under

external agencies, conducted with the aid of instruments which

record the results, have shown abnormal conditions, all tending to

physical insensibility, deep-seated and more or less

absolute, but incontestably different in kind from that which

obtains amongst the average men of the same social classes.

These are organic conditions, it must be at once affirmed, which

account as nothing else can for the undeniable fact of the

hereditary transmission of tendencies to crime, as well as of

predisposition to insanity, to suicide, and to other forms of

degeneration.

The second division of criminal anthropology, which is by far the

more important, with a more direct influence upon criminal

sociology, is the psychological study of the criminal. This

recognition of its greater importance does not prevent our critics

from concentrating their attack upon the organic characterisation

of criminals, in oblivion of the psychological characterisation,

which even in Lombroso's book occupies the larger part of the

text.[4]

[4] A recent example of this infatuation amongst one-sided, and

therefore ineffectual critics is the work of Colajanni,

``Socialism and Criminal Sociology,'' Catania, 1889. In the first

volume, which is devoted to criminal anthropology, out of four

hundred pages of argumentative criticism (which does not prevent

the author from taking our most fundamental conclusions on the

anthropological classification of criminals, and on crime, as

phenomena of psychical atavism), there are only six pages, 227-

232, for the criticism of psychological types.

Criminal psychology presents us with the characteristics which may

be called specially descriptive, such as the slang, the

handwriting, the secret symbols, the literature and art of the

criminal; and on the other hand it makes known to us the

characteristics which, in combination with organic abnormality,

account for the development of crime in the individual. And these

characteristics are grouped in two psychical and fundamental

abnormalities, namely, moral insensibility and want of foresight.

Moral insensibility, which is decidedly more congenital than

contracted, is either total or partial, and is displayed in

criminals who inflict personal injuries, as much as in others,

with a variety of symptoms which I have recorded elsewhere, and

which are eventually reduced to these conditions of the moral

sense in a large number of criminals--a lack of repugnance to the

idea and execution of the offence, previous to its commission, and

the absence of remorse after committing it.

Outside of these conditions of the moral sense, which is no

special sentiment, but an expression of the entire moral

constitution of the individual, as the temperament is of his

physiological constitution, other sentiments, of selfishness or

even of unselfishness, are not wanting in the majority of

criminals. Hence arise many illusions for superficial observers

of criminal life. But these latter sentiments are either

excessive, as hate, cupidity, vanity and the like, and are thus

stimulants to crime, or else, as with religion, love, honour,

loyalty, and so on, they cease to be forces antagonistic to crime,

because they have no foundation in a normal moral sense.

From this fundamental inferiority of sentiment there follows an

inferiority of intelligence, which, however, does not exclude

certain forms of craftiness, though it tends to inability to

foresee the consequences of crime, far in excess of what is

observed in the average members of the classes of society to which

the several criminals belong.

Thus the psychology of the criminal is summed up in a defective

resistance to criminal tendencies and temptations, due to that

ill-balanced impulsiveness which characterises children and

savages.

II.

I have long been convinced, by my study of works on criminal

anthropology, but especially by direct and continuous observation

from a physiological or a psychological point of view of a large

number of criminals, whether mad or of normal intelligence, that

the data of criminal anthropology are not entirely applicable, in

their complete and essential form, to all who commit crimes. They

are to be confined to a certain number, who may be called

congenital, incorrigible, and habitual criminals. But apart from

these there is a class of occasional criminals, who do not

exhibit, or who exhibit in slighter degrees, the anatomical,

physiological, and psychological characteristics which constitute

the type described by Lombroso as ``the criminal man.''

Before further defining these two main classes of criminals, in

their natural and descriptive characterisation, I must add a

positive demonstration, which can be attested under two distinct

forms--(1) by the results of anthropological observation of

criminals, and (2) by statistics of relapse, and of the

manifestations of crime which anthropologists have hitherto

chiefly studied.

As for organic anomalies, as I cannot here treat the whole

matter in detail, I will simply reproduce from my study of

homicide a summary of results for a single category of these

anomalies, which a methodical observation of every class of

criminals will carry further and render more precise, as Lombroso

has already shown (see the fourth edition of his work, 1889, p.

273).

Homicides sentenced

To penal To Imprisonment Soldiers

servitude

Persons in whom I detected (346) (363) (711)

No anomaly in the skull 11.9 p. c. 8.2 p. c. 37.2 p. c.

One or two anomalies 47.2 '' 56.6 '' 51.8 ''

Three or four anomalies 30.9 '' 32.6 '' 11 ''

Five or six anomalies 6.7 '' 2.3 '' 0 ''

Seven or more anomalies .3 '' .3 '' 0 ''

That is to say, men with normal skulls were three times as

numerous amongst soldiers as they were amongst criminals; of men

with a noteworthy number of anomalies occurring together (three or

four), there were three times as many amongst criminals as amongst

soldiers; and there was not one soldier amongst those who showed

an extraordinary number (five or more).

This proves to demonstration not only the greater frequency of

anomalous skulls (and the same is true of physiognomical,

physiological, and psychological anomalies) amongst criminals, but

also that amongst these criminals between fifty and sixty per

cent. show very few anomalies, whilst about one-third of the whole

number present a remarkable combination, and one-tenth are normal

in this respect.

Amongst the statistical data exhibiting the primary

characteristics of the majority of criminals, the data connected

with relapsed criminals are especially conspicuous. Though

relapses, like first offences, are partly due to social

conditions, they also have a manifest biological cause, since,

under the operation of the same penal system, there are some

liberated prisoners who relapse and some who do not.

The statistics of relapse are unfortunately very difficult to

collect, on account of differences in the legislation of different

countries, and in the preparation of records, which, even under

the more general adoption of anthropometrical identification,

rarely succeed in preventing the use of fresh names by

professional criminals. So that we may still say, in the words of

one who is a very good judge in this matter, M. Yvern<e!>s, not

only that ``the Prisons Congress of London (1872) was compelled to

leave various problems undecided for lack of documentary evidence,

and especially the question of relapsed criminals,'' but also that

to this day (1879), ``we find varying results in different

countries, the exact significance of which is not apparent.''

I have, however, published an essay on international statistics of

relapsed criminals, from which I drew the following general

conclusion: that even in prison statistics, which often give

higher totals of relapsed cases than are given by judicial

statistics, because they are more personal, and therefore less

uncertain, we never obtain the full number of relapses, though the

totals given vary from country to country, from district to

district, and from prison to prison. It would be impossible

to state accurately what proportion the numbers given bear to the

actual number; but I am justified in saying, from all the

materials which I have collected and compared in the aforesaid

essay, that the number of relapses in Europe is generally between

50 and 60 per cent., and certainly rather above than below this

limit. Whilst the Italian statistics, for instance, give 14 per

cent. of relapses amongst prisoners sentenced to penal servitude,

I found by experience 37 per cent; out of 346 who admitted to me

that they had relapsed; and, amongst those who had been sentenced

to simple imprisonment, I found 60 per cent. out of 363, in place

of the 33 per cent. recorded in the prison statistics. The

difference may be due to the particular conditions of the prisons

which I visited; but in any case it establishes the inadequacy of

the official figures dealing with relapse.

After this statement of a general fact, which proves, as Lombroso

and Espinas said, that ``the relapsed criminal is the rule rather

than the exception,'' we can proceed to set down the special

proportions of relapse for each particular crime, so as to obtain

an indication of the forms of crime which are most frequently

resorted to by habitual criminals.

For Italy I have found that the highest percentages of relapse are

afforded by persons convicted of theft and petty larceny, forgery,

rape, manslaughter, conspiracy, and, at the correctional courts,

vagrancy and mendicity. The lowest percentages are amongst those

convicted of assault and bodily harm, murders, and infanticide.

For France, where legal statistics are remarkably adapted for the

most minute inquiry, I have drawn up the following table of

statistics from the lists of persons convicted at the assize

courts and correctional tribunals, taking an average of the years

1877-81, which is not sensibly affected by the results of

succeeding years.

It will be seen that the average of relapses for crimes against

the person is higher than the average for the most serious cases

of murderous and indecent assault, which are clearly an outcome of

the most anti-social tendencies (such as parricide, murder, rape,

inflicting bodily harm on parents, &c.). Thus homicide and fatal

wounding, though relapse is very frequent in these cases, still

display a less abnormal and more occasional character by their

lower position in the table, as shown in the cases of infanticide,

concealment of birth, and abandonment of infants. As for the very

frequent occurrence of relapse in special crimes, such as assaults

on officials and resistance to authority, which rarely come before

the assize courts--though even there they tend to support the

higher numbers in the tribunals--these are offences which may also

be committed by criminals of every kind, and which, moreover,

depend in some measure on the social factor of police

organisation, and frequently on the psycho-pathological state of

particular individuals.

The somewhat rare occurrence of relapse in such a grave type of

murder as poisoning is noteworthy. But this is only an effect of

the special psychology of these criminals, as I have explained

elsewhere.

{Table printed in ``landscape'' mode was not OCR'd.}

FRANCE--CASES OF RELAPSE, 1877-81.

Amongst crimes against property, the most frequent relapses are

found in the case of thieves (not including thefts and breaches of

trust by domestic servants, which thus, proving their more

occasional character, confirm the agreement of statistics with

criminal psychology). The same thing is observed in regard to

forgers of commercial documents and to fraudulent bankrupts, who

are partly drawn into crime under the stress of personal or

general crises. And the infrequency of relapse amongst postal

employees condemned for embezzlement, and amongst customs officers

who have been guilty of smuggling, is only a further confirmation

of the inducement to crime by the opportunities met with in each

case, rather than by personal tendencies.

Amongst minor offences, apart from that evasion of supervision

which is no more than a legal condition, there are, both in France

and in Italy, very frequent cases of relapse by vagabonds and

mendicants, which is a consequence of social environment, as well

as of the feeble organisation of the individuals. Other relapses

above the average, included amongst these offences, constitute a

sort of accessory criminality, existing side by side with the

habitual criminality of thieves, murderers, and the like, such as

drunkenness, attacks on public functionaries, infractions of the

regulations of domicile, &c.

In thefts and resistance to authorities, relapse is less frequent

here than in the assize courts, for in the majority of these minor

offences, in their general forms, there is a greater number of

occasional offences, as is also the case with bankruptcies,

defamation, abuse, rural offences, &c., which demonstrate

their more occasional character by their very low figures.

Hence the statistics of general and specific relapse indirectly

confirm the fact that criminals, as a whole, have no uniform

anthropological type; and that the bio-psychical types and

anomalies belong more especially to the category of habitual

criminals and those born into the criminal class, who, after all,

are the only ones hitherto studied by criminal anthropologists.

What, then, is the numerical proportion of habitual criminals to

the aggregate number of criminals?

In the absence of direct inquiry, it is possible to get at this

proportion indirectly, from facts of two kinds. In the first

place, a study of the works on criminal anthropology supplies us

with an approximate figure, since the biological characteristics

united in individuals, in sufficient number to create a criminal

type, are met with in between forty and fifty per cent. of the

total.

And this conclusion may be confirmed by other data of criminal

statistics.

Whilst the statistics of relapse give us a very limited number of

crimes and offences committed by born and habitual criminals,

science and criminal legislation give us a far more extended

classification.

Ellero reckoned in the penal code of the German Empire 203 crimes

and offences; and I find that the Italian code of 1859 enumerates

about 180, the new code about 200, and the French penal code about

150. Thus the kind of crimes of habitual criminals would

only be about one-tenth of the complete legal classification of

crimes and offences.

It is easy indeed to suppose that born and habitual criminals do

not generally commit political crimes and offences, nor offences

connected with the press, nor against freedom of worship, nor in

corruption of public functionaries, nor misuse of title or

authority; nor calumny, making false attestations or false

reports; nor adultery, incest, or abduction of minors; nor

infanticide, abortion, or palming of children; nor betrayal of

professional secrets; nor bankruptcy offences, nor damage to

property, nor violation of domicile, nor illegal arrests, nor

duels, nor defamation, nor abuse. I say generally; for, as there

are occasional criminals who commit the offences characteristic of

habitual criminality, such as homicides, robberies, rapes, &c., so

there are born criminals who sometimes commit crimes out of their

ordinary course.

It is now necessary to add a few statistical data in respect of

the classification of crime, which I take, like the others, from

the essay already mentioned.

ITALY. FRANCE. BELGIUM.

HABITUAL CRIMINALITY

(homicide, theft, conspiracy, rape,

incendiarism, vagrancy, swindling, A* B* C* A* B* C* A* B* C*

p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c.

Proportion of the persons

convicted of these crimes

and offences to the total

number of convictions . . . 84 32 38 90 34 35 86 30 30

{* NOTE: A B and C above are `Assizes,' `Tribunals,' and `Totals,'

respectively. These are printed ``landscape'' fashion in the book.}

That is to say, habitual criminality would be represented, in

Italy, by about 40 per cent. of the total number of condemned

persons, and by somewhat less in France and Belgium. This would

be accounted for in Belgium by the exclusion of vagrancy; but the

difference is virtually due to the greater frequency in Italy of

certain crimes, such as homicide, highway robbery with violence,

and conspiracies.

Further, it is apparent that in all these countries the types of

habitual criminality, with the exception of thefts and vagrancy,

are in greater proportion at the assizes, on account of their

serious character.

The actual totals, however, are larger at the tribunals, for as,

in the scale of animal life, the greatest fecundity belongs to the

lower and smaller forms, so in the criminal scale, the less

serious offences (such as simple theft, swindling, vagrancy, &c.)

are the more numerous. Thus, out of the total of 38 per cent. in

Italy, 32 belong to the tribunals and 6 to the assizes; out of 35

per cent in France, 33 belong to the tribunals and 2 to the

assizes; and out of 30 per cent. in Belgium, 29 belong to the

tribunals and 1 to the assizes. This also is partly accounted for

by legislative distinctions as to the respective jurisdictions of

these courts.

As to the particulars of the totals, it is found that thefts are

the most numerous types in Italy (20 per cent.), in France (24 per

cent.), in Belgium (23 per cent.), and in Prussia (37 per cent.,

including breaches of trust).[5]

[5] Starke, ``Verbrechen und Verbrecher in Preussen,'' Berlin,

1884, p. 92.

After theft, the most numerous in Italy are vagrancy (5 per

cent.), homicides (4 per cent.), swindling (3 per cent.), forgery

(.9 per cent.), rape (.4 per cent.), conspiracy (.4 per cent.),

and incendiarism (.2 per cent.).

In France and Belgium we find the same relative frequency of

vagrancy and swindling; but homicide, incendiarism, and conspiracy

are less frequent, whilst rape is more common in France (.5 per

cent.) and in Belgium (1 per cent.).

Such then are the most frequent forms of habitual criminality in

the generality of condemned persons; and it will be useful now to

contrast the more frequent forms of occasional criminality. For

Italy the only judicial statistics which are valuable for detailed

inquiry are those of 1863, 1869-72. For France, every volume of

the admirable series of criminal statistics may be utilised.

It will be seen that the frequency of these occasional crimes and

offences in Italy and in France is very variable, though assaults

and wounding, resistance to authorities, damage, defamation and

abuse, are the most numerous in both countries.

The proportion of each offence to the total also varies

considerably, not only through a difference of legislation between

Italy and France in regard to poaching, drunkenness, frauds on

refreshment-house keepers, and so forth, but also by reason of the

different condition of individuals and of society in the two

countries. Thus assaults and wounding, which in Italy comprise 23

per cent. of the total of convictions, reach in France no more

than 14 per cent., whilst resistance to the authorities, &c.,

which

YEARLY AVERAGE or CONDEMNED PERSONS.

ITALY, 1863-72. FRANCE 1877-81

CRIMES AND OFFENCES OF GREATEST

FREQUENCY

(not including those of Habitual Criminals).

p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c.

Wilful Assaulf and Wounding ...

Illegally carrying Arms ...... -- 8 7 -- 3 3

Resistance to Authority, Assaults and

Violence against Public Functionaries ... 3 5 4 --2 10 10

Injury to Property ... ... ... -- 2 2 -- I 1-6 1 5

Defamation and Abuse ... ... ... -- s-S 1-6 -- I-6 1 5

Written or Spoken Threats ... ... -- 1 4 1'2 -- '2 --2

Illegal Games ... ... ... ... -- I --8 -- 2 1 'I

Political Crimes and Offences ...... 31.7 -- --2 -- 4 2 --2

Press Crimes and Offences ... ... 4 4 --4 -- --6 --6

Embezzlement, Corruption, Malfeasance

of Public Functionaries -- --3 .3 -- -- --

Escape from Detention --1 --2 2 -- --6 --6

False Witness .. ... ... ... --7 2 --2 09 6 --6

Violation of Domicile ... ... ... -- 17 .15 -- lo --9

Calumny ... --. --1 I 1 --oS --o8

Exposure, Palming or ``Suppression''

of Infants -- --12 1 --2 --1 --1

Bankruptcy Offences ... ... ... I 1 --1 1'3 5 --6

Offences against Religion and Ministers

of Religion -- 1 --1 -- --7 .o7

Duelling ... .. .. ... ... ... -- .04 .03 -- -- --

Abortion ... ... ... ... ... -- -- -- og -- --OI

Offences against the Game Laws -- -- -- -- 13 12-7

Drunkenness -- -- -- -- 1 5 1 5

Offences against Public Decency -- -- -- -- I-8 1.7

Adultery ... ... ... ... ... -- -- -- --5 5

Offences against Morality, with Incitement

to Immorality ... ... -- -- -- -- --2 --2

Involuntary Homicide -- -- -- -- --2 --2

'' Wounding -- -- -- -- --6 --6

'' Incendiarism -- -- -- -- --2 --2

Illegal Practising of Medicine and

Surgery ... ... ... ... ... -- -- -- -- --2 --2

Frauds on Keepers of Refreshment

Houses ... ... ... ... ... -- -- -- -- I-4 1 4

Rural Offences ... ... ... ... -- -- -- -- 6 --6

-- -- m

__________________________________________________________________________

Yeally Average of Convictions,

Gross Totals 6,273 43,584 49,857 3,300 163,997 167,297

[1] Devastation of crops, destruction of fences. [2] Unauthorised gaming

houses; secret lotteries. [3] An exceptional figure, owing to 528 convictions

in 1863, whilst the average of the other years was nine convictions.

[4] Electoral offences.

are 4 per cent. in Italy, touch 9 per cent in France.

Sexual crimes and offences (as we saw in the case of rape), such

as abortion, adultery, indecent assaults, and incitement to

immorality, which in Italy present very small and negligible

figures, are more frequent in France. Whilst the illegal carrying

of arms, threats, false witness, escape from detention, violations

of domicile, calumny, are of greater frequency in Italy than in

France, the contrary is true of bankruptcy offences, political and

press crimes and offences, on account of a manifest difference of

the moral, economic, and social conditions of the two countries,

which are plainly discernible behind these apparently dry figures.

In addition to this demonstration, we have given anthropological

and statistical proofs of the fundamental distinction between

habitual and occasional criminals, which had been pointed out by

many observers, but which had hitherto remained a simple assertion

without manifest consequences.

This same distinction ought to be not only the basis of all

sociological theory concerning crime, but also a point of

departure for other distinctions more precise and complete, which

I set forth in my previous studies on criminals, and which were

subsequently reproduced, with more or less of assent, by all

criminal sociologists.

In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish, amongst

habitual criminals, those who present a conspicuous and clinical

form of mental aberration, which accounts for their anti-social

activity.

In the second place, amongst habitual criminals who are not of

unsound mind, however little the inmates of prisons may have been

observed with adequate ideas and experience, there is a clear

indication of a class of individuals, physically or mentally

abnormal, induced to crime by inborn tendencies, which are

manifest from their birth, and accompanied by symptoms of extreme

moral insensibility. Side by side with these, another class

challenges attention, of individuals who have also been criminals

from childhood, and who continue to be so, but who are in a

special degree a product of physical and social environment, which

has persistently driven them into the criminal life, by their

abandonment before and after the first offence, and which,

especially in the great towns, is very often forced upon them by

the actual incitement of their parents.

Amongst occasional criminals, again, a special category is created

by a kind of exaggeration of the characteristics, mainly

psychological, of the type itself. In the case of all occasional

criminals, the crime is brought about rather by the effects of

environment than by the active tendencies of the individual; but

whilst in most of these individuals the deciding cause is only a

circumstance affecting all alike, with a few it is an exceptional

constraint of passion, a sort of psychological tempest, which

drives them into crime.

Thus, then, the entire body of criminals may be classed in five

categories, which as early as 1880 I described as criminal madmen,

born criminals, criminals by contracted habits, occasional

criminals, and criminals of passion.

As already observed, criminal anthropology will not finally

establish itself until it has been developed by biological,

psychological, and statistical monographs on each of these

categories, in such a manner as to present their anthropological

characteristics with greater precision than they have hitherto

attained. So far, observers continue to give us the same

characteristics for a large aggregate of criminals, classifying

them according to the form of their crime rather than according to

their bio-social type. In Lombroso's work, for instance, or in

that of Marro (and to some extent even in my work on homicide),

the characteristics are stated for a total, or for legal

categories of criminals, such as murderers, thieves, forgers, and

so on, which include born criminals, occasional and habitual

criminals, and madmen. The result is a certain measure of

inconsistency, according to the predominance of one type or the

other in the aggregate of criminals under observation. This also

contributes to render the conclusions of criminal anthropology

less evident.

Nevertheless, we may sum up the inquiries which have been made up

to the present time; and in particular we may now point out the

general characteristics of the five classes of criminals, in

accordance with my personal experience in the observation of

criminals. It is to be hoped that successive observations of a

more methodical kind will gradually reinforce the accuracy of this

classification of symptoms.

In the first place, it is evident that in a classification not

exclusively biological, if it is to form the anthropological basis

of criminal sociology, criminals of unsound mind must in all

fairness be included.

The usual objection, recently repeated by M. Joly (``Le Crime,''

p. 62), which holds the term ``criminal madness'' to be self-

contradictory, since a madman is not morally responsible, and

therefore cannot be a criminal, is not conclusive. We maintain

that responsibility to society, the only responsibility common to

all criminals, exists also for criminals of unsound mind.

Nor, again, is it correct to say, with M. Bianchi, that mad

criminals should be referred to psychiatry, and not to criminal

anthropology; for, though psychiatry is concerned with mad

criminals in a psycho-pathological sense, this does not prevent

criminal anthropology and sociology from also concerning

themselves with the same subjects, in order to constitute the

natural history of the criminal, and to suggest remedies in the

interest of society.

As for criminals of unsound mind, it is necessary to begin by

placing in a separate category such as cannot, after the studies

of Lombroso and the Italian school of psychiatry, be distinguished

from the born criminals properly so-called. These are the persons

tainted with a form of insanity which is known under various

names, from the ``moral insanity'' of Pritchard to the ``reasoning

madness'' of Verga. Moral insanity, illustrated by the works of

Mendel, Legrand du Saulle, Maudsley, Krafft-Ebing, Savage, Hugues,

Hollander, Tamburini, Bonvecchiato, which, with the lack or

atrophy of the moral or social sense, and of _*apparent_ soundness

of mind, is properly speaking only the essential psychological

condition of the born criminal.

Beyond these morally insane people, who are very rare--for, as

Krafft-Ebing and Lombroso have pointed out, they are found more

frequently in prisons than in mad-houses--there is the unhappily

large body of persons tainted by a common and clinical form of

mental alienation, all of whom are apt to become criminal.

The whole of these criminals of unsound mind cannot be included in

a single category; and such, indeed, is the opinion expressed by

Lombroso, in the second volume of the fourth edition of his work,

after his descriptive analysis of the chief forms of mental

alienation. As a matter of fact, not only are the organic, and

especially the psychological, characteristics of criminal madmen

sometimes identical with and sometimes opposed to those of born

and occasional criminals, but these very characteristics vary

considerably between the different forms of mental alienation, in

spite of the identity of the crime committed.

It is further to be observed, in respect of criminal madmen, that

this category also includes all the intermediary types between

complete madness and a rational condition, who remain in what

Maudsley has called the ``middle zone.'' The most frequent

varieties in the criminality of these partially insane persons, or

``matto<i:>des,'' are the perpetrators of attacks upon

statesmen, who are generally men with a grievance, irascible men,

writers of insane documents, and the like, such as Passanante,

Guiteau, and Maclean.

In the same category are those who commit terrible crimes without

motive, and who nevertheless, according to the complacent

psychology of the classical school, would be credited with a

maximum of moral soundness.

Again, there are the necrophiles, like Sergeant Bertrand, Verzeni,

Menesclou, and very probably the undetected ``Jack the Ripper'' of

London, who are tainted with a form of sexual psychopathy. Yet

again there are such as are tainted with hereditary madness, and

especially the epileptics and epileptoids, who may also be

assigned to the class of born criminals, according to the

plausible hypothesis of Lombroso as to the fundamental identity of

congenital criminality, moral madness, and epilepsy. I have

always found in my own experience that outrageous murders, not to

be explained according to the ordinary psychology of criminals,

are accompanied by psychical epilepsy, or larvea.

Born or instinctive criminals are those who most frequently

present the organic and psychological characteristics established

by criminal anthropology. These are either savage or brutal men,

or crafty and idle, who draw no distinction between homicide,

robbery or other kinds of crime, and honest industry. ``They are

criminals just as others are good workingmen,'' says Fr<e'>gier;

and, as Romagnosi put it, actual punishment affects them

much less than the menace of punishment, or does not affect them

at all, since they regard imprisonment as a natural risk of their

occupation, as masons regard the fall of a roof, or as miners

regard fire-damp. ``They do not suffer in prison. They are like

a painter in his studio, dreaming of their next masterpiece. They

are on good terms with their gaolers, and even know how to make

themselves useful.''[5]

[5] Moreau, ``Souvenirs de la petite et grande Roquette,'' Paris,

1884, ii. 440.

The born criminals and the occasional criminals constitute the

majority of the characteristic and diverse types of homicide and

thief. Prison governors call them ``gaol-birds.'' They pass on

from the police to the judge and to the prison, and from the

prison to the police and to the judge, with a regularity which has

not yet impaired the faith of law-makers in the efficacy of

punishment as a cure for crime.[6]

[6] Wayland, ``The Incorrigible,'' in the _Journal of Mental

Science_, 1888. Sichart, ``Criminal Incorrigibles.''

No doubt the idea of a born criminal is a direct challenge to the

traditional belief that the conduct of every man is the outcome of

his free will, or at most of his lack of education rather than of

his original physio-psychical constitution. But, in the first

place, even public opinion, when not prejudiced in favour of the

so-called consequences of irresponsibility, recognises in many

familiar and everyday cases that there are criminals who, without

being mad, are still not as ordinary men; and the reporters call

them ``human tigers,'' ``brutes,'' and the like. And in the

second place, the scientific proofs of these hereditary

tendencies to crime, even apart from the clinical forms of

mental alienation, are now so numerous that it is useless to

insist upon them further.

The third class is that of the criminals whom, after my prison

experience, I have called criminals by contracted habit. These

are they who, not presenting the anthropological characteristics

of the born criminals, or presenting them but slightly, commit

their first crime most commonly in youth, or even in childhood--

almost invariably a crime against property, and far more through

moral weakness, induced by circumstances and a corrupting

environment, than through inborn and active tendencies. After

this, as M. Joly observes, either they are led on by the impunity

of their first offences, or, more decisively, prison associations

debilitate and corrupt them, morally and physically, the cell

degrades them, alcoholism renders them stupid and subject to

impulse, and they continually fall back into crime, and become

chronically prone to it. And society, which thus abandons them,

before and after they leave their prison, to wretchedness,

idleness, and temptations, gives them no assistance in their

struggle to gain an honest livelihood, even when it does not

thrust them back into crime by harassing police regulations, which

prevent them from finding or keeping honest employment.[7]

[7] Fliche, ``Comment en devient Criminel,'' Paris, 1886.

Of those criminals who begin by being occasional criminals, and

end, after progressive degeneration, by exhibiting the features of

the born criminals, Thomas More said, ``What is this but to make

thieves for the pleasure of hanging them?'' And it is just

this class of criminals whom measures of social prevention might

reduce to a minimum, for by abolishing the causes we abolish the

effects.

Apart from their organic and psychological characteristics, innate

or acquired, there are two bio-sociological symptoms which seem to

me to be common, though for distinct reasons, to born criminals

and habitual criminals. I mean precocity and relapse. The

occasional crime and the crime of passion do not, as a rule, occur

before manhood, and rarely or never lead to relapse.

Here are a few figures concerning precocity, derived from

international prison statistics:--

PRISONERS UNDER 20 YEARS OF AGE. Male. Female.

__________________________________________________________________

p.c. p.c.

Italy (1871--6) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 8.8 6.8

France ('72-5) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 10 7.6

Prussia ('71-7--not over 19 years) ... ... ... 2.8 2.6

Austria ('72-5) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 9.6 10.6

Hungary ('72-6) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 4.2 9

England ('72-7 )--not over 24) ... ... ... ... 27.4 14.8

Scotland ('72-7) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 20 7.8

Ireland ('72-7) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 9 3.2

Belgium ('74-5) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 20.8 ---

Holland ('72-7) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 22.8 3.7

Sweden ('73-7) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 19.7 17

Switzerland ('74) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 6.6 7

Denmark ('74-5) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 9.9 9.6

----------------------------------------------------------------

More recent figures show that the yearly average in France, for

1876-80, out of 4,374 persons brought to trial, was 1 per cent.

under sixteen years of age, and 17 per cent. between sixteen and

twenty-one; whilst in 1886 the same percentages were .60 and

14. Out of 146,217 accused before the tribunals there were 4 per

cent. under sixteen, and 14 per cent. between sixteen and twenty-

one. Out of 25,135 females there were 4 per cent. under sixteen,

and 11 per cent. between sixteen and twenty-one; whilst in 1886

the percentages were 3 and 14 of males, 2.5 and 14 of females.

In Prussia, of persons accused of crimes and offences in 1860-70,

4 per cent. were under eighteen years.

In Germany, of persons condemned in 1886, 3 per cent. were between

twelve and fifteen, 6 per cent. between fifteen and eighteen, and

16 per cent. between eighteen and twenty-one years.

In Italy, out of 5,189 persons condemned at the assizes in 1887, 3

per cent. were between fourteen and eighteen, and 12 per cent.

between eighteen and twenty-one. Out of 65,624 tried before the

tribunals, 1.2 per cent. were under fourteen, 5 per cent. were

between fourteen and eighteen, and 13 per cent. between eighteen

and twenty-one. There is a continual increase of precocious

criminals in Italy. Prisoners condemned at the assizes under the

age of twenty-one stood at 15 per cent. from 1880 to 1887, whilst

those of a similar age who were tried before the tribunals rose

from 17 to 20 per cent.

To these numerical data may be added others of a qualificative

character, showing that precocity is most frequent in respect of

the natural crimes and offences which are usually observed amongst

born and habitual criminals.

In France the younger prisoners in 1882 had been sentenced in the

following proportions:--

Male. Female.

For murder and poisoning ... ... 0.9 per cent. .5 per cent.

'' homicide, assaults, and wounding 1.6 '' 1.5 ''

'' incendiarism... ... ... ... 1.8 '' 2 ''

'' indecent assault ... ... ... 3.5 '' 11.8 ''

'' specified thefts, forgery, uttering

false coin ... ... ... ... 5.2 '' 2.4 ''

'' simple theft, swindling ... 60.8 '' 49.7 ''

'' mendicity and vagrancy ... 23 '' 20.5 ''

'' other crimes and offences ... 2.7 '' 8 ''

'' defiance of parents ... ... 1 '' 10.5 ''

These figures, showing a greater frequency amongst females of

precocious crimes against the person, and amongst males against

property, are approximately repeated in Switzerland, where young

prisoners in 1870-74 had been sentenced in these proportions:--

For crimes and offences against the person ... 12.1 per cent.

'' '' '' morality ... 5.7 ''

'' incendiarism... ... ... ... ... ... ... 4.3 ''

'' theft ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 65.5 ''

'' swindling ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 5.4 ''

'' forgery ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1.9 ''

'' vagrancy ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 4.6 ''

The judicial statistics of France and Italy give these

proportions:--

{FIX THIS TABLE!}

ITALY--1866. FRANCE--1886

ASSIZE COURTS

Under 14--18. 28--21. Under j l6--2

Homicide ... ... ... ... p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c.

Murder(and robbery with homicide) 14 I i 10 3 7 6

Parricide ...... ... ... ... -- 5 --8 7 5 9

Infanticide ... ... ... ... -- I --4 -- 6

Imprisonment ... ... ... ... -- -- --

Wilful wounding (followed by death) -- 19 24 -- 3 S

Abortion ...... ... ... ... -- -- -- 1-I

Rape and indecent assault on adults} -- 1'2

'' '' children} -- lo 7 t 3 7 11

Resistance to and attacks on public

functionaries ... ... ... --5 --6 -- 3

Incendiarism -- -- --2 3-7 3 1

False money .. .. .. . 14 -- I 3-7 2 5

Forgery in public and private docu-

ments ...... ... ... ... -- 5 --2 -- 2 --1

Extortion, highway robbery with

violence ... ... ... ... 14 9 7 -- 3w 6

Specified and simple theft ... 14 19 16 41 51

Unintentional wounding ... 28 5 2 -- --

----------------------------------------------------------------

Total of condemned and accused 7 179 475 27 641

The French statistics for the tribunals--no complete Italian

statistics being available, are as follows:--

FRANCE--1886. CORRECTIONAL TRIBUNALS.

le. Female.

Offences. Underl6. I6--21 Underl6.1 16--21

per cenl. Per cenc. per cent. per cent.

Resistance to authorities ... ... 2 2 2 'I 1 1

Assaults on public functionaries --8 5 --7 4 1

Vagrancy ... ... .-- 4 4 11 2 3 2 S'S

Mendicity ... ... ... 4 8 4 12'- 3 6

wilful wounding ... ... ... 5 1 18-5 3@0 11

Unintentional wounding ... 8 7 I

Offences against public decency .. 1 6 1 8 3 1 3 >

Defamation and abuse - I '2 1 1 1 0

Theft ... ... ... ... ... 57 5 a--4 63 54 3

Frauds on refreshment-house keepers --I 2 I --I 6

Swindling 5 1 2 2.4 3 +2

Breach of confidence ... ... 9 1 3 7 1 2

Injury to crops and plants ... 5 --3 --3 5

Game-law offences .. ... .-- 15 1 14 2 1 l --2

----------------------------------------------------------------

Total of accused

Here we have a statistical demonstration of a more frequent

precocity, amongst various forms of criminality, in respect of

inborn tendencies (murder and homicide, rape, incendiarism,

specific thefts), or in respect of tendencies contracted by habit

(simple theft, mendicity, vagrancy).

Also this characteristic of precocity is accompanied by that of

relapse, which accordingly we have seen to be more frequent in the

same forms of natural criminality, and which we can now tabulate

in respect of its persistency in these born and habitual

criminals.

It has been well said that the large number of relapsed persons

who are brought to trial year after year proves that thieves ply

their trade as a regular calling; the thief who has once tasted

prison life is sure to return to it.[8] And again, there are very

few cases in which a man or a woman who has turned thief ceases to

be one. Whatever the reason may be, as a matter of fact the thief

is rarely or never reformed. When you can turn an old thief into

an honest worker, you may turn an old fox into a house dog.[9]

[8] _Quarterly Review_, 1871, ``The London Police.''

[9] Thomson, ``The Psychology of Criminals,'' _Journal of Mental

Science_, 1870.

We must, however, read these testimonies of practical men, which

could easily be multiplied, in the light of our distinction

between incorrigible criminals, who are so from their birth, and

such as are made incorrigible by the effect of their prison and

social environment. The former could scarcely be reduced in

number, whilst the latter could be considerably diminished

by the penal alternatives of which I will speak later.

The following statistics of relapse are quoted from Yvern<e!>s,

``La R<e'>cidive en Europe'' (Paris, 1874):--

FRANCE--1826-74. ITALY--1870.

Relapses ENGLAND--1871. SWEDEN--1871. Accused Accused

Prisoners. Thieves. and brought and brought

to trial. to trial.

Once ... ... 38 per cent. 54 per cent. 45 per cent. 60 per cent.

Twice ... 18 '' 28 '' 20 '' 30 ''

Three times... 44 '' 18 '' 35 '' 10 ''

In Prussia (1878-82), 17 per cent. had relapsed once, 16 per cent.

twice, 16 per cent. three times, 13 per cent. four times, 10 per

cent five times, and 28 per cent. six times or oftener.[10]

[10] Starke, ``Verbrechen und Verbrecher,'' Berlin, 1884, p. 229.

At the Prisons Congress of Stockholm the following figures were

given for Scotland. Out of a total of forty-nine relapsed

prisoners, 16 per cent. had relapsed once, 13 per cent. twice or

three times, 6 per cent. four or five times, 6 per cent. from six

to ten times, 5 per cent. from ten to twenty times, 4 per cent.

from twenty to fifty times, and 1 per cent. more than fifty times.

At the meeting of the Social Science Congress, held at Liverpool,

in 1876, Mr. Nugent stated that upwards of 4,107 women had

relapsed four times or oftener, and that many of them were classed

as incorrigible, having been convicted twenty; forty, or fifty

times, whilst one had been convicted 130 times.

The judicial statistics of Italy for 1887 give the following

results:--

ITALY--Convicted, per cent.

Relapses.

Justices of Tribunals. Assizes.

Peace.

Once ... ... ... ... 57 42 50

Two to five times ... 34 40 40

More than five times ... 9 18 10

--------------------------------------------------------

Actual totals of relapses 27,068 16,240 1,870

I have found from my inquiries amongst 346 condemned to penal

servitude and 353 prisoners from the correctional tribunals the

following percentages:--

Relapsed. Convicts Imprisoned.

Once ... ... 83.2 ... ... 26

Twice ... ... 12.5 ... ... 16.5

3 times ... ... 3.1 ... ... ... 14.6

4 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... 10.8

5 '' ... ... 6.8 ... ... ... 6.6

6 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... 5.2

7 '' ... ... 1.6 ... ... ... 7.1

8 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... 2.8

9 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... 2.8

10 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... 2.3

11 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... .9

12 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... .5

13 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... .9

14 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... 1.4

15 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... .9

20 '' ... ... -- ... ... ... .5

------------------------------------------------

Actual totals of relapses 128 212

Chronic relapse is naturally less frequent in the case of those

condemned to long terms; but it is a conspicuous symptom of

individual and social pathology in the two classes of born and

habitual criminals.

Lombroso, in the second volume of his work on ``The Criminal,''

denies that precocity and relapse are characteristics

distinguishing born and habitual from occasional criminals. But

it is only a question of terms. He considers that born and

habitual criminals confine themselves almost exclusively to

serious crime, and occasional criminals to minor offences. And as

the figures which I have given show that precocity and relapse are

even more frequent for minor offences than for crimes, he thinks

that they contradict instead of confirming my conclusions.

The mere seriousness of an act cannot by any means divide the

categories of criminals; for homicide as well as theft, assault

and battery as well as forgery, may be committed, though in

different psychological and social conditions, as easily by born

and habitual criminals as by occasional criminals and criminals of

passion.

Moreover, the figures which I have given show that precocity and

relapse are more frequent in the forms of criminality which, apart

from their gravity, are the common practices of born and habitual

criminals, such as murder, homicide, robbery, rape, &c., whilst

they are far more uncommon, even if they can be said to be

observed at all, in the case of the crimes and offences usually

committed by occasional criminals, such as infanticide, and

certain of the offences mentioned above.

It remains to say something of the occasional criminals, and the

criminals of passion.

The latter are but a variety of the occasional criminals, but

their characteristics are so specific that they may be very

readily distinguished. In fact Lombroso, in his second edition,

supplementing the observations of Despine and Bittinger, separated

them from other criminals, and classified them according to their

symptoms. I need only summarise his observations.

In the first place, the criminals who constitute the strongly

marked class of criminals by irresistible impulse are very rare,

and their crimes are almost invariably against the person. Thus,

out of 71 criminals of passion inquired into by Lombroso, 69 were

homicides, 6 had in addition been convicted of theft, 3 of

incendiarism, and 1 of rape.

It may be shown that they number about 5 per cent. of crimes

against the person.

They are as a rule persons of previous good behaviour, sanguine or

nervous by temperament, of excessive sensibility, unlike born or

habitual criminals, and they are often of a neurotic or epileptoid

temperament, of which their crimes may be, strictly speaking, an

unrecognised consequence.

Frequently they transgress in their youth, especially in the case

of women, under stress of a passion which suddenly spurns

constraint, like anger, or outraged love, or injured honour. They

are highly emotional before, during, or after the crime, which

they do not commit treacherously, but openly, and often by ill-

chosen methods, the first that present themselves. Now and then,

however, one encounters criminals of passion who premeditate a

crime, and carry it out treacherously, either by reason of

their colder and less impulsive temperament, or as the outcome of

preconceived ideas or a widespread sentiment, in cases where we

have to do with a popular form of lawlessness, such as the

vendetta.

This is why the test of premeditation has no absolute value in

criminal psychology, as a distinction between the born criminal

and the criminal of passion; for premeditation depends especially

on the temperament of the individual, and is exemplified in crimes

committed by both anthropological types.

Amongst other symptoms of the criminal of passion, there is also

the precise motive which leads to a crime complete in itself, and

never as a means of attaining another criminal purpose.

These offenders immediately acknowledge their crime, with

unassumed remorse, frequently so keen that they instantly commit,

or attempt to commit suicide. When convicted--as they seldom are

by a jury--they are always repentant prisoners, and amend their

lives, or do not become degraded, so that in this way they

encourage superficial observers to affirm as a general fact, and

one possible in all circumstances, that ameliorative effect of

imprisonment which is really a mere illusion in the case of the

far more numerous classes of born and habitual criminals.

In these same offenders we very rarely observe, if at all, the

organic anomalies which create a criminal type. And even the

psychological characteristics are much slighter in countries where

certain crimes of passion are endemic, almost ranking

amongst the customs of the community, like the homicides which

occur in Corsica and Sardinia for the vindication of honour, or

the political assassinations in Russia and Ireland.

The last class is that of occasional criminals, who without any

inborn and active tendency to crime lapse into crime at an early

age through the temptation of their personal condition, and of

their physical and social environment, and who do not lapse into

it, or do not relapse, if these temptations disappear.

Thus they commit those crimes and offences which do not indicate

natural criminality, or else crimes and offences against person or

property, but under personal and social conditions altogether

different from those in which they are committed by born and

habitual criminals.

There is no doubt that, even with the occasional criminal, some of

the causes which lead him into crime belong to the anthropological

class; for external causes would not suffice without individual

predispositions. For instance, during a scarcity or a hard

winter, not all of those who experience privation have recourse to

theft, but some prefer to endure want, however undeserved, without

ceasing to be honest, whilst others are at the utmost driven to

beg their food; and amongst those who yield to the suggestion of

crime, some stop short at simple theft, whilst others go as far as

robbery with violence.

But the true difference between the born and the occasional

criminal is that, with the former, the external cause is

less operative than the internal tendency, because this tendency

possesses, as it were, a centrifugal force, driving the individual

to commit crime, whilst, for the occasional criminal, it is rather

a case of feeble power of resistance against external causes, to

which most of the inducement to crime is due.

The casual provocation of crime in the born criminal is generally

the outcome of an instinct or tendency already existing, and far

more of a pretext than an occasion of crime. With the occasional

criminal, on the other hand, it is the casual provocation which

matures, no doubt in a favouring soil, the growth of criminal

tendencies not previously developed.

For this reason Lombroso calls the occasional criminals

``criminaloids,'' in order to show precisely that they have a

distinctly abnormal constitution, though in a less degree than the

born criminals, just as we have the metal and the metalloid, the

epileptic and the epileptoid.

And this, again, is the reason why Lombroso's criticisms on my

description of occasional criminals are lacking in force. He

says, as Benedikt said at the Congress at Rome, that all criminals

are criminals by birth, so that there is no such thing as an

occasional criminal, in the sense of a _*normal_ individual

casually launched into crime. But I have not, any more than

Garofalo, drawn such a picture of the occasional criminal, for as

a matter of fact I have said precisely the opposite, as indeed

Lombroso himself acknowledges a little further on (ii. 422),

namely, that between the born and the occasional criminal

there is only a difference of degree and modality, as in all the

criminal classes.

To cite a few details of criminal psychology, it may be stated

that of the two physiological conditions of crime, moral

insensibility and improvidence, occasional crime is especially due

to the latter, and inborn and habitual crime to the former. With

the born criminal it is, above all, the lack or the weakness of

moral sense which fails to withstand crime, whereas with the

occasional criminal the moral sense is almost normal, but

inability to realise beforehand the consequences of his act causes

him to yield to external influences.

Every man, however pure and honest he may be, is conscious now and

then of a transitory notion of some dishonest or criminal action.

But with the honest man, exactly because he is physically and

morally normal, this notion of crime, which simultaneously summons

up the idea of its grievous consequences, glances off the surface

of the normal conscience, and is a mere flash without the thunder.

With the man who is less normal and has less forethought, the

notion dwells, resists the weak repulsion of a not too vigorous

moral sense, and finally prevails; for, as Victor Hugo says,

``Face to face with duty, to hesitate is to be lost.''[11]

[11] For instance, I will recall a fact which Morel has related of

himself, how one day, as he was crossing a bridge in Paris, he saw

a working-man gazing into the water, and a homicidal idea flashed

across his mind, so that he had to hurry away, for fear of

yielding to the temptation to throw the man into the water.

Again, there is the case of Humboldt's nurse, who was attacked one

day by the temptation to kill her charge, and ran with him to his

mother in order to avoid a disaster. Brierre de Boismont

also tells us of a learned man who, at the sight of a picture in a

public gallery, was tempted to cut the canvas, and ran away from

his impulse to crime.

The criminal of passion is one who is strong enough to resist

ordinary temptations of no exceptional force, to which the

occasional criminal would yield, but who does not resist

psychological storms which indeed are sometimes actually

irresistible.

The forms of occasional criminality, which are determined by these

ordinary temptations, are also determined by age, sex, poverty,

worldly influences, influences of moral environment, alcoholism,

personal surroundings, and imitation. Tarde has ably demonstrated

the persistent influence of these conditions on the actions of

men.

In this connection, Lombroso has drawn a clear distinction between

two varieties of occasional criminals: the ``pseudo-criminals,''

or normal human beings who commit involuntary offences, or

offences which do not spring from perversity, and do not hurt

society, though they are punishable by law, and ``criminaloids,''

who commit ordinary offences, but differ from true criminals for

the reasons already given.

A final observation is necessary in regard to this anthropological

classification of criminals, and it meets various objections

raised by our syllogistic critics. The difference existing

amongst the five categories is only one of degree, and depends

upon their organic and psychological types, and upon the influence

of physical and social environment.

In every natural classification the differences between

various groups and varieties are never anything but relative.

This deprives them of none of their theoretical and practical

importance, and so it is with this anthropological classification

of criminals.

It follows that, as in natural history we advance by degrees and

shades from the inorganic to the organic creation, life beginning

in the mineral domain with the laws of crystallisation, so in

criminal anthropology we pass by degrees and shades from the mad

to the born criminal, through the links of moral madmen and

epileptics; and from the born criminal to the occasional, through

the link of the habitual criminal, who begins by being an

occasional criminal, and ends by acquiring and transmitting to his

children the characteristics of the born criminal. And finally,

we pass from the occasional criminal to the criminal of passion,

who is but a species of the other, and who further, with his

neurotic and epileptoid temperament, not infrequently approximates

to the criminal of unsound mind.

Thus in our everyday life, as in science, we very often find

intermediate types, for complete and unmixed types are always the

most uncommon. And whilst legislators and judges, in their

complacent psychology, exact and establish marked lines of

cleavage between the sane and the insane criminal, experts in

psychiatry and anthropology are often constrained to place a

prisoner somewhere between the mad and the born criminal, or

between the occasional criminal and the normal man.

But it is evident that even when a criminal cannot be classed

precisely in one or the other category, and stands between

the two, this is in itself a sufficiently definite classification,

especially from a sociological point of view. There is

consequently no weight in the objection of those who, basing their

argument on an abstract and nebulous idea of the criminal in

general, and judging him merely according to the crime which has

been committed, without knowing his personal characteristics and

the circumstances of his environment, affirm that criminal

anthropology cannot classify all who are detained and accused.

In my experience, however, as a counsel and as an observer, I have

never had any difficulty in classifying all persons detained or

condemned for crimes and offences, by relying upon organic, and

especially upon psychological symptoms.

Thus, as Garofalo recently said, whilst the accepted criminal

science recognises only two terms, the offence and the punishment,

criminal sociology on the other hand recognises three: the crime,

the criminal, and the means best calculated for social self-

defence. And it may be concluded that up to this time, science,

legislation, and, in a minor degree, but without any scientific

method, the administration of justice, have judged and punished

crime in the person of the criminal, but that hereafter it will be

necessary to judge the criminal as well as the crime.

After these general observations on the anthropological classes of

criminals, it might seem necessary to establish their respective

numerical proportions. But as there is no absolute separation

between one and another, and as the frequency of the several

criminal types varies according to the crimes or offences, natural

or otherwise, against persons or property, no precise account can

be rendered of the criminal world as a whole.

By way of approximation, however, it may be said in the first

place that the classes of mad criminals and criminals of passion

are the least numerous, and represent something like 5 or 10 per

cent. of the total.

On the other hand, we have seen that born and habitual criminals

are about 40 or 50 per cent.; so that the occasional criminals

would also be between 40 and 50 per cent.

These are figures which naturally vary according to the different

groups of crime and of criminals which come under observation, and

which cannot be more accurately determined without a series of

special studies in criminal anthropology, as I said when answering

the objections which have been raised against the methods of this

novel science.

It remains for us, before concluding our first chapter, to

establish a fact of great scientific and practical value. This is

that, after the anthropological classification which I have

maintained for some ten years past, all who have been devoting

themselves to the subject of crime as regarded from a biological

and social standpoint have recognised the need for a

classification less simple than that of habitual and occasional

criminals, and which will be more or less complex according to the

criterion which may be adopted.

In the first place, the necessity is generally recognised of

abandoning the old arbitrary and algebraic type in favour of a

classification which shall correspond more accurately with the

facts of the case. This classification, originating in

observations made within the prison walls, I have extended in the

domain of criminal sociology, wherein it is now established as a

fundamental criterion of legislative measures which must be taken

as a protection against criminals, as well as a criterion of their

responsibility.

Secondly, the classifications of criminals hitherto given are not

essentially and integrally distinct. It has been seen, as a

matter of fact, that all the classifications which have been set

forth amount to a recognition of four types, the born, the insane,

the occasional criminals, and the criminals of passion; and this

again resolves itself into the simple and primitive distinction

between occasional and instinctive criminals. The category of

criminals by contracted habit would not be accepted by all

observers, but it corresponds too closely to our daily experience

to stand in need of further proof. And on the other hand I must

frankly decline to accept the authority of those who put forward

classifications more or less symmetrical without having made a

direct study of criminals; for the experimental method does not

admit systems based on mere imagination, or on vague recollections

of criminal trials, or on argumentative constructions built up

from the systems of others.

As a matter of fact, apart from the differences of

nomenclature, it is evident that the partial discrepancies in this

anthropological classification of criminals are due in some

measure to the different points of view taken by observers. For

instance, the classification of Lacassagne, Joly, Krauss, Badik,

and Marro rest upon a purely descriptive criterion of the organic

or psychological characteristics of criminals. The

classifications of Liszt, Medem, and Minzloff, on the other hand,

depend solely upon the curative and defensive influence of

punishment; and those of Foehring and Starke upon certain special

points of view, such as the assistance of released prisoners, on

their tendency to relapse.

My own point of view, on the contrary, has been general and

reproductive, for my classification is based upon the natural

causes of crime, individual, physical, and social, and to this

extent it corresponds more closely with the theoretical and

practical requirements of criminal sociology. If the curative art

of society, like that of individuals, expects from positive

knowledge an indication of remedies, it is clear that a

classification based on the fundamental causes of crime is best

fitted to indicate a social cure for this manifestation of

disease, which is the essential object of criminal sociology.

For, as in biology one is carried from purely descriptive anatomy

to genetic anatomy and physiology, so in sociology we must pass on

from purely legal descriptions of crimes to the genetic knowledge

of the criminals who commit these crimes.

For this reason all the chief classifications of criminals, as has

been seen, may be brought into line with my own, by virtue

of the more complete and fruitful test which has established it.

And thus we have a manifest proof that this classification

actually represents the common and permanent basis of all the

chief anthropological categories of criminals, whether in regard

to their natural causality and their specific character, or in

regard to the different forms of social self-defence which spring

out of them, and which must be adapted to the natural causes of

crime, and to the principal criminal types.

But whatever classification may be accepted, we shall always have,

as the fundamental axiom of criminal anthropology, this variety in

the types of criminals, which must henceforth be indispensable to

all who are theoretically or practically concerned with crime.