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CRIME AND ITS CAUSES
BY
WILLIAM DOUGLAS MORRISON
OF H.M. PRISON, WANDSWORTH
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.
NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1902
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
"The science of criminology is pursued vigorously among the Italians,
but this is one of the first English books to make the phenomena of
crime the subject of a strictly scientific investigation."--_Daily
Chronicle_.
"The book is an important addition to the Social Science Series.
It throws light upon some of the most complex problems with which
society has to deal, and incidentally affords much interesting
reading."--_Manchester Examiner_.
"This is a work which, considering its limits and modest pretensions,
it is difficult to over praise. It is a calm and thoughtful study by a
writer in whom the deliberate determination to look on things as they
are has not extinguished a reasoned faith in the possibility of their
amelioration. The work is conceived throughout in a genuinely
philosophical spirit."--_International Journal of Ethics_.
"A thoughtful and thought suggesting book--well worthy of consideration
by penologists, whether specialists or amateurs."--_Annals of the
American Academy_.
"Mr. Morrison's book is especially valuable, because, without attempting
to enforce this or that conclusion, it furnishes the authentic _data_
on which all sound conclusions must be based."--_Times_.
"Cramful of suggestive facts and solid arguments on the great questions
how criminals are made, and how crime is best to be dealt with. Many
cherished superstitions and fallacies are exploded in Mr. Morrison's
pages."--_Star_.
First Edition, _February 1891_.
Second Edition, _February 1902_.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. THE STATISTICS OF CRIME
II. CLIMATE AND CRIME
III. THE SEASONS AND CRIME
IV. DESTITUTION AND CRIME
V. POVERTY AND CRIME
VI. SEX, AGE, AND CRIME
VII. THE CRIMINAL IN BODY AND MIND
VIII. THE PUNISHMENT OF CRIME
APPENDICES
PREFACE.
This volume, as its title indicates, is occupied with an examination
of some of the principal causes of crime, and is designed as an
introduction to the study of criminal questions in general. In spite
of all the attention these questions have hitherto received and are
now receiving, crime still remains one of the most perplexing and
obstinate of social problems. It is much more formidable than
pauperism, and almost as costly. A social system which has to try
hundreds of thousands of offenders annually before the criminal courts
is in a very imperfect condition; the causes which lead to this state
of things deserve careful consideration from all who take an interest
in social welfare.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to show that crime is a more
complicated phenomenon than is generally supposed. When society will
be able to stamp it out is a question it would be extremely hard to
answer. If it ever does so, it will not be the work of one generation
but of many, and it will not be effected by the application of any
single specific.
Punishment alone will never succeed in putting an end to crime.
Punishment will and does hold crime to a certain extent in check, but
it will never transform the delinquent population into honest
citizens, for the simple reason that it can only strike at the
full-fledged criminal and not at the causes which have made him so.
Economic prosperity, however widely diffused, will not extinguish
crime. Many people imagine that all the evils afflicting society
spring from want, but this is only partially true. A small number of
crimes are probably due to sheer lack of food, but it has to be borne
in mind that crime would still remain an evil of enormous magnitude
even if there were no such calamities as destitution and distress. As
a matter of fact easy circumstances have less influence on conduct
than is generally believed; prosperity generates criminal inclinations
as well as adversity, and on the whole the rich are just as much
addicted to crime as the poor. The progress of civilisation will not
destroy crime. Many savage tribes living under the most primitive
forms of social life present a far more edifying spectacle of respect
for person and property than the most cultivated classes in Europe and
America. All that civilisation has hitherto done is to change the form
in which crime is perpetrated; in substance it remains the same.
Primary Schools will not accomplish much in eliminating crime. The
merely intellectual training received in these institutions has little
salutary influence upon conduct. Nothing can be mope deplorable than
that sectarian bickerings, respecting infinitesimal points in the
sanctions of morality, should result in the children of England
receiving hardly any moral instruction whatever. Conduct, as the late
Mr. Matthew Arnold has so often told us, is three fourths of life.
What are we to think of an educational system which officially ignores
this; what have we to hope in the way of improvement from a people
which consents to its being ignored?
But even a course of systematic instruction in the principles of
conduct, no matter by what sanctions these principles are inculcated,
will not avail much unless they are to some extent practised in the
home. And this will never be the case so long as women are demoralised
by the hard conditions of industrial life, and unfitted for the duties
of motherhood before beginning to undertake them.
In addition to this, no State will ever get rid of the criminal
problem unless its population is composed of healthy and vigorous
citizens. Very often crime is but the offspring of degeneracy and
disease. A diseased and degenerate population, no matter how
favourably circumstanced in other respects, will always produce a
plentiful crop of criminals. Stunted and decrepit faculties, whether
physical or mental, either vitiate the character, or unfit the
combatant for the battle of life. In both cases the result is in
general the same, namely, a career of crime.
As to the best method of dealing with the actual criminal, the first
thing to be done is to know what sort of a person you are dealing
with. He must be carefully studied at first hand. At present too much
attention is bestowed on theoretical discussions respecting the
various kinds of crime and punishment, while hardly any account is
taken of the persons who commit the crime and require the punishment.
Yet this is the most important point of all; the other is trivial in
comparison with it. If crime is to be dealt with in a rational manner
and not on mere _a priori_ grounds, our minds must be enlightened on
such questions as the following: What is the Criminal? What are the
chief causes which have made him such? How are these causes to be got
rid of or neutralised? What is the effect of this or that kind of
punishment? These are the momentous problems; in comparison with
these, all fine-spun definitions respecting the difference between one
crime and another are mere dust in the balance. There can be little
doubt that a neglect of those considerations on the part of many
magistrates and judges, is at the root of the capricious sentences so
often passed upon criminals. The effects of this neglect result in the
passing of sentences of too great severity on first offenders and the
young; and of too much leniency on hardened and habitual criminals.
Leniency, says Grotius, should be exercised with discernment,
otherwise it is not a virtue, but a weakness and a scandal.
When imprisonment has to be resorted to, it must be made a genuine
punishment if it is to exercise any effect as a deterrent. The moment
a prison is made a comfortable place to live in, it becomes useless as
a safeguard against the criminal classes. This is a fundamental
principle. But punishment, although an essential part of imprisonment,
is not its only purpose. Imprisonment should also be a preparation for
liberty. If a convicted man is as unfit for social life at the
expiration of his sentence as he was at the commencement of it, the
prison has only accomplished half its work; it has satisfied the
feeling of public vengeance, but it has failed to transform the
offender into a useful citizen. How to prepare the offender for
liberty is, I admit, a task of supreme difficulty; in some oases,
probably, an impossible task. For work of this character what is
wanted above all is an enlightened staff. Mere machines are useless;
men unacquainted with civil life and its conditions are useless. It is
from civil life the prisoner is taken; it is to civil life he has to
return, and unless he is under the care of men who have an intimate
knowledge of civil life, he will not have the same prospect of being
fitted into it when he has once more to face the world.
In the preparation of this volume I have carefully examined the most
recent ideas of English and Continental writers (especially the
Italians) on the subject of crime. The opinions it contains are based
on an experience of fourteen years in Orders most of which have been
spent in prison work. In revising the proofs I have received valuable
assistance from Mr. J. Morrison.
W.D.M.
CRIME AND ITS CAUSES
CHAPTER I.
THE STATISTICS OF CRIME.
It is only within the present century, and in some countries it is
only within the present generation, that the possibility has arisen of
conducting the study of criminal problems on anything approaching an
exact and scientific basis. Before the introduction of a system of
criminal statistics--a step taken by most peoples within the memory of
men still living--it was impossible for civilised communities to
ascertain with absolute accuracy whether crime was increasing or
decreasing, or what transformation it was passing through in
consequence of the social, political, and economic changes constantly
taking place in all highly organised societies. It was also equally
impossible to appreciate the effect of punishment for good or evil on
the criminal population. Justice had little or no data to go upon;
prisoners were sentenced in batches to the gallows, to transportation,
to the hulks, or to the county gaol, but no inquiry was made as to the
result of these punishments on the criminal classes or on the progress
of crime. It was deemed sufficient to catch and punish the offender;
the more offences seemed to increase--there was no sure method of
knowing whether they did increase or not--the more severe the
punishment became. Justice worked in the dark, and was surrounded by
the terrors of darkness. What followed is easy to imagine; the
criminal law of England reached a pitch of unparalleled barbarity, and
within living memory laws were on the statute book by which a man
might be hanged for stealing property above the value of a shilling.
Had a fairly accurate system of criminal statistics existed, it is
very likely that the data contained in them would have reassured the
nation and tempered the severity of the law.
Of Criminal Statistics it may be said in the first place, that they
act as an annual register for tabulating the amount of danger to which
society is exposed by the nefarious operations of lawless persons. By
these statistics we are informed of the number of crimes committed
during the course of the year so far as they are reported to the
police. We are informed of the number of persons brought to trial for
the perpetration of these crimes; of the nature of the offences with
which incriminated persons are charged, and of the length of sentence
imposed on those who are sent to prison. The age, the degree of
instruction, and the occupations of prisoners are also tabulated. A
record is also kept of the number of times a man has been committed to
prison, and of the manner in which he has conducted himself while in
confinement.
One important point must be mentioned on which criminal statistics are
almost entirely silent. The great sources of crime are the personal,
the social, and the economic conditions of the individuals who commit
it. Criminal statistics, to be exhaustive, ought to include not only
the amount of crime and the degrees of punishment awarded to
offenders; these statistics should also, as far as practicable, take
cognisance of the sources from which crime undoubtedly springs. In
this respect, our information, so far as it comes to us through
ordinary channels, is lamentably deficient. It is confined to data
respecting the age, sex, and occupation of the offender. These data
are very interesting, and very useful, as affording a glimpse of the
sources from which the dark river of delinquency takes its rise. But
they are too meagre and fragmentary. They require to be completed by
the personal and social history of the criminal. Crime is not
necessarily a disease, but it resembles disease in this respect, that
it will be impossible to wipe it out till an accurate diagnosis has
been made of the causes which produce it. To punish crime is all very
well; but punishment is not an absolute remedy; its deterrent action
is limited, and other methods besides punishment must be adopted if
society wishes to gain the mastery over the criminal population. What
those methods should be can only be ascertained after the most
searching preliminary inquiries into the main factors of crime. It
ought, therefore, to be a weighty part of the business of criminal
statistics to offer as full information as possible, not only
respecting crimes and punishments, but much more respecting criminals.
Every criminal has a life history; that history is very frequently the
explanation of his sinister career; it ought, therefore, to be
tabulated, so that it may be seen how far his descent and his
surroundings have contributed to make him what he is. In the case of
children sent to Reformatory Schools, the previous history of the
child is always tabulated. Enquiries are made and registered
respecting the parents of the child; what country they belong to, what
sort of character they bear, whether they are honest and sober,
whether they have ever been in prison, what wages they earn, and
whether the child is legitimate or not. A similar method to the one
adopted with Reformatory children ought to be instituted, with
suitable modifications, in European prisons and convict
establishments. It is, at the present time, being advocated by almost
all the most eminent criminal authorities,[1] and more than one scheme
has been drawn up to show the scope of its operation.
[1] See Appendix I.
In addition to the service which a complete personal and family record
of convicted prisoners would render as to the causes of crime, such a
record would be of immense advantage to the judges. At the present
time a judge is only made acquainted with the previous convictions of
a prisoner; he knows nothing more about him except through the
evidence which is sometimes adduced as to character. An accurate
record of the prisoner's past would enable the judge to see at once
with what sort of offender he was dealing, and might, perhaps, help to
put a stop to the unequal and capricious sentences which, not
infrequently, disgrace the name of justice.[2]
[2] In his interesting work, "Die Beziehungen zwischen
Geistesstörung und Verbrechen," Dr. Sander shows that out of a
hundred insane persons brought up for trial, the judges only
discovered the mental state of from twenty-six to twenty-eight
per cent. of them.
Passing from this point, we shall now inquire into the possibility of
establishing some system of International Statistics, whereby the
volume of crime in one country may be compared with the volume of
crime in another. At the present time it is extremely difficult to
institute any such comparison, and it is questionable if it can ever
be properly done. In no two countries is the criminal law the same,
and an act which is perfectly harmless when committed in one part of
Europe, is considered in another as a contravention of the law. Each
country has also a nomenclature of crime and methods of criminal
procedure peculiar to itself. In each country the police are organised
on a different principle, and act in the execution of their duty on a
different code of rules. In all cases, for instance, of mendicancy,
drunkenness, brawling, and disorder, the initiative rests practically
with the police, and it depends almost entirely on the instructions
issued to the police whether such offences shall figure largely or not
in the statistics of crime. A proof of this fact may be seen in the
Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, for the year
1888. In the year 1886, the number of persons convicted in the
Metropolis of "Annoying male persons for the purpose of prostitution"
was 3,233; in 1888, the number was only 1,475. This enormous decrease
in the course of two years is not due to a diminution of the offence,
but to a change in the attitude of the police. Again, in the year
1887, the Metropolitan police arrested 4,556 persons under the
provisions of the Vagrant and Poor Law Acts; but in the year 1888, the
number arrested by the same body under the same acts amounted to
7,052. It is perfectly obvious that this vast increase of apprehensions
was not owing to a corresponding increase in the number of rogues,
beggars, and vagrants; it was principally owing to the increased
stringency with which the Metropolitan police carried out the
provisions of the Vagrant and Poor Law Acts. An absolute proof of the
correctness of this statement is the fact that throughout the whole of
England there was a decrease in the number of persons proceeded
against in accordance with these acts. These examples will suffice to
show what an immense power the police have in regulating the volume of
certain classes of offences. In some countries they are called upon to
exercise this power in the direction of stringency; in other countries
it is exercised in the direction of leniency; and in the same country
its exercise, as we have just seen, varies according to the views of
whoever, for the time being, happens to have a voice in controlling
the action of the police. In these circumstances it is obviously
impossible to draw any accurate comparison between the lighter kinds
of offences in one country and the same class of offences in another.
In the case of the more serious offences against person and property,
the initiative of putting the law in motion rests chiefly with the
injured individual. The action of the individual in this respect
depends to a large extent on the customs of the country. In some
countries the injured person, instead of putting the law in motion
against an offender, takes the matter in his own hands, and
administers the wild justice of revenge. Great differences of opinion
also exist among different nations as to the gravity of certain
offences. Among some peoples there is a far greater reluctance than
there is among others to appeal to the law. Murder is perhaps the only
crime on which there exists a fair consensus of opinion among
civilised communities; and even with regard to this offence it is
impossible to overcome all the judicial and statistical difficulties
which stand in the way of an international comparison.
In spite, however, of the fact that the amount of crime committed in
civilised countries cannot be subjected to exact comparison, there are
various points on which the international statistics of crime are able
to render valuable service. It is important, for instance, to see in
what relation crime in different communities stands to age, sex,
climate, temperature, race, education, religion, occupation, home and
social surroundings. If we find, for example, an abnormal development
of crime taking place in a given country at a certain period of life,
or in certain social circumstances, and if we do not discover the same
abnormal development taking place in other countries at a similar
period of life, or in a similar social stratum, we ought at once to
come to the conclusion that there is some extraordinary cause at work
peculiar to the country which is producing an unusually high total of
crime. If, on the other hand, we find that certain kinds of crime are
increasing or decreasing in all countries at the same time, we may be
perfectly sure that the increase or decrease is brought about by the
same set of causes. And whether those causes are war, political
movements, commercial prosperity, or depression, the community which
first escapes from them will also be the first to show it in the
annual statistics of crime. In these and many other ways international
statistics are of the greatest utility.
From what has already been said as to the immense difficulty of
comparing the criminal statistics of various countries, it follows as
a matter of course that the figures contained in them cannot be used
as a means of ascertaining the position which belongs to each nation
respectively in the scale of morality. Nor is the moral progress of a
nation to be measured solely by an apparent decay of crime. On the
contrary, an increase in the amount of crime may be the direct result
of a moral advance in the average sentiments of the community. The
passing of the Elementary Education Act of 1870 and of the Criminal
Law Amendment Act of 1885 have added considerably to the number of
persons brought before the criminal courts and eventually committed to
prison. But an increase of the prison population due to these causes
is no proof that the country is deteriorating morally. It will be
regarded by many persons as a proof that the country has improved, for
it is now demanding a higher standard of conduct from the ordinary
citizen than it demanded twenty years ago.[3]
[3] Before the passing of the Elementary Education Act, no one
was tried for not sending his child to school; it was not a legal
offence; in 1888-9 no less than 80,519 persons were tried under
this Act, in England and Wales.
On the other hand, a decrease in the official statistics of crime may
be a proof that the moral sentiments of a nation are degenerating. It
may be a proof that the laws are ceasing to be an effective protection
to the citizen, and that society is falling a victim to the forces of
anarchy and crime. It is, therefore, impossible by looking only at the
bare figures contained in criminal statistics, to say whether a
community is growing better or worse. Before any conclusions can be
formed on these matters, either one way or the other, we must go
behind the figures, and look at them in the light of the social,
political and industrial developments taking place in the society to
which these figures refer.
In this connection, it may not be amiss to point out that the present
tendency of legislation is bound to produce more crime. All law is by
its nature coercive, but so long as the coercion is confined within a
limited area, or can only come into operation at rare intervals, it
produces comparatively little effect on the whole volume of crime.
When, however, a law is passed affecting every member of the community
every day of his life, such a law is certain to increase the
population of our gaols. A marked characteristic of the present time
is that legislative assemblies are becoming more and more inclined to
pass such laws; so long as this is the case it is vain to hope for a
decrease in the annual amount of crime. Whether these new coercive
laws are beneficial or the reverse is a matter which it does not at
this moment concern me to discuss; what I am anxious to point out is,
that the more they are multiplied, the greater will be the number of
persons annually committed to prison. In initiating legislation of a
far-reaching coercive character, politicians should remember far more
than they do at present that the effect of these Acts of Parliament
will be to fill the gaols, and to put the prison taint upon a greater
number of the population. This is a responsibility which no body of
men ought lightly to incur, and in considering the advantages to be
derived from some new legislative enactment, an equal amount of
consideration should be bestowed upon the fact that the new enactment
will also be the means of providing a fresh recruiting ground for the
permanent army of crime.
A man, for instance, goes to prison for contravening some municipal
bye-law; he comes out of it the friend and associate of habitual
criminals; and the ultimate result of the bye-law is to transform a
comparatively harmless member of society into a dangerous thief or
house-breaker. One person of this character is a greater menace to
society than a hundred offenders against municipal regulations, and
the present system of law-making undoubtedly helps to multiply this
class of men. One of the leading principles of all wise legislation
should be to keep the population out of gaol; but the direct result of
many recent enactments, both in this country and abroad, is to drive
them into it; and it may be taken as an axiom that the more the
functions of Government are extended, the greater will be the amount
of crime.
These remarks lead me to approach the question of what is called "the
movement" of crime. Is its total volume increasing or decreasing in
the principal civilised countries of the world? On this point there is
some diversity of view, but most of the principal authorities in
Europe and America are emphatically of opinion that crime is on the
increase. In the United States, we are told by Mr. D.A. Wells,[4] and
by Mr. Howard Wines, an eminent specialist in criminal matters, that
crime is steadily increasing, and it is increasing faster than the
growth of the population.
[4] _Recent Economic Changes_, p. 345.
Nearly all the chief statisticians abroad tell the same tale with
respect to the growth of crime on the Continent. Dr. Mischler of
Vienna, and Professor von Liszt of Marburg draw a deplorable picture
of the increase of crime in Germany. Professor von Liszt, in a recent
article,[5] says, that fifteen million persons have been convicted by
the German criminal courts within the last ten years; and, according
to him, the outlook for the future is sombre in the last degree. In
France, the criminal problem is just as formidable and perplexing as
it is in Germany; M. Henri Joly estimates that crime has increased in
the former country 133 per cent. within the last half century, and is
still steadily rising. Taking Victoria as a typical Australasian
colony, we find that even in the Antipodes, which are not vexed to the
same extent as Europe with social and economic difficulties, crime is
persistently raising its head, and although it does not increase quite
as rapidly as the population, it is nevertheless a more menacing
danger among the Victorian colonists than it is at home.[6]
[5] _Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft_ ix.
472, sg.
[6] See _Statistical Register for Victoria_, Part viii.
Is England an exception to the rest of the world with respect to
crime? Many people are of opinion that it is, and the idea is at
present diligently fostered on the platform and in the press that we
have at last found out the secret of dealing successfully with the
criminal population. As far as I can ascertain, this belief is based
upon the statement that the daily average of persons in prison is
constantly going down. Inasmuch, as there was a daily average of over
20,000 persons in prison in 1878, and a daily average of about 15,000
in 1888, many people immediately jump at the conclusion that crime is
diminishing. But the daily average is no criterion whatever of the
rise and fall of crime. Calculated on the principle of daily average,
twelve men sentenced to prison for one month each, will not figure so
largely in criminal statistics as one man sentenced to a term of
eighteen months. The daily average, in other words, depends upon the
length of sentence prisoners receive, and not upon the number of
persons committed to prison, or upon the number of crimes committed
during the year. Let us look then at the number of persons committed
to Local Prisons, and we shall be in a position to judge if crime is
decreasing in England or not. We shall go back twenty years and take
the quinquennial totals as they are recorded in the judicial
statistics:--
Total of the 5 years, 1868 to 1872, 774,667.
Total of the 5 years, 1873 to 1877, 866,041.
Total of the 5 years, 1884 to 1888, 898,486.
If statistics are to be allowed any weight at all, these figures
incontestably mean that the total volume of crime is on the increase
in England as well as everywhere else. It is fallacious to suppose
that the authorities here are gaining the mastery over the delinquent
population. Such a supposition is at once refuted by the statistics
which have just been tabulated, and these are the only statistics
which can be implicitly relied upon for testing the position of the
country with regard to crime.
Seeing, then, that the total amount of crime is regularly growing,
how is the decrease in the daily average of persons in prison to be
accounted for?
This decrease may be accounted for in two ways. It may be shown that
although the number of people committed to prison is on the increase,
the nature of the offences for which these people are convicted is not
so grave. Or, in the second place, it may be shown that, although the
crimes committed now are equally serious with those committed twenty
years ago, the magistrates and judges are adopting a more lenient line
of action, and are inflicting shorter sentences after a conviction.
Let us for a moment consider the proposition that crime is not so
grave now as it was twenty years ago. In order to arrive at a fairly
accurate conclusion on this matter, we have only to look at the number
of offences of a serious nature reported to the police. Comparing the
number of cases of murder, attempts to murder, manslaughter, shooting
at, stabbing and wounding, and adding to these offences the crimes of
burglary, housebreaking, robbery, and arson--comparing all these cases
reported to the police for the five years 1870-1874, with offences of
a like character reported in the five years 1884-1888, we find that
the proportion of grave offences to the population was, in many cases,
as great in the latter period as in the former.[7] This shows clearly
that crime, while it is increasing in extent, is not materially
decreasing in seriousness; and the chief reason the prison population
exhibits a smaller daily average is to be found in the fact that
judges are now pronouncing shorter sentences than was the custom
twenty years ago. We are not left in the dark upon this point; the
judges themselves frequently inform the public that they have taken to
shortening the terms of imprisonment. The extent to which sentences
have been shortened within the last twenty years can easily be
ascertained by comparing the committals to prison and the daily
average of the quinquenniad 1868-72 with the committals and the daily
average of the quinquenniad 1884-88. A comparison between these two
periods shows that the length of imprisonment has decreased twenty-six
per cent. In other words, whereas a man used to receive a sentence of
twelve months' imprisonment, he now receives a sentence of nine
months; and whereas he used to get a sentence of one month, he now
gets twenty-one days. If it he a serious offence, or if the criminal
be a habitual offender, he now receives eighteen months' imprisonment,
whereas he used to receive five years' penal servitude. As far as most
judges and stipendiary magistrates are concerned, sentences of
imprisonment have decreased in recent years more than twenty-six per
cent.; and if there was a corresponding movement on the part of
Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, the average decrease in the length of
sentences would amount to fifty per cent. But it is a notorious fact
that amateur judges are, with few exceptions, more inclined to
pronounce heavy sentences than professional men.
[7] SERIOUS CASES REPORTED TO THE POLICE IN PROPORTION TO THE
POPULATION. ANNUAL AVERAGE FOR FIVE YEARS:--
Murder. Attempts to Murder. Manslaughter
1870-74 1 to 196,946 1 to 441,158 1 to 92,756
1884-88 1 to 168,897 1 to 418,923 1 to 116,463
Shooting, Stabbing, &c. Burglary. Housebreaking.
1870-74 1 to 35,033 1 to 10,188 1 to 17,538
1884-88 1 to 38,007 1 to 7,892 1 to 11,911
Robbery. Arson.
1870-74 1 to 43,247 1 to 54,075
1884-88 1 to 70,767 1 to 77,018
This table shows that since 1870-74 there has been an increase in
murder, attempts to murder, burglary, and housebreaking, and a
decrease in manslaughter, robbery, and arson. The decrease in
shooting, stabbing, wounding, &c., is very small. (Cf. _Judicial
Statistics_ for 1874 and 1888, p. xvi.)
We have now arrived at the conclusion that crime is just as serious in
its character as it was twenty years ago, and that it is growing in
dimensions year by year; the next point to be considered is, the
relation in which crime stands to the population. Crime may be
increasing, but the population may be multiplying faster than the
growth of crime. Is this the condition of things in England at the
present day? We have seen that the criminal classes are increasing
much faster than the growth of population in France and the United
States. Is England in a better position in this respect than these two
countries? At the present time there is one conviction to about every
fifty inhabitants, and the proportion of convictions to the population
was very much the same twenty years ago. If we remember the immense
development that has taken place in the industrial school system
within the last twenty years--a development that has undoubtedly had a
great deal to do with keeping down crime--we arrive at the conclusion
that, notwithstanding the beneficent effects of Industrial Schools,
the criminal classes in this country still keep pace with the annual
growth of population. If we had no Industrial and Reformatory
institutions for the detention of criminal and quasi-criminal
offenders among the young, there can be no doubt that England, as well
as other countries, would have to make the lamentable admission that
crime was not only increasing in her midst, but that it was increasing
faster than the growth of population. The number of juveniles in these
institutions has more than trebled since 1868,[8] and it is
unquestionable that if these youthful offenders were not confined
there, a large proportion of them would immediately begin to swell the
ranks of crime. That crime in England is not making more rapid strides
than the growth of population, is almost entirely to be attributed to
the action of these schools.
[8] See Appendix II.
We shall now look at another aspect of the criminal question, and that
is its cost. Crime is not merely a danger to the community; it is
likewise a vast expense; and there is no country in Europe where it
does not constitute a tremendous drain upon the national resources.
Owing to the federal system of government in America, it is almost
impossible to estimate how much is spent in the prevention and
punishment of crime in the United States, but Mr. Wines calculates
that the police force alone costs the country fifteen million dollars
annually.[9] In the United Kingdom the cost of criminal justice and
administration is continually on the increase, and it has never been
so high as it is at the present time. In the Estimates for the year
1891 the cost of Prisons and of the Asylum for criminal lunatics falls
little short of a million sterling. Reformatory and Industrial Schools
for juvenile offenders cost considerably over half-a-million, and the
expenditure on the Police force is over five and a half millions
annually. Add to these figures the cost of criminal prosecutions, the
salaries of stipendiary and other paid magistrates, a portion of the
salaries of judges, and all other expenses connected with the trial
and prosecution of delinquents, and an annual total of expenditure is
reached for the United Kingdom of more than seven and a half millions
sterling. In addition to this enormous sum, it has also to he
remembered that a great loss of property is annually entailed on the
inhabitants of the three kingdoms by the depredations of the criminal
classes. The exact amount of this loss it is impossible to estimate,
but, according to the figures in the police reports, it cannot fall
short of a million sterling per annum.
[9] _American Prisons_, 1888.
These formidable figures afford ample food for reflection. Apart from
its danger to the community, the annual loss of money which the
existence of crime entails is a most serious consideration. It is
equal to a tenth of the national expenditure, and every few years
amounts to as much as the cost of a big European war. It is tempting
to speculate on the admirable uses to which the capital consumed by
crime might be devoted, if it were free for beneficent purposes. How
easy it would be for many a scheme, which is now in the region of
dreamland, to be immediately realised. Unhappily, it is almost as vain
to look forward to the abolition of crime as it is to look forward to
the cessation of war. At the present moment the latter event, however
improbable, is more likely to happen than the former. War has ceased
to be a normal condition of things in the comity of nations; it has
become a transitory incident; but crime, which means war within the
nation, is still far from being a passing incident; on the contrary, a
conflict between the forces of moral order and social anarchy is going
on continually; and, at present, there is not the faintest prospect of
its coming to an end.
What is the cause of this state of warfare within society? Which of the
combatants is to blame? Or is the blame to be laid equally on the
shoulders of both? In other words, are the conditions in which men live
together in society of such a nature that crime is certain to flow from
them; and is crime simply a reaction against the iniquity of existing
social arrangements? Or, on the other hand, does crime spring from the
individual and his cosmical surroundings; and is it the product of
forces over which society has little or no control? These are questions
which cannot be answered off-hand, they involve considerations of a
most complicated character, and it is only after a careful examination
of all the factors responsible for crime that a true solution can
possibly be arrived at. These factors are divisible into three great
categories--cosmical, social, and individual.[10] The cosmical factors
of crime are climate and the variations of temperature; the social
factors are the political, economic and moral conditions in the midst
of which man lives as a member of society; the individual factors are a
class of attributes inherent in the individual, such as descent, sex,
age, bodily and mental characteristics. These factors, it will be seen,
can easily be reduced to two, the organism and its environment; but it
will be more convenient to consider them under the three-fold division
which has just been mentioned. Before proceeding to do so, it may be as
well to remark that in each case the several factors operate with
different degrees of intensity. It is often extremely difficult to
disentangle them; and the more complex the society is in which a crime
takes place, the greater is the combination and intricacy of the causes
leading up to it.
[10] Cf. E. Ferri. I _Nuovi Orizzonti del Diritto e della Procedura
Penale_.