CRIMINOLOGY
A whole science has developed based on the assumption of the existence
of a biologically determined criminal type and upon the hereditary
transmission of criminality. The Italian school of criminologists led
by C. Lombroso has endeavored to define the type of the criminal and
the physical characteristics of criminals addicted to various types
of crimes. A number of stigmata have been established which, it was
believed, characterized a person as a criminal. If this theory could
be proved the treatment of criminals would have been much simplified,
for it would have been possible to select all criminals before the
commission of a crime and to protect society against them.
Unfortunately these extreme hopes have not been fulfilled. Our previous
considerations make it plausible that they could not be fulfilled,
because the interrelation between gross bodily form and mentality is
not by any means close.
All that has been proved is that many criminals are defective,
not only mentally but also physically. {121} It is, therefore, not
surprising that anomalies that accompany various types of defectiveness
should be found among them with greater frequency than among the
socially normal; but it does not follow that the presence of any one of
the stigmata described by the Italian school would prove that a person
is a born criminal.
In many of the cases a careful statistical study has shown that
the alleged stigmata, such as absence of the lobe of the ear and
irregularities in the position of the teeth, are more frequent in local
noncriminal groups than among the criminals, so that for this reason
they cannot be considered as significant. Neither is there any clear
physiological relation between the alleged stigmata and social or even
physical defects.
A most careful examination of the criminal population has been made
by C. Goring. His general results are worth quoting. He says: “For
statistical evidence, one assertion can be dogmatically made: It is,
that the criminal is differentiated by inferior stature, by defective
intelligence and, to some extent, by his antisocial proclivities; but
that, apart from these broad differences, there are no physical, mental
or moral characteristics peculiar to the inmates of English prisons.
The truths that have been overlooked are that these deviations,
described as significant of criminality, are inevitable concomitants
of inferior {122} stature and defective intelligence: both of which
are the differentia of the types of persons who are selected for
imprisonment.”
The conditions are the same as those previously described. As it is
impossible to assign an individual according to his bodily form to a
racial group, if the groups overlap, so it is impossible to recognize
an individual by his bodily build as a criminal. We may say that it is
more likely that a person physically and mentally defective will become
a criminal than one who is normal, but we cannot say that he _must_ be
a criminal.
The very definition of the term “crime” proves that no such intimate
relation can exist. What was a crime in times past is no longer a
crime now. Heresy was a crime punishable by death. Among heretics were
included many who were mentally unbalanced and probably physically
defective; but men like Huss or Giordano Bruno were criminals on
account of their mental independence. George Washington would have been
a criminal, if the English had caught him.
In foreign societies the concept of what constitutes a crime may
be even more different than it has been at different periods among
ourselves. Where food is shared by all and property consists solely of
the necessities of life, such as clothing, weapons, household utensils,
small pilfering is all but impossible, for the taking of food is not
stealing, {123} food being freely shared by all. Where strict laws of
endogamy exist, what we call incest may be proscribed. Where exogamy
is found the laws of incest extend over wider, or curiously selected
groups. Where vendetta is the law of the land certain types of murder
are a virtue, not a crime. Where monogamy is the custom polygamy is
a criminal offense, while in other societies the refusal to accept a
number of mates may be so considered. Where sexual life is practically
free sexual crimes do not occur.
Under these conditions the criminal must be defined as the person who
habitually disregards the laws of conduct proscribed by the society to
which he belongs. If we accept this definition we must except those
cases in which conduct contrary to law is ceremonially permitted or
proscribed. This happens, for instance, among the Pueblo Indians and
in British Columbia in the case of certain semi-priestly groups who
have the privilege of acting counter to the sacred rites of the people
and who are accordingly feared by the profane crowd. The same is true
in all cases of prerogatives of social classes--as in the relation
between master and slave, when the slave is considered a chattel; or in
prerogatives of feudal lords.
With the differentiation of what constitutes a crime the mental
characteristics of the criminal {124} must also vary. The criminal who
breaks through the inhibitions developed by the habitual behavior of
the society to which he belongs is actuated by a variety of motives.
The breaking point depends upon the drive that leads to action and
the strength of inhibition. Among two persons with equal power of
inhibition the starving pauper will be led to theft by hunger; the
well-to-do who is deprived of his conveniences will succumb much more
readily, because the strain which for the pauper would be insignificant
is felt by him as suffering. Such conditions may account for the
similar distribution of criminality in well-to-do and poor social
groups.
The problem of the heritability of criminality as well as of other
forms of social deficiency presents the same difficulties that are
encountered in all attempts to discriminate between organic and
environmental determination.
The definition of crime is so complex and so variable, so entirely
dependent upon social conditions that criminality itself can hardly
be considered as hereditary. It is, however, possible that certain
dispositions may be hereditary that lead to acts that are in some
cases considered as criminal. It has been proved that the criminal is,
in many respects, defective. If the deficiency is hereditary, then a
greater probability exists that {125} a defective individual belonging
to a hereditary line of defectives may become a criminal.
The investigation of families like the Kallikaks has shown that there
are strains in which criminality is very frequent. From a purely
practical point of view these data allow us to say that when a person
is a criminal or otherwise defective there is a greater likelihood of
finding criminals or defectives in his family than among the relatives
of a person who is not a criminal.
The reason for this is easily understood if we remember that the
same is true for any trait that occurs comparatively rarely and with
unequal frequency in different families. If in a preponderantly blond
population a blonde is selected we exclude all those families in
which no blondes occur and the average frequency of blondness in the
population thus selected will be considerable. On the other hand,
if we select a brunette individual the whole mass of families that
contain brunette individuals will appear, and the average frequency
of blondness in the series thus selected will be much lower. The same
is true when we select exceptionally short individuals. Then all tall
families will be eliminated the more the higher their average stature,
and the series so selected will contain an inordinately large number
of short individuals. Conversely in the series of families selected as
relatives of a tall person the {126} relative frequency of short ones
will be much less.
If all families were equal in regard to the relative frequency of
criminality, defects, blondness or low stature--then the series
selected as relatives of criminals, defectives, blondes or short
individuals would be the same as the series of relatives of
noncriminals, normals, brunette and tall individuals. The greater
frequency of criminality among relatives of criminals does not allow
us to deduce the laws of heredity of criminality, unless the frequency
distribution of criminality of families is accurately known.
We have seen that the family lines constituting a population differ
among themselves. They differ also in regard to criminality and
frequency of defects. The questions to be answered are whether these
are environmentally determined or hereditary and what the laws of
heredity are.
The observations of Habit-Clinics for preschool children throw an
interesting light upon this problem. Although the statistical results
of these observations must be used with considerable caution, the
psychological analysis elucidates the far-reaching influence of an
unfavorable environment upon the behavior of physically weak subjects
and the development of antisocial tendencies that may arise under
stresses of a family situation that makes for revolt against tyrannical
authority or creates in other ways serious antagonisms. {127}
No less instructive are the observations of psychoanalysis. While I am
not inclined to follow the intricate and, as it seems to me, arbitrary
reasonings of psychoanalysts, sufficient material has been accumulated
showing that under severe stresses, particularly after a sudden
“trauma,” weak individuals may develop abnormal mental habits of the
most varied kind.
The general evidence points to the conclusion that the weak individual
takes to antisocial acts when the environmental stress that brings
about disregard of the laws of society is sufficiently acute. The
stronger the individual the greater the stress that will be required.
C. Goring, in the investigation previously referred to, minimizes
the environmental factor as a determinant of criminality. He tries
to prove that all other social irregularities found among criminals,
such as lack of schooling or irregular employment, or poverty are
dependent upon lack of intelligence. His argument is based on the
statistical interrelation between intelligence and the various social
defects. He determines the average intelligence of a group by the
relative frequency of mental defectives. He assumes that the greater
their number the lower the average intelligence. This is a doubtful
procedure, because the range of variation in the groups does {128}
not need to be the same. If, for instance, the mentality of criminals
were more variable than that of noncriminals, they would have a larger
number of defectives even if they had the same average intelligence.
Social irregularities combined with criminality are the more frequent
the greater the relative number of mental defectives. The argument
might also be reversed and we might say that mental defects combined
with criminality are the more frequent the greater the relative number
of social irregularities, such as lack of schooling or irregular
employment. In order to prove that organically determined intelligence
is the cause of both social irregularities and criminality it would be
necessary to show that groups of individuals of the same intelligence,
taken at random from the total population, would have the same relative
frequency of criminality regardless of other social defects, such as
poverty, lack of schooling or irregularity of employment. Since we do
not know the distribution of intelligence in the total population the
ratio of criminality cannot be determined and it cannot be claimed that
hereditary intelligence is the decisive factor.
I believe, therefore, that the irrelevancy of environment as a factor
producing criminality has not been proved.
Many authors have tried to deduce from the {129} distribution of
cases of criminality in family lines that the tendency is inherited in
a simple Mendelian ratio. The infinite complexity of conditions that
bring an individual into the class of convicted criminals does not make
such a conclusion likely and the number of cases that have been brought
forward is entirely insufficient for a conclusive proof. The actual
statistical data indicate only that in the population family lines
differ in their degree of criminality.
The assumption of a simple form of Mendelian heredity, and that of
the occurrence of much more complex forms which include environmental
factors lead to quite distinct practical results. In the former case
the occurrence of a single case of criminality in a family and a
knowledge of the simple rules of hereditary transmission would enable
us to foretell how many individuals in various family lines would be
affected. In the latter case prediction would be well-nigh impossible,
because the rules of heredity, although following fundamentally the
same laws, would be so varied that the hereditary characteristics of a
single family would not be known.
More important than this is the difficulty of differentiation between
environmental and hereditary causes, for if a whole family is exposed
to the same deleterious conditions and a sufficient {130} organic
weakness exists, the whole family may become criminal, while under more
fortunate conditions it could withstand the social pressure to which it
is exposed.