In a preceding chapter we have shown the frequency of tested deficiency
among various types of delinquents. We may now further consider the
significance of this association of delinquency with deficiency. The
best plan for discovering its meaning is provided by the technical
method of correlation. The data in the published reports of the score or
more of investigations which I have reported is wholly inadequate for
following out this method. We must, therefore, for the present content
ourselves with noting what has been discovered by the better analysis of
similar data which was supplemented by the necessary information as to
the distribution of the different types of crime in the corresponding
general populations. To this we can add certain correlations in
connection with the small Minneapolis group of tested juvenile
delinquents.
We are indeed fortunate to have the fundamental work of Dr. Charles
Goring on “The English Convict,” from which to formulate a point of view
regarding the relation of deficiency and delinquency. This work
represents ten years labor in making observations, collecting,
tabulating, and statistically evaluating data on 3000 convicted men, who
were found in the English convict prisons where they had been sent after
conviction in the higher courts because guilty of grave or repeated
offenses. It was carried out with the co-operation of a corps of workers
who had the help of Professor Karl Pearson and his assistants at the
Biometric Laboratory of the University of London, in the statistical
reduction of the almost overwhelming mass of data. By the large use of
partial correlation the _relative_ influence of various factors upon
criminality was investigated as it never had been before. It is, of
course, not possible to reproduce here the conclusions of this
monumental work which should be made more widely available in the
libraries of this country. We shall, however, select certain conclusions
which bear most directly upon our problem and which rest upon well
established statistical deductions, and compare them with a few other
studies which have contributed interesting side lights upon the causes
of delinquency.
A. THE CHANCES OF THE MENTALLY DEFICIENT BECOMING DELINQUENT.
“Every feeble-minded person is a potential criminal,” says Goddard in
his work on _Feeble-Mindedness_ (_112_, 514), and this sentiment finds
an echo in the emotions of many social workers. On the other hand we
have the careful work of Bronner in which she compares by their test
records a group of delinquent women with groups selected from night
classes and the servant class who had never been known to be immoral. On
the average she finds that the delinquents do not test below her servant
group. She says:
“Thus, though our delinquents are not as capable as their sisters, many
of them from congested districts, who in other ways are proving
themselves ambitious [the group from night classes,] yet they are no
less equipped intellectually than others who are earning a livelihood
and caring for themselves without coming in conflict with the law in the
least. Whatever their mental status might be, measured by other means,
the fact remains that there is no _necessary_ correlation between their
immoral or criminal tendencies and their intellectual ability and that
others, no more endowed than they, are fighting life's battles without
manifesting the same immoral or criminal tendencies” (_112_, p. 43).
What portion of these moral household servants of equal ability with the
delinquents may later fall under temptation, we, of course, cannot say.
Neither can we say that any of the delinquents would test deficient,
since we do not know the border lines of deficiency with the tests which
were used. The conclusion, however, is clear that, if corresponding
grades of intellect may be delinquent or not at maturity, we must be
cautious in assuming that the lowest grades of intellects would all
become delinquent if not under supervision.
What chances we are running by allowing feeble-minded individuals to be
abroad might be determined if we could find out the probability of
tested deficients becoming delinquent. This question cannot be answered
by showing for a single year or a period of years that crimes are
relatively more common among the defective classes, although such
figures give some impression of the danger of deficiency to the
community.
Kinberg, for example, calculates that in Sweden during the years
1901-1907 murder was relatively 200 times as common as among those not
in institutions, but lacking criminal responsibility through insanity or
deficiency, as among those who were responsible, arson was 72.5 as
common, manslaughter 12.63 times, other injuries to property than arson
6.55, rape 6.1 times, infanticide 4.59 times, larceny 0.99 times, and
fraud 0.26 times (_132_). The data were based upon the reports of the
Royal College of Health which makes the diagnosis as to criminal
responsibility that is required for all cases in which this question
arises. Such examinations, it is estimated, miss at least 15% of the
deficient criminals.
Goring gives a table which shows what crimes are most likely to be
committed by deficients. He found that 10% of the convicts in England
and Wales were definitely treated in prison as deficient, and he
estimated that 0.5% of the non-criminal population were equally
deficient. His table is based upon the tabulation of 8,290 crimes past
and present of 948 English convicts (Fig. XXXIX, p. 258). It is given
below:
TABLE XVII.
GORING'S DATA AS TO THE PERCENTAGE OF MENTAL DEFECTIVES AMONG MEN
CONVICTED OF VARIOUS OFFENSES. (_948 Convicts_)
Firing of stack 52.9%
Wilful damage, including maiming of animals 22.2
Arson 16.7
Rape (child) 15.8
Robbery with violence 15.6
Unnatural (sexual) offenses 14.3
Blackmail 14.3
Fraud 12.8
Stealing (and poaching) 11.2
Burglary 10.0
Murder and murderous intent 9.5
Rape (adult) 6.7
Receiving 5.1
Manslaughter 5.0
Coining 3.3
Wounding, intent to wound, striking superior officer 2.9
Embezzlement, forgery, fraudulence as trustee, bigamy, performing 0.0
illegal surgical operation
General population 0.5
Another table from Goring shows which groups of crime are most likely to
be committed by the deficients compared with the frequency of that type
of crime in the general population. It is reproduced in part below.
TABLE XVIII.
GORING'S DATA AS TO GROUPS OF CRIME COMMITTED MOST FREQUENTLY BY THOSE
MENTALLY DEFICIENT
─────────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬────────────────┬────────────────
Nature of crimes │ Total │Mentally │ Percentages of │ Percentages of
│criminals│defective│ mental │ general
│ │ │defectives among│ population
│ │ │those committing│ committing the
│ │ │ various crimes │several offenses
─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────
Malicious damage │ 55│ 22│ 40.00│ 0.406
to property │ │ │ │
Stealing and │ 442│ 45│ 10.18│ 4.180
burglary │ │ │ │
Sexual offences │ 101│ 13│ 12.87│ 0.199
Violence to the │ 183│ 11│ 6.01│ 1.606
person │ │ │ │
Forgery, coining │ 167│ 4│ 2.40│ 0.722
and fraud │ │ │ │
─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────
Total │ 948│ 95│ 10.00│ 7.203
─────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴────────────────┴────────────────
Some very striking instances of recidivism on the part of the
feeble-minded were summarized by Dr. Smalley in his evidence before the
Royal Commission (_83_). He said:
“Against 130 out of 333 weak-minded prisoners who were unfit for
ordinary penal discipline by reason of mental deficiency, no
previous conviction had been recorded; but for this absence of
record their nomadic habits might in part account. Against fifty-six
1 conviction had been recorded, against twenty-eight 2; the
remainder varied from 4 to 105 convictions. About half had been
convicted from 5 to 10 times.... Dr. Hamblin Smith, Medical Officer
of Stafford Prison, as the result of a special inquiry into 100
mentally defective prisoners, found that 100 had a combined record
of 1,104 convictions, or an average of 11 per prisoner, and this
number was regarded as being below the actual truth. Ten of the
prisoners had over 30 convictions. Dr. W. R. Dawson found that in
the two prisons in Dublin 12.21 per cent. of the inmates were
defectives. The average number of previous convictions for the
females was 44.13. Many of them ran into hundreds, and one was in
prison for the two-hundred and thirty-sixth time, and she was only
twenty-nine years old.”
So far as I can discover nobody has directly attacked the specific
problem, what percentage of individuals of a given degree of deficiency
who are not under supervision, become legally delinquent at some time in
their lives. A slight contribution to the empirical study of the problem
is made in the reports of the follow-up work in connection with pupils
formerly in special classes in the public schools which I reviewed in
Chap. IV, f. We have also a telling report by Bullard of the New York
Prison Association published by Moore in 1911 (_156_). It follows the
records of 85 feeble-minded boys and men 16-29 years of age, paroled
from the Elmira State Reformatory in 1904. The whereabouts of 3 were
unknown and 2 died. Of the remaining eighty, 31 were arrested again and
6 others violated their parole. One was arrested 19 times in this short
period.
The best approach to this problem of measuring the potential delinquency
among deficients is afforded by Goring's four-fold table for calculating
the correlation between deficiency and criminality in the male
population of England and Wales (_20_, p. 259). By means of the annual
data on first convictions of crime at different ages and the probable
length of life among criminals and in the general population he has been
able to predict a potential criminality on the part of 7.2% of the
general male population. In other words, the best estimate seems to be
that about 7 in every hundred males in England and Wales will be
convicted of crime at some time in their lives. About 10% of the
convicts in England for a series of years have been isolated in prison
treatment because of deficiency. If we now also assume with him that
0.46% of the non-criminal population is mentally deficient, we arrive at
the table which enables us to determine, on these assumptions, that it
is most likely that 63% of the deficients will be convicted of crime at
some time in their lives. If instead of taking this estimate of 10% of
the criminals being deficient we had taken 20%, then the probability of
a deficient individual being convicted of crime would rise to .77.
On the basis of our summary of tested delinquents in the last chapter it
seems extremely conservative to suppose that 10% of the manifest and
potential criminals are as deficient mentally as the lowest 1.5% of the
general population. Even with this assumption we find that the chances
would be 48 out of a hundred that a person of this degree of deficiency
would be convicted of crime.
These estimates, I believe, afford a telling argument for the indefinite
isolation of at least those who are in the lowest 0.5% mentally on the
ground of their potential criminality, independently of any question of
the danger to society from the hereditary transmission of the diathesis
of deficient delinquency.
We have heard much in recent years of the particular danger of allowing
the better grade of feeble-minded, especially the morons, to be abroad
in the community. Time and again it is asserted that it is this class of
deficients which is most likely to become delinquent. There is a
widespread confusion here between the statement that criminals in
absolute numbers are drawn more frequently from the moron class and the
statement that morons are relatively more likely than imbeciles or
idiots to become delinquent. To the first alternative there would be no
objection since morons are much more frequent than the lower grades of
deficiency. On the other hand if morons are relatively more likely to be
delinquent than imbeciles, then we should expect those just above the
morons in ability to be more likely than morons to be delinquent. The
technical answer to the problem whether the lower grades of deficiency
are more likely to become delinquent could be best reached by
discovering the correlation of delinquency with the different grades of
deficiency.
Goring's data throw some light on this question since he has found the
correlation between grades of intelligence and the degree of recidivism
and also between intelligence and the frequency of bad reports in the
penal institutions where the convicts were held. In both cases the
tendency is clear for the weak-minded and imbecile to be more frequently
convicted and to be reported more frequently for bad conduct than for
the higher grades of intelligence which he classifies as unintelligent,
fairly intelligent and intelligent. The correlation coefficient with
frequency of convictions relative to time out of prison is -.16 and with
frequency of bad reports is -.33. The correlation ratios are slightly
higher in both cases. On the other hand the more intelligent are likely
to be given longer sentences, the correlation being +.10.[33] It might
be contended that his distinction between the lowest grades of
intelligence is not objective and not very clear; but that the general
tendency of the regression lines would be reversed at the lower extreme
seems very improbable. In other words there is some reason to suppose
that, relative to their numbers, the idiots and imbeciles would be more
likely to be delinquent than the more intelligent feeble-minded provided
none was confined in an institution. No idiot and few, if any, imbeciles
could survive honestly in any environment without assistance.
How closely the degrees of immorality are associated with the degrees of
deficiency remains one of the most important problems to be answered
authoritatively by the correlation of these traits when properly
measured. That the greater degrees of immorality and of deficiency are
on the whole associated and not opposed we have good reason to believe,
but there are undoubtedly examples in which the degree of immorality or
delinquency is out of proportion to the degree of deficiency. The fact
that certain instances are found of moral imbeciles without
corresponding intellectual deficiency, which has been noted by Stern
(_188_, p. 75) and by Anton (_67_), does not of course determine the
direction of the tendencies. We must base our deductions as to the
danger of delinquency among lower and higher grades of deficients on our
knowledge of the general tendencies. Are morons, relative to their
numbers, more dangerous to the community than lower grade deficients? We
must not make the absurd deduction that because morons are most numerous
they are most likely to be delinquent and should therefore be most
carefully isolated or supervised.
B. THE CORRELATION OF DEFICIENCY AND DELINQUENCY.
Modern statistical methods afford the ultimate quantitative tool for
determining the cause of delinquency, whether or not we also require
that the data should be assembled under experimentally controlled
conditions. The rapid strides which have been made in answering this
fundamental question of criminology may be judged by noting the
treatment of it in such a work as Goring's compared with the
impressionistic literary style which has prevailed. Illustrations of
particular cases, opinions subconsciously formulated by experts from
wide experience in dealing with delinquents, even the votes of the
majority of leaders in the field, give way before the acid test of
measurement of tendencies in human traits just as poorer methods
succumbed in the Middle Ages in the realm of the physical sciences.
Quantitative determinations can no longer be brushed aside with a smile
on the supposition that statisticians are the biggest liars. They must
be answered by better data or more refined methods. The form of the
discussion of social questions has changed. Correlation is a powerful
new weapon for attacking these problems which promises to go far beyond
the range of earlier blundering methods.
While partial correlation affords an ideal approach to answering the
question of causation, it has been used only to a very limited extent.
The necessary data for comparing the closeness of relationship of
various suggested causes of delinquency are not available and too few
who are interested in social problems have appreciated the significance
of the method. We should, therefore, lay especial emphasis on the
measurement of the correlation of deficiency and criminality by Goring.
He laboriously assembled the only data which are sufficiently extensive
to allow much reliance to be placed upon their statistical reduction. In
his use of correlation, moreover, he acted under advice from the main
center for this work at the Galton Laboratory in London.
If those who were “mentally defective” under Goring's designation were
always convicted of crime and none of those who were not defective were
ever convicted of crime, the measure of the relationship between
criminality and deficiency would be expressed by a correlation
coefficient of +1.00. If there were no relationship whatever between
deficiency and criminality the coefficient would be 0.00. If the
deficients were never convicted of crime and the non-deficients were
always criminal the coefficient would be -1.00. Intermediate degrees in
the relationship of these tendencies would then be represented by
decimals which would be either positive or negative, depending upon
whether the traits were associated together or were opposed. The
coefficient which he found for the male population was +.6553, which was
much higher than that for any other constitutional or environmental
factor which he measured.
In calculating this correlation Goring regarded 10% of the criminal male
population as defective. He found that this was in agreement with the
common tendency in English convict prisons to class officially about
this portion of the criminals as defectives and needing care. He also
assumed that 0.46% of the non-criminal male population in England and
Wales was defective, the proportion suggested by the report of the Royal
Commission on Feeble-mindedness. By a careful computation he calculated
that 7.2% of the males either have been or will be convicted of crime
before they die. He then constructed the four-fold table on the basis of
these estimates as applied to the 948 convicts whom he examined as to
their mental condition. The coefficient was then calculated by Pearson's
method for a four-fold table. This method assumes that the mental
ability and the tendency to criminality are distributed normally in the
population and that the difference in numbers between the criminal and
the non-criminal, deficient and non-deficient are not too great. In case
the percentage of defectives among the criminals were taken as 20%
instead of 10% the correlation would be increased to .79.
Using the same four-fold method we may calculate the correlation between
deficiency and juvenile delinquency among Minneapolis boys. It is
necessary to make a good estimate of the proportion of boys who annually
become delinquent in Minneapolis for the first time, and of the
proportion of these boys who are correspondingly deficient. Fortunately
these comparisons can be made fairly accurately on the basis of the
reports for the year 1915 and of our tests of juvenile delinquents. We
may use a minimum and a maximum estimate of deficiency among the
delinquents corresponding to those that tested below borderlines which
represented the lowest 0.5% and the lowest 1.5% of the population of
corresponding ages. We need to assume that the frequency of tested
deficiency among the boys found delinquent would correspond within these
limits to the frequency among the Glen Lake group. The indices for the
amount of school retardation in these two groups (Table XIV) indicate
that this is a liberal estimate. We must also assume that the proportion
of juvenile delinquents for the year 1915 may be regarded as typical for
a series of years. The number of new cases of boys in juvenile court in
1915 was within 18 of the median number for the last four years. The
result of these estimates is Table XIX for the minimum estimate of
deficiency. A similar table for the maximum estimate of deficiency would
be the same, except that the proportion of all boys of these ages who
were deficient would be 1.5%, and of the delinquent group, 7.3%.
The computation of the correlations by Pearson's tetrachoric _r_ shows
the relationship between juvenile delinquency and deficiency among boys
to be .16, P. E. .07, on the minimum estimate of deficiency. On the
maximum estimate the correlation is .29, P. E. .05. In order to make a
closer comparison between Goring's calculation and my own I have
recalculated the correlation for his group on the assumption that 0.5%
of the general male population were deficient and that 1.29% would be
convicted felons of the type among which he found 10% to be deficient.
This brings the minimum correlation for his figures to .59, P. E. .03.
TABLE XIX
FOUR-FOLD CORRELATION TABLE FOR JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND DEFICIENCY IN
MINNEAPOLIS (MINIMUM ESTIMATE).
BOYS 8-16 YEARS OF AGE
─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────
│ Non-Deficient │ Deficient │ Total
─────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────
Non-Delinquent │ 22,305│ 109│ 22,414
─────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────
Delinquent │ 268│ 4│ 272
─────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────
Total │ 22,573│ 113│ 22,686
─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────
The total number of boys is taken from the census of school children
for 1915-16 compiled by the attendance department of the Board of
Education. It includes those in public, parochial and private
schools and those not attending. The number of delinquent boys is
taken from the report of the Juvenile Court of Hennepin County,
Tables H and I. The number of repeaters and the proportion of
delinquent cases dismissed at the hearing are subtracted from the
total number of new cases.
The difference between a correlation of .29, the highest I found, and
.59, Goring's lowest result, indicates that conviction for felony in
Great Britain is more closely associated with deficiency than juvenile
delinquency is associated with deficiency in such communities as
Minneapolis. It is to be remembered, however, that Goring's calculation
gave the convicts a life-time in which to be convicted, while ours gave
the boys only 16 years. The relation of potential delinquency after 16
years of age to deficiency might be greater among Minneapolis males than
the corresponding relation we found among the boys; but the difference
in these correlations is more easily explained by supposing that the
type of serious delinquency represented by sentences to penal servitude,
in England at least, is more closely related to deficiency than are the
lighter forms of delinquency found among the youth of an American city.
The most significant fact demonstrated by the correlations between
juvenile delinquency and deficiency is that there is a positive
relationship which is significant in amount. With the maximum estimate
the correlation is nearly 6 times its error. This is the first time that
the relationship has actually been calculated in connection with any
group of juveniles. We can say that when a Minneapolis boy is below the
average in tested ability for his age, he is most likely to be .16 to
.29 of the same amount below the average in legal conduct, both
measurements being in corresponding units.
What then, is the significance of correlation in answering the problem
of causation? So far as the statistical method itself is concerned it
shows only a mathematical functional relation between the conditions
measured, not a physiological relationship. In other words a correlation
between deficiency and delinquency might be explained by both conditions
being related to some more fundamental factor which might be the causal
factor involved. One cannot reason from correlation to direct causal
connection. On the other hand, by correlation we may directly compare
the relation between any one trait and various factors. We can find out,
for example, whether the association of delinquency with deficiency is
closer than the association of delinquency with other factors which it
has been suggested are causes of delinquency. Goring's work allows us to
compare the correlation of the tendency to be convicted of crime with
deficiency and with many other constitutional and environmental factors
which have been measured, and thus our attention may at once be directed
to that factor which the present evidence indicates as most fundamental.
Unless the measurement of the various factors is shown to be seriously
faulty or incomplete the outcome should determine our point of view as
to the main cause of delinquency, until new evidence is forthcoming.
This is the problem of the next section.
C. THE CAUSES OF DELINQUENCY.
As we have noted above, the correlation of delinquency with various
factors should give us a scientific point of view as to the main causal
influence in criminality. Thanks to Dr. Goring this work has recently
been carried far. His findings mark a new and higher scientific level in
the study of criminology. No data are now available which modify his
position in any important regard. I shall, therefore, attempt to give
his evidence in the briefest possible manner, hoping that it may lead to
a closer reading of his basal investigation.
(a) CONSTITUTIONAL FACTORS.
First comparing a dozen factors in the individual's own constitution
which may be measured by the death rates, Goring found the tendency to
be convicted of crime was correlated most closely with alcoholism, .39;
sexual profligacy (syphilis and aneurism), .31; and epilepsy, .26; while
it was found to correlate with intelligence, .66. The closeness of the
relationship of defective physique to criminality was expressed by
coefficients of .18 and .19. Among the inner factors investigated were
many of Lombroso's characteristics of the so-called criminal physiognomy
of which so much use is made by phrenologists, such as asymmetries,
projection of the chin, complexion, form of the face and features, kind
of hair, tattooing, left-handedness, temperament, etc.
Following this analysis, we find that alcoholism, epilepsy, and probably
social profligacy are closely associated with intelligence as well. By
means of partial correlations he shows that when individuals of the same
degrees of intelligence are compared there is only slight additional
relation between alcoholism or epilepsy and criminality. The relations
to these other conditions are therefore accidental, depending upon the
fact that deficients are more likely to be alcoholic and epileptic, the
fundamental constitutional factor being intelligence. Among over forty
physical and mental factors, the only other condition which he found to
have significant relation to criminality is a generally defective
physique as shown by height and weight, neither of which is correlated
with intelligence.
Regarding the above inner factors he summarizes his conclusion as
follows:
“Our final conclusion is that English criminals are selected by a
physical condition, and a mental constitution which are independent of
each other—that the one significant physical association with
criminality is a generally defective physique; and that the one vital
mental constitutional factor in the etiology of crime is defective
intelligence” (_20_, p. 263.).
(b) EXTERNAL FACTORS.
Turning now to certain factors which might be supposed to be important
mainly as environmental influences, Goring studied the length of
imprisonment and the frequency of reconvictions for crime relative to
the periods of freedom as two measures of the degree of recidivism among
his criminal group. He measured the correlation between the degree of
recidivism and such outer factors as formal education classified by the
kind of school training, whether received in the elementary school,
secondary school, or at a compulsory industrial or reformatory school
for delinquents, also formal education as measured by the age at leaving
school; effective education as measured by the grade in school reached
at the time of leaving and by the educational grade assigned the convict
in the prison school; regularity of employment classified under the
headings regular, occasional, voluntarily unemployed, unemployable;
alcoholism under estimates as to the convicts' intemperance, temperance
or abstinence; family life, in which the standard of life was classified
as well-to-do, prosperous poor, poor, very poor, and destitute; the
influence of maternal authority measured by the age at death of the
mother, order of the subject in the family, and number in the family,
thus reaching the question of only sons and of size of family;
nationality; and finally the relation of age at which the first sentence
was received and the nature of the sentence to subsequent convictions.
The significance of the relation of these external influences upon the
degree of _recidivism_ is not directly comparable with the influence of
these factors upon the tendency to be convicted or not to be convicted
of crime at all, as he carefully explains. Since the distribution of the
above factors in the population at large is not known, the relationship
to criminality in general could not be measured for the outer factors as
it was for the inner factors discussed previously. Reserving, then, our
judgment as to how closely these environmental factors may be related to
the criminal tendency not represented by recidivism, we can reach
important conclusions as to their relation to the degree of recidivism.
Only one of the coefficients was found to be large enough to be twice
its probable error, so that as a whole they were not at all significant.
He summarizes his conclusions as follows:
“The relative values of these contrasted coefficients demonstrate
effectively and conclusively one truth: that an adverse environment
is related much more intimately to the intelligence of the convicts
than it is to the degree of their recidivism, or to the nature of
the crimes they commit. Moreover, since mental defectiveness is
closely related to crime, an easily imagined corollary to this truth
is that the mental defectiveness of the convict is antecedent to his
environmental misfortunes, rather than that his unfortunate
circumstances have been responsible for the mental defectiveness of
the convict, and his lapse into crime....”
“From the general trend of the results tabulated above, our interim
conclusion is that, relatively to its origin in the constitution of
the malefactor, and especially in his mentally defective
constitution, crime in this country is only to a trifling extent (if
to any) the product of social inequality, or of adverse environment,
or of other manifestations of what may be comprehensively termed
'the force of circumstances'” (_20_, p. 287-288).
The caution which we have noted above, as to the influence of outer
factors having been measured in relation to recidivism rather than to
criminality, becomes more important when we find that the correlation of
high intelligence with frequency of convictions is also low, only -.16
and to fractions of a year imprisoned +.10. Since the relation of
intelligence to criminality in the general population is +.66, we cannot
be at all sure that these outer factors, or some of them, might not also
be much more closely related to criminality than they are to recidivism.
Besides this caution we might also urge that some of the most important
outer influences have not yet been evaluated by correlations. We know
nothing, as yet, except by inference about the correlation of
delinquency with the influence of bad companions outside the home, bad
school adjustment, the effect of broken families aside from the early
death of the mother, absence of proper recreation, and many other
stimuli for delinquency which social workers have been studying for
years by less conclusive methods.
Just to recall the frequency of some of these other conditions
associated with the environment of the youth we may note that
Aschaffenburg says that Abanel found in Paris “among 600 criminals under
twenty years of age in 303 cases the family life of the parents was
destroyed owing to death, divorce, desertion, illicit relations, or to
some similar cause” (_208_, p. 133). Again he states that in 1841 Father
Mathew, by making 1,800,000 total abstainers temporarily reduced serious
crimes in Ireland from 12,096 to 773 per annum in a period of three
years. Miss Rhoades by a personal evaluation of many factors involved in
each of 81 random cases of juvenile delinquency in Chicago found that
the main cause in 67 cases was some home condition and in 9 others it
was a special temptation in street gangs, while only in 5 was the main
cause mental subnormality (_171_). That nearly half of the juvenile
delinquents come from broken families, affected by death, divorce, or
desertion has been frequently shown. A study of more than a thousand
successive cases in the Minneapolis juvenile court by Miss Finkle showed
that 39% of them were from families not normally constituted, families
in which one of the natural parental guardians of the children had been
removed (_105_). We also have an important study of the relation of the
delinquent child to his home by Breckenridge and Abbot (_82_).
While there is always a possibility of finding some other factor closely
related to delinquency and independent of capacity, nevertheless we
should hardly urge this possibility at the present time as overweighing
the accumulation of negative evidence which has been assembled in recent
years, especially at the Galton Laboratory. We should remember that many
so-called outer influences are, like the temptation to drink, related to
the incapacity which precedes the temptations. There is also good reason
to suppose that many bad environmental surroundings result from rather
than cause deficiency. Even broken homes may be a result of incapacity,
to which undoubtedly early death is related. The first essential for
social philosophers is to recognize that so-called environmental factors
may have their corresponding inborn correlates. This is almost
invariable with home conditions. The problem is to weigh the relative
importance of these outer and inner factors on the same individuals.
(c) WEIGHING HEREDITY AGAINST ENVIRONMENT.
Both subjective and objective methods have been used in trying to
determine whether heredity or environment has the most influence upon
criminality. The earlier and subjective method is one for which Gruhle
is perhaps the leading advocate. By this method an expert with wide
experience judges the relative effect of inner and outer causes of
delinquency in particular cases. In his study of 105 minor delinquents
in a German industrial school Gruhle, after a thorough and systematic
clinical and sociological study of each person, gave his judgment
whether heredity or environment was the main cause of delinquency in the
case. In his summary he concluded that in 9 cases the fundamental cause
was found in the environment, in 8 cases in environment plus a
subordinate influence of heredity, in 41 environment and heredity were
balanced, in 20 cases heredity was the main influence but environment
was a subordinate factor and in 21 heredity was considered the causal
factor. This shows that, when each case was estimated separately, in his
opinion heredity on the whole turned out to be more important than
environment for this group. By the same subjective method Gruhle weighs
the influence of family taints such as mental abnormalities, deficiency,
and drunkenness as against the hereditary influence in crime, and comes
to the surprising result that in 9 cases where both parents were
abnormal mentally or drunken in only two cases was heredity the
predominant cause of the delinquency, while in 7 cases where neither
parent showed these taints the delinquency was invariably explained by
heredity. The group whose delinquencies were in his opinion mainly due
to heredity showed, curiously enough, less family taints from nearly
every point of view. He concludes:
“The knowledge that so many of the criminal youths are abnormal is
indeed very significant for the therapeutic treatment of the social
offenders, for the choice of the ways which should be used to
improve the youths; but this knowledge has no significance for
establishing the causes of delinquency.... The abnormal parents
really have more children who are abnormal and under the average in
capacity, but their children are actually more seldom delinquent
because of the natural tendencies than the children of normal
parents” (_121_).
Healy has followed a similar plan in subjectively weighing the influence
of various factors as causes of the delinquency of 823 recidivists
before the Psychopathic Institute at the Chicago Juvenile Court.
Although he does not directly estimate hereditary and environmental
factors as such, his summary of these estimates of separate cases shows
the main cause of delinquency in 455 of these cases to be some form of
mental abnormality or peculiarity. Abnormal physical conditions,
including excessive sex development accounted for 40 more. His other
causes, which embraced only 26% of the cases, might possibly be regarded
as directly environmental. They included defective home conditions,
including alcoholism, bad companions, mental conflicts, improper sex
experience and habits, etc.
Thus we find that the two most important expert estimates of individual
cases after exhaustive study apparently agree in placing the main causal
influence on factors which are predominately inner rather than outer.
The most serious objection to this method of approaching the problem is
that we have no way of determining how far such a result is the effect
of the expert's unintentional bias. Gruhle's analysis of his delinquent
group, however, raises very clearly the question whether the total
influence of heredity may not be markedly greater in the production of
delinquency than merely the heredity influence through mental deficiency
and abnormalities in the families.
A better method of evaluating the relative influence of heredity and
environment would avoid the danger of subjective bias by studying
objectively measured factors. With either the subjective or objective
method correlation affords a better way of statistically handling the
results. The best approach to an objective study of the inner and outer
causes of delinquency by the correlation methods is furnished by Goring.
The ingenuity of the biometrical procedure in applying correlation to
resolving this perennial question of heredity and environment must be
recognized by all who take the time to understand its methods. We can
only briefly consider the results of Goring's chapter on “The Relative
Influence of 'Inheritance' and 'Contagion' upon the Occurrence of Crime
and the Production of Criminals.”
This work conclusively demonstrates that crime runs in families. The
probable value of the correlation between conviction for crime on the
part of the father and son was found to be .60, while the correlation
between mother and son was only slightly less. The tendency to resemble
brothers in criminality was shown by the probable fraternal correlations
of .45. Whether this family resemblance is mainly through nature or
nurture is the problem.
In analyzing the influence of the home he uses partial correlation and
finds that the correlation between age at first conviction and the
number of convictions for a constant period of time after the first
conviction is -.243. “From the value and sign of this coefficient, we
see that the earlier in life a child commits a criminal offence, and is
consequently removed from his home, the worse criminal does he become;
and, accordingly, we conclude that criminal proclivities are more bred
in the home than inoculated there” (_119_, p. 368). This argues against
the predominant influence of the home training or example as explaining
_family resemblance_ in criminality. Nevertheless, it would seem that
the result might also be interpreted as meaning that the contact with
other delinquents and official discipline outside the home at a more
impressionable age notably increases the tendency to recidivism.
Besides the argument as to the earlier removal from home, we have a test
of the question whether those kinds of crime that are most influenced by
contagion show closer correlation within the family. His statement of
the results is as follows:
“Our table 177, above, starting with crimes of fraud, passes to
stealing and burglary—professional crimes, where the influence of
criminal contagion should be the most intense; and then
progressively to violence, arson and sexual offenses, in which last
it is difficult to understand how the influence of example could
have any effect at all. We can understand the influence of parental
training in the original moulding of a professional burglar or
thief, and, to a certain extent, it is conceivable that the constant
spectacle of the lack of control in parents might lead their
offspring to emulate them in acts of unlawful violence. But, that
parental example could play any part of importance in the
perpetration by their offspring of crimes such as arson and wilful
damage to property, and, particularly, of sexual offenses, is not
reasonably to be supposed. As seen in the above table, 177, the
parental correlation for sexual crimes, and crimes for wilful damage
to property is from .45 to .5; for stealing, it is from .48 to .58.
We would assume then, from this evidence, that the tendency of the
inherited factor in criminality is from .45 to .5, and the intensity
of criminal contagion is anything between .05 and .1” (_20_, p.
367).
Other evidence as to the relative influence of heredity and training,
which Goring suggests, is in connection with the difference in influence
of the two parents. If the contagion were from either the mother or
father alone, the difference in resemblance to that parent and the other
might indicate the strength of the contagion. The difference amounts to
about .05. This again, in his opinion, gives some idea of the relative
importance of nature and nurture within the family. The measure would
not be complete unless the hereditary tendency to resemble mother and
father were equal and the contagion were all from one parent.
Husbands and wives tend strongly to resemble each other in crime, the
correlation being .6378. This resemblance is of course not due to
heredity. Goring believes that it is not due to contagion and argues
that besides the subjective tendency for the criminals to associate
together, there is here a large element of conscious choice of a mate
among the criminal classes, especially as the criminal woman shows the
tendency most clearly and would not be able easily to get a non-criminal
husband.
This work of Goring illustrates how an important beginning has been made
in applying the correlation method to objective records, in order to
weigh the relative importance of hereditary and environmental sources of
crime. Perhaps its most important support is the close agreement between
his conclusions as to the importance of the native diathesis of
criminality and other studies by the biometric school as to the family
tendencies in physical traits such as stature, eye color, tuberculosis,
insanity, and deafness. These all tend to show a correlation between
parents and children or brothers and sisters of about .5 as compared
with relations to environmental factors which tend to be less than .1
(_165_).
(d) THE CRIMINAL DIATHESIS.
If one accepts the point of view that the cause of crime is to be
considered analogous to that of pulmonary tuberculosis, his
understanding of the etiology of crime gains immensely. The old question
of whether the criminal is born or made is answered, “both.” But the
emphasis from our present data is on the inborn tendencies. Moreover,
being born with the criminal diathesis does not mean that a person is
predestined to commit crime, but that he is more likely than his
neighbor to be infected by the contagion of delinquency. We have only to
catch the trend of recent scientific research to extend our vision
further. The criminal does not lack a simple unit character which would
otherwise make him whole as some of the disciples of Mendel seem to
argue. Neither is the criminal diathesis a simple instinctive tendency
like the tendency to make a specific response to a specific stimulus,
_e. g._, to wink when an object approaches the eye; the criminal is not
charged with a specific propensity to commit murder or to steal. The
safety of those who are more susceptible lies in keeping away from the
contagion of bad example and temptations to fall, toward which he is
generally less resistant than others. Specific training in strengthening
and guarding his weakest spots may in time build up a resistance to
temptations, the amount of which we cannot yet measure. His hope lies in
the recognition of his weakness and the adjustment of his living so that
his whole organism may support the breach in his make-up during the
struggle with himself and with society.
In this complex diathesis which means greater susceptibility to
temptations, there is little doubt that mental deficiency is the main
factor. Aschaffenburg has well expressed one effect of this particular
causal factor: “The weak-minded are generally children of the moment....
The lessons of experience, which serve normal persons as a guide, in
later events, soon fade, be cause they cannot be fitted into the
existing condition of the ideas. The inability to understand, much less
to form general points of view, is the direct result of mental weakness”
(_20_, p. 180). Lacking the ability to organize their experience, fixed
punishments have little restraining influence. Only prolonged training
and supervision can save them from being the victims of the moment. Even
the large majority above the grade of ability which would justify
indefinite supervision still show their stupidity in the offenses they
commit. Goring gives an instance of a watch repairer who was legally
punished nine times for pawning watches entrusted to him to repair. Who
would doubt that native stupidity is an important cause of the
recidivism which is so common a criticism of our present forms of legal
discipline? It is stated, for example, that 10,000 of those convicted in
one year in England had been convicted more than twenty times before
(_165_, p. 59). Even with school punishments the same association of bad
conduct and stupidity holds. Kemsies has shown, as quoted by Terman,
that the 16% ranking lowest in a group of pupils received 80% of the
punishments, while the brightest third received almost none (_194_).
That the criminal diathesis is not limited to mental deficiency is
demonstrated by Goring's results. He shows its smaller correlation with
deficient physical size, alcoholism and suicidal tendency with such
pathological conditions as insanity and epilepsy, independent of their
relations to mental deficiency. In this connection Gruhle's opinion that
the hereditary tendency to crime was greater among his non-defective
families may be borne in mind.
That mental ability, and especially mental deficiency, is primarily a
question of inherited capacity rather than training, is now indicated by
a number of fundamental objective studies of the correlation of
abilities within the family, which have been analyzed to show the
relative influence of inborn and external factors. Among these studies
Thorndike's investigation of the tested abilities of twins compared with
brothers and sisters in the same family is the most objective, and is
very convincing (_199_). He has also summarized the evidence so well
that it is not necessary to go into the question here (_198_). One of
the most important facts is that equal practise under the same
conditions increases the difference between individuals rather than
makes them more alike. The work of the English biometricians appearing
in Biometrika and the monographs from the Eugenics Laboratory is the
most important in this field, and cannot be summarized here. It includes
family resemblance in both pathological and healthy mental traits
(_126_).
As compared with these studies the attempt to show that
feeble-mindedness is inherited, because many of those in institutions
for the feeble-minded are from families showing mental taints, lacks
cogency, since we are still uninformed as to what portion of the
offspring of parents with and without deficient minds are deficient.
Even if 85% of the children in institutions for the feeble-minded have
tainted parents this does not mean that we know what percentage of
deficient parents have deficient offspring. It is this latter fact that
we must know in order to predict the danger of defective offspring from
deficient parents. From what we know about the correlation of parents
and offspring in mental ability, it is clear that the more deficient are
the parents, the more likely it is that their offspring are deficient.
Children of morons are, therefore, not so likely to be deficient as are
children of parents with lower grades of ability. From the eugenic point
of view, it is, therefore, most important first to protect society from
propagation by the lowest grades of deficients, provided that all grades
of deficients are equally likely to have children when left unrestrained
in society. Since mental and moral qualities are probably correlated
positively, the same emphasis would be placed on first isolating the
lowest grades in order to reduce inheritance of criminality. The eugenic
emphasis waits, however, on the discovery whether the greater tendency
for the lowest types to be produced by the lowest types is overbalanced
by any tendency of deficients or delinquents of lower degrees to be less
productive when unrestrained in society.
The conception of a criminal diathesis does not stop merely with the
notion that there is an inborn predisposition to crime. It considers
further that offenses do not occur except under the stimulus of certain
situations, even if such stimuli may be even more common than the
tubercle-bacillus. The important question which it now puts to science
is, “How much may the actual outbreak of delinquency be reduced with
better methods of social prophylaxis?” Even if, “the chief tasks of
social hygiene” are the “struggle against alcohol and against poor
economic conditions,” as Aschaffenburg believes (_68_, p. 228), the
chief emphasis from the best scientific work still seems to be that the
problems of alcoholism, poverty and crime are more closely related to
internal than to the external conditions which have thus far been
measured. Guarding against the propagation of mental deficiency thus
seems to be the most direct and hopeful method of attack, while the
removal of infecting temptations, and training for greater resistance,
should receive hearty, albeit subordinate emphasis.
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Footnote 33:
See the next section for the significance of these coefficients of
correlation.