POVERTY AND CRIME.
Having analysed the part played by destitution in the production of
crime, the cognate question of the extent to which poverty is
responsible for it will now be considered. If actual destitution does
not count for very much in producing criminals, it may be that poverty
makes up the difference, and that the great bulk of delinquency, if
not the whole of it, arises from the combined operation of these two
economic factors. We have examined one of them, let us now go on to
the other. As this examination will have to be conducted from several
different points of view which, for the sake of clearness, it will be
expedient to consider one by one, I shall begin by inquiring what
light international statistics are capable of throwing on the
relations between poverty and crime. At the outset of this inquiry we
are at once met by the old difficulty respecting the value of
international criminal statistics. The imperfection of those
statistics is a matter it is always important to bear in mind, but in
spite of this circumstance the light which they shed on the problem of
poverty and crime is not to be rejected as worthless.
It has been pointed out in the preceding chapter that the offences
people, in a state of destitution, are most likely to commit are
beggary and theft. In the case of persons who are in a state of
poverty, but not destitute, it may be said that the offence they are
most likely to commit is theft in one or other of its forms. What then
are the international statistics of theft, and what is the relative
wealth of the several countries from which these statistics are drawn?
An answer to these two questions will throw a flood of light upon the
nature of the relations between poverty and crime. If these statistics
show that in those countries where there is most poverty there is also
most theft, the elucidation of such a fact will at once raise a strong
presumption that the connection between poverty and offences against
property is one of cause and effect. If, on the other hand,
international statistics are not at all conclusive upon this important
point, it will show that there are other factors at work besides
poverty in the production of offences against property. With these
preliminary remarks I shall now append a table of the number of
persons tried for theft of all kinds in some of the most important
countries of Europe within the last few years. In no two of these
countries is theft classified in the same manner, but in all of them
it is equally recognised as a crime; if, therefore, all offences
against property, of whatever kind, are put together under the common
heading of "theft," and if the number of cases of thefts (as thus
understood) tried in the various countries of Europe are carefully
tabulated, we possess, in such a table, a criterion wherewith to
judge, in a rough way, the respective position of those countries in
the matter of offences against property.
The appended table is extracted from a larger one, the work of Sig. L.
Bodio, Director-General of Statistics for the kingdom of Italy. The
calculations for every country, except Spain, are based on the census
of 1880 or 1881; the calculations for Spain are based on the census of
1877. In all the countries except Germany and Spain the calculations
are based on an average of five years; for Germany and Spain the
average is only two years.
Italy, 1880-84 Annual trials for theft per 100,000 inhabitants 221
France, 1879-83 do. do. 121
Belgium, 1876-80 do. do. 143
Germany, 1882-83 do. do. 262
England, 1880-84 do. do. 228
Scotland, 1880-84 do. do. 289
Ireland, 1880-84 do. do. 101
Hungary, 1876-80 do. do. 82
Spain, 1883-84 do. do. 74
To what conclusions do the statistics contained in this table point?
It is useless burdening this chapter with additional figures to prove
that England and France are the two wealthiest countries in Europe.
The wealth of England, for instance, is perhaps six times the wealth
of Italy; but, notwithstanding this fact, more thefts are annually
committed in England than in Italy. The wealth of France is enormously
superior to the wealth of Ireland, both in quantity and distribution,
but the population of France commits more offences against property
than the Irish. Spain is one of the poorest countries in Europe,
Scotland is one of the richest, but side by side with this inequality
of wealth we see that the Scotch commit, per hundred thousand of the
population, almost four times as many thefts as the Spaniards. With
the exception of Italy it is the poorest countries of Europe that are
the least dishonest, and, according to our table, even the Italians
are not so much addicted to offences against property as the
inhabitants of England.
Perhaps the most instructive figures in these international statistics
are those relating to England and Ireland. The criminal statistics of
the two countries are drawn up on very much the same principles; the
ordinary criminal law is very much the same, and there is very much
the same feeling among the population with respect to ordinary crime;
in fact, with the exception of agrarian offences, the administration
of the law in Ireland is as effective as it is in England. On almost
every point the similarity of the criminal law and its administration
in the two countries almost amounts to identity, and a comparison of
their criminal statistics, in so far as they relate to ordinary
offences against property, reaches a high level of exactitude. What
does such a comparison reveal? It shows that the Irish, with all their
poverty, are not half so much addicted to offences against property as
the English with all their wealth, and it serves to confirm the idea
that the connection between poverty and theft is not so close as is
generally imagined.
International statistics then, as far as they go, point to the
conclusion that it is the growth of wealth, rather than the reverse,
which has a tendency to augment the number of offences against
property, and national statistics, as far as England is concerned,
exhibit a similar result. It is perfectly certain, for instance, that
the mass of the population possessed a greater amount of money, and
were earning on the whole higher wages between 1870-74 than between
1884-88. According to the evidence given before the late Lord
Iddesleigh's Commission on the depression of trade, the prosperity of
the country in the five years ended 1874 was something phenomenal.
This was the opinion of almost every class in the community. Chambers
of commerce, leading manufactures, workmen in the various departments
of industry, all told the same tale of exceptional commercial
prosperity. During this period it was easy for any person with a pair
of hands to get as much as he could do; workmen were at a premium and
wages had risen all round.
But, notwithstanding this state of unwonted prosperity, we shall find
on turning to the statistics of offences against property that a
larger number of persons were convicted of such offences in the five
years ended 1874 than in the five years ended 1888. It hardly needs to
be stated that the five years ended 1888 were years of considerable
depression, some of them were years in which there was a good deal of
distress, and in none of them was the bulk of the population as well
off as in the preceding period. It is, therefore, plain that an
increase in the wealth of a country is not necessarily followed by a
decrease in the amount of crimes against property; that, in fact, the
growth of national and individual wealth, unless it is accompanied by
a corresponding development of ethical ideals, is apt to foster
criminal instincts instead of repressing them.
If we look at crime in general, instead of that particular form of it
which consists in offences against property, it will likewise become
apparent that it is not so closely connected with poverty as is
generally believed. The accuracy of Indian criminal statistics is a
matter that has already been pointed out. When these statistics are
placed side by side with our own what do we find? According to the
returns for the two countries in the year 1888, it comes out that in
England one person was proceeded against criminally to every forty-two
of the population, while in India only one person was proceeded
against to every 195. In other words, official statistics show that
the people of England are between four and five times more addicted to
crime than the people of India. On the supposition that poverty is the
parent of crime, the population of India should be one of the most
lawless in the world, for it is undoubtedly one of the very poorest.
The reverse, however, is the case, and India is justly celebrated for
the singularly law-abiding character of its inhabitants. In reply to
this it may be said that India differs so widely from England in race,
manners, religion and social organisation, that all these divergencies
must be taken into account when comparing the position of the two
countries with respect to crime. A contention of this kind is in
perfect harmony with what is here advanced. It is, in fact, a part of
our case that crime is either produced or checked by a great many
causes besides economic conditions. The comparison we are now making
between the criminal statistics of England and India is intended to
show that economic conditions alone will not satisfactorily explain
the genesis of crime. If such were the case India would have a blacker
criminal record than England, for it has a lower material standard of
life; but as India is able to exhibit a fairer record, in spite of its
economic disadvantages, we are compelled to come to the conclusion
that poverty is not the only factor in the production of crime.
A further illustration of the same fact will be found on examining the
Prison Statistics of the United States. According to an instructive
paper recently read by Mr. Roland P. Falkner before the American
Statistical Association, the foreign born population in America is, on
the whole, less inclined to commit crime than the native born
American. In some of the States--Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and
California--"the foreign born," says Mr. Falkner, "make a worse
showing than the native. In a great number of cases, notably
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, we notice hardly any
difference. Elsewhere, the showing is decidedly in favour of the
foreign born, and nowhere more strongly than in Wisconsin and
Minnesota." It is perfectly certain that the foreign born population
of the United States is not, as a rule, so well-off economically as
the native born citizen. The vast proportion of the emigrant
population is composed of poor people seeking to better their
condition, and it is well known that a largo percentage of the hard,
manual work done in America is performed by those men. The economic
condition of the average native born American is superior to the
economic condition of the average emigrant; but the native American,
notwithstanding his economic superiority, cuts a worse figure in the
statistics of crime. This is a state of things the Americans
themselves are just beginning to perceive, and it cannot fail to make
them uneasy as to the efficacy of some of their erratic methods of
punishing crime. It has, until recently, been the habit of American
statisticians to compare the foreign born population with the whole of
the native population with respect to crime. The outcome of this
method of comparison was taken all round favourable to the born
Americans, and for many years people satisfied themselves with the
belief that a high percentage of crime in the United States was due to
the foreign element in the community. It is now seen that this method
of calculation is defective and false. A comparatively small number of
foreigners emigrate to the United States under eighteen years of age;
in order, therefore, to make the comparison between natives and
foreigners accurate, it must be made with foreigners over eighteen and
Americans over eighteen, for it is after persons pass that age that
they are most prone to commit crime. The result of this new and more
correct method of comparison has been to show that the native American
element, that is to say, the element best situated economically, is
also the element which perpetrates most crimes. Such a result is only
another illustration of the truth that an advanced state of economic
well-being is not necessarily accompanied by greater immunity from
crime.
A further illustration of this significant truth is to be witnessed in
the Antipodes. In no quarter of the world is there such wide-spread
prosperity as exists in the colony of Victoria. All writers and
travellers are unanimous upon this point. Nowhere in the world is
there less economic excuse for the perpetration of crime. Work of one
kind or another can almost always be had in that favoured portion of
the globe.
Even in the worst of times, if men are willing to go "up country," as
it is called, occupation of some sort is certain to be found, and
trade depression never reaches the acute point which it sometimes does
at home.
Nevertheless, on examining the criminal statistics of the colony of
Victoria, what do we find? According to the returns for 1887, one
arrest on a charge of crime was made in every 30 of the population,
and on looking down the list of offences for which these arrests were
made, it will be seen that Victoria, notwithstanding her
widely-diffused material well-being, is just as much addicted to
crimes against person and property as some of the poor and squalid
States of Europe. It may be said in extenuation of this condition of
things, that Victoria contains a larger grown-up population, and
therefore a larger percentage of persons in a position to commit crime
than is to be found in older countries. This is, to a certain extent,
true, but the difference is not so great as might at first sight be
supposed. Assuming that the criminal age lies between 15 and 60, we
find that in the seven Australasian colonies 563 persons out of every
1,000 are alive between these two ages. In Great Britain and Ireland
559 persons per 1,000 are alive between 15 and 60. According to these
figures the difference between the population within the criminal age
in the colony, as compared with the mother country, is very small, and
is quite insufficient to account for the relatively high percentage of
crime exhibited by the Victorian criminal statistics.
All these considerations force us back to the conclusion that an
abundant measure of material well-being has a much smaller influence
in diminishing crime than is usually supposed, and compels us to admit
that much crime would still exist even if the world were turned into a
paradise of material prosperity tomorrow.
In further confirmation of this conclusion let us glance for a moment
at another aspect of the relations between poverty and crime. It is
generally calculated that the working class population of England and
Wales form from 90 to 95 per cent. of the total population of the
country. According to the investigations of Mr. Charles Booth, as
contained in his work on East London, the working classes constitute
about 92 per cent. in the districts be had under examination, the
remaining 8 per cent. being made up of the lower and upper middle
classes. Let us therefore assume that 10 per cent. of the population
consists of the middle and upper classes, and that the other 90 per
cent. of the community is composed of working people. Many
statisticians will not admit that the middle and upper classes form 10
per cent. of the nation, and assert that 5 per cent. is nearer the
mark. This is also my own view, but for the purposes of this inquiry
we shall assume that it is 10 per cent.
How large a proportion of the criminal population is made up of the
middle and upper classes? An answer to this question would at once
show the exact relation between poverty and crime. If it could be
shown that the well-to-do classes, in proportion to their numbers, are
just as much addicted to the commission of criminal acts as the poorer
people, it would demonstrate that crime prevailed to an equal extent
among all sections of the community, and was not the work of one class
alone. Unfortunately, such statistics are not to be had. But, as the
facts are not to be got at directly, this does not mean to say that it
is impossible to catch a glimpse of what they are. This may be done in
the following manner:--According to the report of the Prison
Commissioners, between 5 and 6 per cent. of the persons committed to
gaol during the year ended March, 1890 (omitting court-martial cases),
were debtors and civil process cases. Now, it may be taken as certain
that in a very small proportion of these cases were the prisoners
working people. Nearly all these offenders are to be considered as
belonging to the well-to-do classes. Yet we see that they form 5 per
cent. of the criminal population, and it has to be remembered that the
fraudulent debtor is just as much a criminal, nay, even a worse
criminal in many instances than the thief who snatches a purse. In
addition to this 5 per cent. there is at least 3 per cent. of the
ordinary criminal population belonging to the higher ranks of life. At
the lowest estimate we have 6 per cent. of the criminal population
springing from the midst of the well-to-do, and if all cases of
drunkenness and assault were punished with imprisonment instead of a
fine, it would be found that the well-to-do showed just as badly in
the statistics of crime as their poorer neighbours.
In making this statement with respect to fines, I do not wish it to be
understood that all cases of drunkenness and assault should be
followed by imprisonment. On the contrary, it is a great mistake to
send anyone to gaol if it can possibly be avoided, and imprisonment
should never be resorted to so long as any other form of punishment
will serve the purpose. What is here stated is merely meant to bring
out the fact that the proportion of well-to-do among the prison
population does not accurately represent the proportion of offences
committed by that class; and it does not represent it for the simple
reason that the well-to-do have facilities for escaping imprisonment
which the ill-to-do have not. When a man with a certain command of
means is involved in criminal proceedings, he has always the
assistance of experienced counsel to defend him, he is always able to
secure the attendance of witnesses,[21] if he has any, and should the
offence be of a nature that a fine will condone, he is always able to
escape imprisonment by paying it. It very often happens that poor
people are unable to secure these advantages in a court of justice,
and prison statistics of the different classes, even if we had them,
would, for the reasons we have just mentioned, always give the working
classes more than their fair share of offenders.
[21] A case was tried in London a short time ago which illustrates
the difficulties in the way of poor people, so far as the
attendance of witnesses is concerned. In this case the witness
appeared five successive days in court waiting for the trial to
come on. Not being paid by the defendant, this witness was
unable to appear the sixth day. On that day the case was at
last called, the prisoner had now no witness and was, of course,
convicted.
It has always to be borne in mind in making calculations respecting
the proportion of criminal offenders among the various sections of the
community that there is a population of habitual criminals which forms
a class by itself. Habitual criminals are not to be confounded with
the working or any other class; they are a set of persons who make
crime the object and business of their lives; to commit crime is their
trade; they deliberately scoff at honest ways of earning a living, and
must accordingly be looked upon as a class of a separate and distinct
character from the rest of the community. According to police
estimates this class consists of between 50,000 and 60,000 persons in
England and Wales. Notwithstanding the smallness of its numbers, this
criminal population contributes a proportion amounting to fully 12 per
cent. to the local and convict prisons of England. As this percentage
of the prison population is recruited from wholly criminal ground, it
is important to place it in a distinct and separate category when
forming an estimate of the criminal tendencies of the several branches
of the population. This is what has been done in the subjoined table.
This table will accordingly show, first the proportion of the poorer
class to the total population, and next their proportion to the prison
population. It will do the same for the well-to-do class, and will
finally give the percentage of the criminal class in the local and
convict prisons:--
Proportion of working class to total population 90 p. ct.
Proportion, of prisoners from this class 82 p. ct.
Proportion of well-to-do to population 10 p. ct.
Proportion of prisoners from this class 6 p. ct.
Numbers of criminal class, say 60,000
Proportion of prisoners from this class 12 p. ct.
According to these figures, the well-to-do contribute less than their
proper proportion to the prison population. This arises, as has
already been stated, from the fact that this class has so many more
facilities for escaping the penalty of imprisonment; the difference
would be adjusted if the cases tried before the criminal courts were
taken as a standard. An examination of these cases would undoubtedly
show that each class was represented in proportion to its numbers.
According to Garofalo, one of the most learned of Italian jurists, the
poor people in Italy commit fewer offences against property, in
proportion to their numbers, than the well-to-do, while in Prussia
persons engaged in the liberal professions contribute twice their
proper share to the criminal population. A somewhat similar state of
things exists in France; there the number of persons engaged in the
liberal professions forms four per cent. of the population; but,
according to the investigations of Ferri, in his striking little book,
"Socialismo e Criminalita," the liberal professions were responsible
for no less than seven per cent. of the murders perpetrated in France
in 1879.
What is the period of the year we should expect most crime to be
committed if poverty is at the root of it? In this country, at least,
it is very well known that the labouring classes are apt to suffer
most in the depth of winter, and the depth of winter may be said to
correspond with the months of December, January, and February. It is
in these months that all outdoor occupations come to a comparative
standstill; it is then that the poorest section of the population--the
men without a trade, the men who live by mere manual labour--are
reduced to the greatest straits. In the winter months some of these
men have to pass through a period of real hardship; the state of the
weather often puts an absolute stop to all outdoor occupations, and
when this is the case, it takes an outdoor labourer all his might to
provide the barest necessaries for his home. In addition to this
difficulty, which lies in the nature of his calling, a labourer finds
the expense of living a good deal higher in the depth of winter. He
has to burn more fuel, he has to supply his children with warmer
clothing, in a variety of ways his expenses increase, notwithstanding
the most rigid economy. Winter is not only a harder season for the
outdoor labourer, it is a time of greater economic trial for the whole
working-class population. This, I think, is a statement which will be
universally admitted.
On the assumption that poverty is the principal source of crime we
ought to have a much larger prison population in the depth of winter
than at any other period of the year. The prison statistics for
December, January, and February--the three most inclement months, the
three months when expenses are greatest and work scarcest--should be
the highest in the whole year. As a matter of fact, it is during these
three months that there are fewest people in prison. According to an
excellent return, issued for the first time by the Prison Commissioners
in their thirteenth report, it appears that there was a considerably
smaller number of prisoners in the local prisons of England and Wales
in the winter months--December, January and February, 1889-90--than at
any other season of the year.[22] And this is not an isolated fact. A
glance at the criminal returns for a series of years will at once show
that crime is highest in summer and autumn--a time when occupation of
all kinds, and especially occupation for the poorest members of the
community, is most easily obtained--and lowest in winter and spring,
when economic conditions are most adverse.[23]
[22] See Appendix, iii.
[23] Scotch statistics are in harmony with English. For the year
ended March, 1890, the number of ordinary prisoners in custody in
Scotland was lowest in December, January and February. It was
highest in July, August, September. Crime was also highest when
pauperism was lowest. See 12th Report of Scottish Prison
Commissioners.
All these facts, instead of pointing to poverty as the main cause of
crime, point the other way. It is a curious sign of the times that
this statement should meet with so much incredulity. It has been
reserved for this generation to propagate the absurdity that the want
of money is the root of all evil; all the wisest teachers of mankind
have hitherto been disposed to think differently, and criminal
statistics are far from demonstrating that they are wrong. In the
laudable efforts which are now being made, and which ought to be made
to heighten the material well-being of the community, it is a mistake
to assume, as is too often done, that mere material prosperity, even
if spread over the whole population, will ever succeed in banishing
crime. A mere increase of material prosperity generates as many evils
as it destroys; it may diminish offences against property, but it
augments offences against the person, and multiplies drunkenness to an
alarming extent. While it is an undoubted fact that material
wretchedness has a debasing effect both morally and physically, it is
also equally true that the same results are sometimes found to flow
from an increase of economic well-being. An interesting proof of this
is to be found in the recent investigations of M. Chopinet, a French
military surgeon, respecting the stature of the population in the
central Pyrenees. M. Chopinet, after a careful examination of the
conscript registers from 1873 to 1888, arrives at the following
conclusions as to what determines the physical condition of the
population. After discussing the cosmical influences and the evil
effects of poverty and bad hygienic arrangements on the people, he
proceeds to point out that moral corruption arising from material
prosperity is also a powerful factor in producing physical degeneracy.
He singles out one canton--the canton of Luchon--as being the victim
of its own prosperity. In this canton, he says, that the old
simplicity of life has departed, in consequence of its prodigious
prosperity. "Vices formerly unknown have penetrated into the country;
the frequenting of public houses and the habit of keeping late hours
have taken the place of the open air sports which used to be the
favoured method of enjoyment. Illegitimate births, formerly very rare,
have multiplied, syphilis even has spread among the young. Food of a
less substantial character has superseded the diet of former times,
and, in short, alcoholism, precocious debauchery, and syphilis have
come like so many plagues to arrest the development of the youth and
seriously debilitate the population."[24]
[24] _Revue Scientifique_, September 13, 1890.
Facts such as these should serve to remind us that the growth of
wealth may be accompanied, and is accompanied, by degeneracy of the
worst character unless there is a corresponding growth of the moral
sentiments of the community. "The perfection of man," says M. de
Laveleye, "consists in the full development of all his forces,
physical as well as intellectual, and of all his sentiments; in the
feeling of affection for the family and humanity; in a feeling for the
beautiful in nature and art." It is in proportion as men strive after
this ideal that crime will decay, and material prosperity only becomes
a good when it is used as a means to this supreme end. Otherwise, the
mere growth of wealth, be it ever so widely diffused, will deprave the
world instead of elevating it. The mere possession of wealth is not a
moralising agent; as Professor Marshall[25] truly tells us, "Money is
general purchasing power, and is sought as a means to all kinds of
ends, high as well as low, spiritual as well as material." According
to this definition, money may as readily become a source of mischief
as an instrument for good; its wider diffusion among the community
has, therefore, a mixed effect, and it works for evil or for good,
according to the character of the individual. It is only when the
character is disciplined by the habitual exercise of self-restraint,
and ennobled by a generous devotion to the higher aims of life, that
money becomes a real blessing to its possessor. If, on the other hand,
money has merely the effect of making the well-to-do rich, and the
poor well-to-do, it will never diminish crime; it will merely cause
crime to modify its present forms. Such, at least, is the conclusion
to which a consideration of the contents of this chapter would seem to
lead.
[25] _Principles of Economics_, p. 81.