criminality in Great Britain and Ireland in the same way. Here are his
results:
{ { { Much. { Crimes against property without violence.
{ { {
{ { { Moderately. { Crimes against property with violence.
{ { Inversely. {
{ Subject to the { { { Crimes against property with premeditated destruction.
{ Influence of { { Little. { Crimes other than those named above and those
CRIMES AND { Economic Occurrences { { { against persons and against the currency.
MISDEMEANORS. { and varying with {
{ Them. { { Crimes over which {
{ { Directly. { the Influence of { Crimes against persons.
{ { { Alcohol is Predominant. {
{
{ Not subject to { Not at All. { Misdemeanors and contraventions.
{ the Influence of {
{ Economic Occurrences. { Only Slightly. { Forgery and counterfeiting.
His investigation gives the following results for New South Wales:
{ { { { 1. Theft and receiving stolen goods.
{ Subject to the Influence of { Inversely. { Much. { 2. Petty larceny.
{ Economic Occurrences { { { 3. Horse-stealing.
{ and varying with Them. { { { 4. Minor offenses against property.
{ { { Moderately. { 5. Domiciliary thefts.
CRIMES AND { { { { 6. Sheep-stealing.
MISDEMEANORS. { { { { 7. Forgery.
{ { { Little. { 8. Cattle-stealing.
{ { {
{ { { Crimes and { 9. Murder.
{ { { Misdemeanors over { 10. Arson.
{ { { which the Influence { 11. Homicide.
{ { { of Alcohol { 12. Assaults.
{ { { is Predominant. { 13. Extortion.
{ { { { 14. Robbery.
{ { { { 15. Other minor offenses.
{ { Directly. { { I. Offenses against public decency.
{ { { { II. Offenses against morals (homosexuality).
{ { { { III. Offenses against morals.
{ { { { IV. Minor offenses against persons.
{
{ Not subject to the Influence { A. Blackmail and cheating.
{ of Economic Occurrences. { B. Perjury.
—It is incontestable that the researches of Dr. Fornasari di Verce must
be placed in the front rank of the works that show the correctness of
the thesis that the economic factors are the most important factors of
criminality. An objection may be made, however, that the question has
been conceived in too mechanical a fashion, in consequence of the
exclusive use of the statistical method. He seeks the correlation
between criminality and each economic phenomenon separately, in place
of that of the ensemble of these phenomena. For the economic life does
not exist in reality as separated and isolated parts, but forms a great
whole, a compact mass, of which the parts fit in together. When an
important economic occurrence takes place, in case the expected effect
upon crime is not observed, we must not be too quick to say that it has
no importance for criminality, for it may be that it is neutralized by
something else.
With this remark is connected a final objection. The author has not
proved the truth of his conclusion that criminality cannot be explained
exclusively by means of economic conditions. For, although his
researches include very important economic factors, the author leaves
out many economic factors and, with one exception (the degenerating
influence of poverty), the numerous consequences of economic
conditions, which are of the highest importance for the question in
hand. In other words the author has not called attention to the fact
that we live under an economic system of a comparatively recent date,
having peculiar characteristics that are of great significance for
criminality. He has indicated some very important consequences of the
system, but he has not analyzed the system itself.
I am of the opinion that the work that I have been treating, and which
has a great value for the subject, shows that economic conditions are
of great importance for criminality. However, it does not prove that
this influence is not greater than is shown by statistics.—
VI.
A. NICEFORO.
In the first part of his study, “Criminalità e condizioni economiche in
Sicilia”, the author calls attention to the fact that Sicily is one of
the Italian districts where crime is greatest and is increasing most
rapidly. One could draw upon the map lines enclosing a definite
criminal zone, taking in the provinces of Caltanissetta, Girgenti, and
Catania. This zone might, in its turn, be divided into two others, one
of which would give a high figure for robberies and homicides, and the
other chiefly for crimes against property and against morals.
The author divides the economic causes into direct and indirect. In
speaking of direct factors he treats successively:
a. Large real-estate holdings. The landed proprietor rents his lands to
the “gabelletto”, who in turn sublets them to the laborers. This system
exhausts the latter. The proprietor rids himself of all expense by
charging it to the “gabelletto”, and makes his profit; the “gabelletto”
does the same by the laborer and makes his profit. The latter is always
the person that suffers. Then the “gabelletto” advances the necessary
provisions to the laborer until the harvest comes in; but since he does
so at a high rate, the laborer is bowed down by the burden of his
debts. In consequence of this system the agricultural population is
ill-nourished and degenerate. The consequences of this system as it
affects criminality are apparent. In the province of Caltanissetta,
where large land-holdings are the rule, crimes against property, and
especially rural thefts, cattle-stealing, vagrancy, etc., are the most
numerous.
b. Small holdings. However, it is not only the agricultural population
dependent upon great property-holders that lives in poverty, for the
small farmers also have a hard life. They raise chiefly grapes and
citrous fruits. The price of citrous fruits has fallen greatly through
overproduction and foreign competition. Wine also has gone down in
price, and the cultivators have had enormous losses from phylloxera
besides. Consequently the small farmers are crushed with debts;
failures are the order of the day; their situation, then, is most
unfortunate. But that of the non-property-holders is still worse if
possible. For the small holder also often rents his land to others, and
from this follows a kind of “sweating-system.”
At the end of these observations the author gives, in the following
table, the movement of some prices in relation to criminality:
========+===========+=============+===========+=============+============
| Price of | Price of | Price of | | Robberies,
Years. | Wheat per | Wine per | Meat per | Homicides | Extortion,
| 1000 | Hectolitre. | Kilo. | Prosecuted. | Blackmail.
| Kilos. | (Sicily.) | (Sicily.) | |
--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+------------
1875 | 27.42 | 13.00 | 3.09 | -- | 658
1876 | 28.78 | 21.62 | 2.91 | -- | 1,039
1877 | 33.66 | 30.38 | 2.98 | -- | 777
1878 | 31.43 | 29.04 | 2.89 | -- | 1,110
1879 | 31.35 | 19.03 | 2.80 | -- | 1,138
1880 | 32.27 | 29.65 | 2.74 | 1,063 | 829
1881 | 26.36 | 30.92 | 2.74 | 1,001 | 708
1882 | 20.42 | 28.35 | 2.80 | 938 | 560
1883 | 23.11 | 22.11 | 2.75 | 943 | 419
1884 | 21.52 | 17.95 | 2.77 | 949 | 340
1885 | 21.24 | 31.84 | 2.76 | 822 | 330
1886 | 21.28 | 35.63 | 2.42 | 859 | 418
1887 | 21.48 | 15.66 | 2.44 | 863 | 446
1888 | 21.50 | 11.85 | 2.46 | 899 | 485
1889 | 22.83 | 15.06 | 2.40 | 865 | 478
1890 | 22.63 | 22.07 | 2.46 | 869 | 547
1891 | 24.60 | 16.92 | 2.77 | 966 | 710
1892 | 24.32 | 14.32 | 2.87 | 1,117 | 677
1893 | 21.08 | 15.76 | 2.95 | 1,066 | 902
1894 | 18.77 | 18.38 | 2.98 | -- | --
1895 | 20.30 | 18.42 | 2.75 | -- | --
========+===========+=============+===========+=============+============
c. The mining zone. The production of sulphur, formerly of great
importance, when Sicily was the principal source of supply for Europe
and America, has decreased greatly now that sulphur is manufactured
from chemical products. The condition of the miners is pitiful. The
mines are often exploited by middle-men, which makes the condition of
the laborers worse. Degeneracy has consequently taken on enormous
proportions. When we compare the change in wages with the number of
thefts, we see that thefts decrease when wages rise, and vice versa,
and that the price of grain also influences criminality. It is the
provinces of Sicily where the sulphur mines are found that give the
highest figures for criminality in general, and homicide in particular.
d. The class-conflict. The property owners, whose economic position is
already very influential, also control the political forces, and
consequently the case of those who have nothing is made much worse.
Taxes, indirect for the most part, weigh most heavily upon the poor;
public property is exploited for the benefit of the rich, etc., etc.
Hence it follows that in the districts where the non-possessors are
unconsciously struggling against the possessors, this strife of classes
engenders class-hatred, and consequent crimes.
In the last part of his study the author speaks of indirect economic
factors, among which he includes:
a. The increasing decline in the altruistic feelings. The miner and the
laborer, both ill-nourished, humiliated, and despised, dwelling in
miserable hovels, are pariahs far removed from any feeling for their
fellow men.
b. Organic degeneracy. As a consequence of the economic conditions
named, degeneracy is always increasing more and more among the poor,
especially among the miners. This degeneracy becomes in its turn a
factor of criminality, since it predisposes individuals to crime.
See also: Virgilio Rossi: “Influence de la température et de
l’alimentation sur la criminalité en Italie, de 1875 à 1883” (“Rapport
Ier Congrès d’Anthropologie Criminelle. Actes”, pp. 295 ff.); N.
Pinsero: “Miseria e Delitto” (“Scuola Positiva”, 1898).
CHAPTER IV.
THE FRENCH SCHOOL (THE SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT).
I.
A. LACASSAGNE.
While the Italian school reigned supreme at the first congress of
criminal anthropology at Rome, Professor Lacassagne opposed it with his
so-called “hypothesis of the environment” in the following terms: “The
important thing is the social environment. Allow me to make a
comparison borrowed from a modern theory. The social environment is the
bouillon for the culture of criminality; the microbe, that is the
criminal, is an element which is only of importance when it has found a
medium in which it can grow.
“The criminal with anthropometric and other characteristics seems to us
to have only a moderate importance. All these characteristics may be
found elsewhere among honest men.
“But you should look at the different social consequences of these two
points of view. On the one hand is the fatalism which flows inevitably
from the anthropometric theory; and on the other, social initiative. If
the social environment is everything, and if it is so defective as to
favor the growth of vicious or criminal natures, it is to this
environment and its conditions of functioning that our reforms must be
directed.
“... This phrase ... sums up my whole thought, and is, so to speak, the
conclusion of what I have been saying; societies have the criminals
they deserve.” [138]
In his “Marche de la criminalité en France, 1825–1880”, the author
points out, among other things, the connection between criminality and
economic conditions. An examination of the movement of crimes against
property shows that the great fluctuations to be observed there are
intimately connected with economic conditions. The number of crimes
against property corresponds almost exactly with the fluctuation in the
price of wheat; and all the economic crises make their influence felt.
During the years 1828, 1835–1837, 1847, 1848–1854, 1865–1868, and
1872–1876, in which the price of wheat was high, there were also a
great number of crimes against property. The year 1855 was the sole
exception, for then crimes against property did not increase, although
the price of grain was very high. This is to be explained by the fact
that the government then took measures to lessen the consequences of
this calamity. Further, other provisions were then very cheap. From
1860 on the number of crimes against property decreases, which,
according to the author, is to be explained by the importation of
grain, which increased greatly at this time.
The influence of the production and consumption of alcohol is strongly
felt in crimes against persons, especially in assaults.
I would further call attention to the report made by Professor
Lacassagne to the Fourth Congress of Criminal Anthropology at Geneva,
entitled, “Les vols à l’étalage et dans les grands magasins”, in which
he shows how the display of goods on the counters in the great bazaars,
which are meant to fascinate visitors, and force them to buy, so to
speak, leads to crime in individuals predisposed to kleptomania.
Professor Lacassagne has always remained faithful to the judgment that
he pronounced at Rome; at the Congress at Brussels, [139] and at
Amsterdam as well [140], he repeated: “Societies have the criminals
they deserve.”
II.
G. TARDE.
This author considers criminality as being preëminently a social
phenomenon, which, like all social phenomena, is to be explained by
imitation.
“All the important acts of the social life are performed under the sway
of example. One begets, or one does not beget, through imitation; the
statistics of births have shown us that. One kills, or one does not
kill, through imitation; should we have the idea today of fighting a
duel, or declaring war, if we did not know that this is always done in
the country where we live? One kills himself, or he does not kill
himself, through imitation; it is recognized that suicide is an
imitative phenomenon in the highest degree.... How can we doubt, then,
that a man steals or does not steal, murders or does not murder,
through imitation?” [141]
Imitation, says the author, is governed by two laws, namely, that men
imitate one another more the more closely they come together, and that
imitation of the high by the low is what most often takes place (that
the customs of the nobility are imitated by the people, etc.). If we
test these rules in their application to crime, we shall find that they
hold good there also. The author gives the following examples, among
others, in support of this:
“Vagrancy, under its thousand actual forms, is an offense essentially
plebeian; but if we go back into the past it will not be difficult to
connect our tramps and street singers with the noble pilgrims and
minstrels of the Middle Ages. Poaching, another nursery of criminals,
which in the past, together with smuggling, has played a part
comparable with vagrancy in the present, is still more directly
connected with the life of the lord of the manor.” [142] “Arson, a
crime of the lowest classes today, was once the prerogative of the
feudal nobility. Was not the Margrave of Brandenburg heard to boast one
day that he had burned in his life 170 villages? Counterfeiting takes
refuge at present in mountain caverns, or subcellars in the city, but
we know that coining was long a royal monopoly.
“Finally, theft, so degrading in our day, has had a brilliant past.
Montaigne tells us, without being very indignant at it, that many young
gentlemen of his acquaintance, whose fathers did not give them enough
money, procured more by stealing.” [143]
There was a time, then, when criminality extended itself from the
higher classes to the lower; at present new forms of crime take their
rise in the great cities and spread out into the country. The increase
of crime in the cities is very considerable, and it is very probable
that, in accordance with the law cited, criminality will at length
increase in the country as greatly. It is especially the crimes of
assassination, sexual crimes against minors, abortion, and infanticide,
that have increased. So the opinion of several Italian criminologists,
“that crimes against persons decrease where crimes against property
increase, and vice versa”, is wrong, according to Professor Tarde,
since both kinds of crime increase in the great cities.
“To sum up, the prolonged action of the great cities upon criminality
is manifest, it seems to us, in the gradual substitution, not exactly
of trickery for violence, but of covetous, crafty, and voluptuous
violence, for vindictive and brutal violence.” [144]
Nevertheless, civilization improves men, and the growing criminality is
in opposition to the greater and greater increase of civilization. This
contradiction is explained by the author by means of another law of
imitation; the law of insertion, i.e. the alternate passage from
fashion to custom.
“All industry is thus fed by a stream of improvements, innovations
today, traditions tomorrow; every science, every art, every language,
every religion obeys this law of the passage from custom to fashion and
of the return from fashion to custom, but to an enlarged custom.
“For at each of these steps in advance the territorial domain of
imitation increases; the field of social assimilation, of human
brotherhood, extends itself, and this is not, as we know, the least
salutary effect of imitative action from the moral point of view.”
[145]
After having mentioned how these different currents of imitation meet,
the author applies the idea set forth above to the influence of
education upon criminality. He shows that instruction, by itself, is
not a remedy for crime, since it may furnish new means for committing
crimes, and hence may only change the character of criminality. Finally
the author points out the influence of labor upon criminality,
combating the theory of Poletti, who says that it is necessary to take
into account the economic development (for example, if during the
period 1826–78 criminality in France increased in the ratio of 100 to
254, and productive activity was quadrupled, criminality did not
increase, but really diminished). The fundamental error in Poletti’s
argument, according to Professor Tarde is, that he considers crime as a
regular, permanent, and inevitable effect of industrialism.
“Only, there is labor and labor; and if in a more laborious class the
work is badly divided, excessive for some, whom it enervates and
disorders, insufficient for others, who become dissipated, or if it is
badly directed, turned toward deleterious compositions and reading
which excite the senses ...—in this case it will probably happen that
progress in labor is accompanied by a growing lack of discipline and by
academic vices of different kinds. An analogous phenomenon takes place
in our cities, where the mad chase for luxury outruns the rise of
wages, and where sexual crimes are sextupled or septupled while wealth
is tripled and quadrupled. The socialists, then, are right in imputing,
in part, to unjust distribution and to the objectionable direction of
the productive activity, the moral evil that has grown with it, and
which, further, does not decrease when productive activity becomes
weaker. For since the period when Poletti made his observations upon
the prosperity of France, this has ceased to grow, and has even
decreased rapidly, as we know only too well, but crime has continued
its onward march with a more marked impetus.
“In short, there remains nothing of the law laid down by this
distinguished writer, and all the statistics contradict him.
Delinquency, as Garofalo remarks, is so little proportional to
commercial activity that England, where crime is on the decrease, is
the nation most remarkable for the increase of its commerce, and that
Spain and Italy, where the criminality is greater than that of the
other principal states of Europe, are far behind them in business
development. We may add that in France the most hard-working class is
without any doubt the peasant class, and this shows the smallest
proportionate number of delinquents, notwithstanding unfavorable
conditions. We may conclude that work is in itself the adversary of
crime, that if it favors it it is by indirect, not necessary action,
and that its relation to crime is like that between two antagonistic
forms of work.” [146]
In the following section the author treats the influence of wealth and
of poverty upon the criminal. He mentions the different opinions of
Turati and of Colajanni on the one hand, and of Ferri and Garofalo on
the other. The former tried to prove that poverty is often a cause of a
poor man’s becoming a criminal. Garofalo tries to disprove it by
calling attention, among other things, to the fact that, according to
the criminal statistics of Italy for 1880, property owners committed as
many crimes in proportion as the proletariat did.
In opposition to this Professor Tarde points out that the French
criminal statistics in 1887 show that there were, out of 100,000 of
each class of the population, the following number of persons
arraigned: 20 out of the class of domestics, one of the poorest
classes; 12 from the liberal professions including persons of
independent income; 139 from the class of vagrants and persons without
occupation (the most necessitous class, therefore); 21 from commerce;
26 from manufacturing (a very high figure considering the profits of
that year); and 14 from the farming class (a very low figure
considering their relative poverty).
The author explains these contradictions as follows: “Let us not forget
that, the desire for wealth being the ordinary motive and more and more
the preponderating motive of crime as it is the only motive of
industrial labor, the possession of wealth must keep the most dishonest
man from crime as it does the most laborious man from industrial
labor—for it is impossible to desire what one has—at least if the
satisfaction of this desire has not meant the over-exciting of it....
Now in business circles, where on account of men’s throwing one another
into a fever, a constant gaining of wealth, rather than wealth itself,
is the end pursued, a fortune is like those peppered liqueurs which
arouse thirst more than they quench it. Hence it comes, doubtless, as
well as from the excitement prevailing in these circles, that
criminality there is as great as among domestic servants. In the same
way, in the licentious environments, in the great cities, where there
are masses of working people, sexual crimes are as much more numerous
as the pleasures of the senses are there more easily come by. But we
can lay it down as a principle that where wealth is an obstacle to
activity it is also an obstacle to crime, very much as political power
ceases to be dangerous at the moment when it ceases to be ambitious.
This is the situation among the rural proprietors, small and great,
among stockholders, and even in the majority of the liberal
professions...; content with his relative well-being, man indulges in
an intellectual half-labor, artistic rather than mechanical, honorable
rather than mercenary, and abstains from flagitious means of obtaining
an increase of income which he desires moderately. The French peasant,
in general, partakes of this moderation of desires, and, rich from his
sobriety, his stoicism, his frugality, his plot of ground at last
acquired, he is happier than the feverish millionaire, financier, or
politician, driven by his very millions to sow the seed of his rotten
speculations, rascalities, and extortions upon a vast scale. Further
the well-to-do agriculturists are in general the most honest people.
Let us not speak of wealth and poverty, to tell the truth, not even of
well-being and the reverse, but rather of happiness and unhappiness,
and be careful how we deny this truth, as old as the world, that the
wicked man’s excuse is often to be found in his being unhappy. Children
of this century ... let us confess that under its brilliant exterior
our society is not happy, and if we had no other assurances of its
great evils than its numerous crimes, without giving a thought to its
suicides, and its increasing cases of insanity, without lending an ear
to the cries of envy, of suffering, and of hatred ... we should not be
able to call its woes in question.
“From what does it suffer? From its internal trouble, from its
illogical and unstable condition, from intestine contradictions,
stirred up by the success even of its unheard-of discoveries and
inventions, piling one on top of the other, the material for contrary
theories, the source of unbridled, egoistic, and antagonistic desires.
Upon this obscure gestation, a great Credo, a great common end awaits;
it is creation before the Fiat Lux. Science multiplies its notions, it
elaborates a high conception of the universe; ... but where is the high
conception of life, of human life, that it is ready to make prevalent?
Industry multiplies its products, but where is the collective work that
it brings to birth? The preëstablished harmony of interests was a dream
of Bastiat, the shadow of a dream of Leibnitz. The citizens of a state
exchange information, scientific and otherwise, through books,
newspapers, or conversation, but to the profit of their contradictory
beliefs; they exchange services, but to the profit of their rival
interests; the more they assist one another, therefore, the more they
nourish their essential contradictions, which may have been as profound
at other times, but were never so conscious, never so painful, and
consequently never so dangerous.” [147]
Suppose, asks the author, there was no more foreign war, how could we
avoid civil war? There have, indeed been historic periods when there
existed a common aim uniting individuals, as the faith did in the
Middle Ages. In our days this aim can be nothing but “art, philosophy,
the higher cultivation of the mind and imagination, the æsthetic life.”
In order to be able to answer the question whether civilization (the
collective name for education, religion, science, arts, manufacturing,
wealth, public order, etc.) causes a diminution of criminality, it is
necessary to discriminate between two stages of civilization. In the
first there is an afflux of inventions; this is the stage at which
Europe is at the present time. In the second this afflux decreases and
it forms itself into a coherent whole. A civilization may be very rich,
then, and but little coherent, or very coherent and not very rich, like
that of the commune in the Middle Ages.
“But is it by its wealth or by its cohesion that civilization makes
crime recede? By its cohesion without any doubt. This cohesion of
religion, of science, of all forms of work and of power, of all kinds
of different innovations, mutually confirming one another, in reality
or in appearance, is a true implicit coalition against crime, and even
when each of these fruitful branches of the social tree combats but
feebly the gourmand branch, their agreement will suffice to divert all
the sap from it.” [148]
—This is not the place to criticise the theory of imitation in general,
with which Professor Tarde thinks that we can explain every social
phenomenon. In my opinion, this theory, in so far as it is new is not
correct, and in so far as it is correct is not new. It is true as
explaining how a social phenomenon, having taken its rise in a
locality, has been rapidly propagated, or why it still persists when
the original causes have ceased to operate.
However, it is plain that by means of imitation one can give but a
partial explanation of the phenomena mentioned. Other factors must be
pointed out to explain, for example, why something spreads everywhere
in consequence of imitation, at a certain moment, while before it
passed unperceived, etc.
I agree, then, that the significance of imitation and tradition is very
important in explaining social phenomena, but I am of the opinion that
imitation and tradition represent the conservative element, and give us
no information with regard to the birth of new social phenomena. [149]
In the domain of criminality also imitation plays a great part.
Children brought up in a vicious environment, easily contract bad
habits by imitation; the harmful influence of prison is proverbial; a
sensational crime often leads to analogous crimes. It is also by
imitation that we can explain, in part at least, the existence of the
Mafia and the Camorra, of which Professor Lombroso says, among other
things: “The long persistence and obstinacy of such associations as the
Mafia, the Camorra, and brigandage, seem to proceed in the first place
from the antiquity of their existence, for the long repetition of the
same acts transforms them into a habit, and consequently into a law.
History teaches us that ethnic phenomena of long duration are not to be
eradicated easily at a stroke.” [150]
Since the phenomena named remain permanent, there must be other
important social factors which have nothing to do with imitation. Thus,
for example, faith, whose prevalence is based to a great extent upon
tradition, would have disappeared long since, notwithstanding
tradition, if there had been no factors in the present society to make
it persist.
Admitting what has gone before, there is no reason to see in most of
the examples cited by the author in support of his theory, anything
else than his great knowledge of historic details of little or no
importance for the question of criminality. Where, for example, is the
connection between the minstrels of the Middle Ages and the vagrants of
our own days? There is certainly none but this, that both went from
place to place. But even if there had never been wandering minstrels,
the social phenomenon called “vagrancy” would have existed all the
same. It has nothing to do with imitation, but on the contrary has
everything to do with the existing social organization. It could thus
be proved by many examples that Professor Tarde exaggerates the extent
of the influence of imitation. We must not lose sight of the fact that
imitation teaches us nothing of the essential causes of a social
phenomenon. When we seek the causes of a disease that some one has, we
frequently see that it is the result of a contagion; we know, then,
that the disease is contagious, and this knowledge will point out
precautions to be taken to limit or prevent the spread of the disease;
but as to the causes of the disease itself we still know nothing.
It is the same way with regard to crime. It is certain that immoral
ideas and customs are easily contracted by children. The removal of
children from a harmful environment is therefore a preventive of the
extension of crime. But we are still ignorant of everything that
concerns the rise of these immoral ideas and customs, which is,
however, the essential thing.
With regard to the remarks of the author upon the influence of labor,
wealth, poverty, and civilization, I simply observe that these very
important and very complicated questions occupy but a few pages in his
work. It will be, then, quite superfluous to note in detail how the
whole has been treated in a very incomplete manner, although very true
remarks are found there (for example, those upon the bad distribution
of labor, upon the desire for wealth as a cause of crime, etc.).—
Beside an article that appeared in the “Revue Philosophique” (1890),
entitled “Misère et criminalité”, Professor Tarde has taken up his
subject again in a report: “La criminalité et les phénomènes
économiques” (Fifth Congress of Criminal Anthropology at Amsterdam). Of
this report we give a synopsis.
According to Professor Tarde, since it has been recognized that the
social factors of criminality are the most important, there has been a
manifest tendency to exaggerate the importance of economic factors.
Their high importance, which is incontestable, does not at all justify
our forgetting the stronger and more decisive action of the beliefs and
feelings in the aberrations of the will. Which of the two sources of
criminality is the more important, the economic or the religious (or
intellectual)? That cannot be decided. But it is much more important to
know in what phases, from what sides the economic life is
criminogenous.
Each economic phase, as, for example, domestic economy or urban
economy, has its special form of criminality. But political and
religious changes, whether they correspond or not to the
transformations in the mode of production, have, perhaps, a much
greater part in criminality than have the economic transformations. The
domestic economy, for example, gives rise to different crimes in which
no economic factor comes into play; as uxoricide, for example.
Neither poverty alone nor wealth alone is an obstacle to honesty. Poor
peoples or classes, accustomed to poverty, are often very honest, nor
is there any more need that great differences of wealth should lead to
crime. But it is the abrupt passing from wealth to poverty and from
poverty to wealth that is dangerous to morality.
“In short, criminality and morality are less dependent upon the
economic state of a country, than upon its economic transformations. It
is not capitalism as such that is demoralizing, it is the moral crisis
that accompanies the passage from artisan production to capitalistic
production, or from some particular mode of the latter to some other
mode.
“Economic phenomena may be regarded from three points of view: first,
from the point of view of their repetition, which has to do chiefly
with the propagation of habits of consumption, called needs, and of the
corresponding habits of labor; second, from the point of view of their
opposition, which includes principally the contests of producers among
themselves by acute or chronic competition, during strikes, or crises
of overproduction,—or contests of consumers among themselves, through
sumptuary laws, aristocratic or democratic, or monopolies of
consumption over which they dispute in a thousand ways, in time of
famine, or scarcity, or any form of underproduction,—or contests of
producers with consumers, through their attempts to exploit one
another, monopolize prices, or laws regulating the maximum price,
municipal tariffs, or protectionist rights, etc.; third, finally from
the point of view of their adaptation, always being renewed and always
incomplete, which embraces the series of successful inventions,
fortunate associations of ideas from which proceed all fruitful
associations of men, from the division of labor and of commerce, an
association spontaneous and implicit, to industrial, commercial,
financial, and syndical societies, etc.” [151]
It is through the second aspect that the economic life can give a
direct explanation of crime; that which is given by the other two is
only an indirect explanation. That is to say, each invention gives rise
to a contest among producers, and the progress of manufacturing creates
the possibility of satisfying needs, but at the same time makes those
who for want of the means cannot satisfy them, feel their needs all the
more strongly.
Every individual must satisfy a certain number of needs which have
their marked recurrences. A peaceful and honest society will be one in
which the great majority of the persons who compose it have, in
measure, the means of satisfying these needs. “Regular habits of
consumption and production form the first condition for good moral
health whether individual or collective, just as regular digestion is
the foundation of good physical health. Those who are irregular become
easily the ‘déclassés.’ Nothing is more contagious than disorder.”
[152]
Hence, then, comes the importance for criminality of social crises,
since during these production and consumption are deranged.
According to Professor Tarde, the social contradictions, which are the
chronic crises of societies, can be the sole causes of criminality. If
a society succeeds in avoiding every internal contradiction there can
hardly be any further question of crime.
Our opinions can always harmonize with those of the people around us,
while we are foreign to them in desire and feeling. “The criminal is he
who, undergoing conformity to the ideas of the community in which he
lives, yet escapes from conforming to the feelings and acts of the
community. He acts contrary to his own principles, which are those of
society.” “It is, then, not to a social crisis that we must mount, but
to a psychological crisis that we must descend, to explain crime.”
[153]
Social crises are of two kinds: politico-religious, and economic. In
opposition to divers statisticians, who are of the opinion that the
former class cause a diminution in criminality, the author thinks that
this diminution is only apparent, and that in reality the number of
crimes increases at these times; which is shown, for example, for
France by the addition of cases not prosecuted to those prosecuted.
As to the effect of economic crises, statisticians, Professor Tarde
claims, have not yet examined it. It seems to him that there is no
parallelism between economic crises and criminality.
The struggle of classes, which springs up and grows during the periods
of crisis, is a great danger to public morals, since it gives rise to a
class spirit, and consequently increases the contempt for the rights of
individuals of another class. However, the class struggle does not
increase the number of individual crimes, but only the number of
collective crimes.
To sum up, Professor Tarde is of the opinion, then, that social crises
in general, and economic crises in particular, are not the only source
nor a continual source of crime. The question of what is the cause of
economic crises remains unexplained. To solve this we must call in all
political economy. The causes of these economic crises are in brief:
first, unlimited competition; second, unforeseen disasters. “We may add
that these acute conflicts lead to suicide more than to crime; they are
a factor of crime much less important than the sullen conflicts, the
low but continuous fevers of troubled epochs in quest of a stable
state. And these are then less the conflicts of production with itself,
or of production with consumption, than the conflicts of consumption
with itself, i.e. the conflicts of needs that have grown but cannot be
satisfied at the time, within the limits of the always insufficient
wages or profits, a fertile source of criminal suggestions. When labor
no longer suffices to satisfy the legitimate needs in accordance with
the prevailing standards, the desire of gain without labor invades the
heart and becomes general. The only remedy for this danger would be the
advancement of manufacturing and its reorganization upon a vaster and
better conceived plan than the present one, if, at the same time that
any industrial progress gave more wealth for less labor, it did not
give rise to still more new wants. The individual organization of
wants, their hierarchization, by virtue of a certain unanimity of
fundamental principles, must precede the social organization of labor,
if we wish this latter really to make for peace and morals.” [154]
—Professor Tarde’s report is characterized by many very true
observations (as, for example, that every economic phase has its own
form of criminality; that sudden transitions from wealth to poverty,
and vice versa, are morally more dangerous than slow changes; etc.,
etc.), but at the same time is still more marked by a certain
elasticity and lack of close reasoning. Hence it is almost impossible
to frame a criticism of the report that will follow it step by step.
However there are some things to be noted. According to the author
there are two sources of criminality, the one economic, the other
intellectual. I consider that this distinction is not correct. Every
crime has an intellectual source, in this sense, that it is an act
conceived by the intellect. It is impossible, therefore, to see beside
this source an economic cause. But the intellect considered by itself
is empty; it is from the environment that it must draw the material
which it will transform into ideas. Consequently the question becomes
this: how far is the economic environment the cause of the formation of
criminal thoughts. Intellect and economic conditions do not stand side
by side but the one follows upon the other. It is only making use of a
commonplace to say that crime has an intellectual source; that explains
nothing.
In reading the first pages of the report one expects, after the
historical exposition which says that every economic phase has its own
form of criminality, to find an exposition of the present economic
system, and an inquiry into how far the criminality of our own day is
bound up with it. This would have been, I think, most important, and
would have advanced the subject. The most serious criticism that I have
to make is that nothing of the kind is attempted. What follows is only
a series of isolated remarks, which are correct only in part, and in
which the whole question is reduced to a matter of economic crises,
although the title speaks of economic conditions.
It is incorrect to say that the statisticians have not investigated the
influence of economic crises, as the second chapter of this work
proves. In it I have analyzed the works of the different authors who
have especially treated of this subject. Finally, I would call
attention to the fact that he furnishes no proof of his assertion that
the class struggle takes its rise in times of crisis—and would find it
difficult to do so.
What Professor Tarde means in speaking of “the advancement of
manufacturing and its reorganization upon a vaster and better conceived
plan”, is not clear. But it is certain that the final observation that
there must be “an individual organization of wants”, is purely Utopian.
For it is one of the characteristic phenomena of our present society
that it has strongly excited the cupidity of men, and that this will
disappear only when its cause has ceased to exist.
All Professor Tarde’s works upon criminality convince us of the great
knowledge of their author. The report of which I have been speaking
contains also ideas that are often very original, but this does not
prevent the necessity of confessing that it does not contribute much to
the solution of the problem that it treats.—
III.
A. CORRE.
In the third book of his “Crime et suicide” the author treats of the
influence of economic conditions upon criminality, beginning with
“labor, wages, and needs.”
Dr. Corre notes first the true condition of the free workman. No one is
obliged to give him work or bread, and it is forbidden to beg or even
to be idle. “There is no opinion more monstrous, more revolting, and
more cowardly. It is a social crime as well as the most dangerous of
follies. For it is necessary to be logical. If you oblige a man under
all circumstances to live by his own means, in the midst of a limited
circle, where the places are distributed in advance, the land divided
to the smallest fragments, if you refuse him the right to alms after
having refused him work ... you drive him to suicide or crime.” [155]
We must give work to everyone who wants to work, in order that he may
support himself and his family, and help must be given to those to whom
work cannot be given, as in the case of workmen not longer able to work
because of sickness or old age. On the other hand idleness must be
punished as well as professional crime. Wages must be so high that they
are sufficient not only for the strict necessities, but for others as
well; for example, for a progressive education, without, however,
arousing in the laboring class the desire for luxury that always
corrupts morals. Though naming a single exception, Dr. Corre is of the
opinion that wages are in general very insufficient, especially if we
take into account the fact that there are times of unemployment,
sickness, etc., during which nothing is earned. The question of wages
is one of great importance, then, for the etiology of criminality.
Nevertheless all the improvement of the material condition of the
working class will accomplish nothing unless there is at the same time
a moral improvement.
As other authors have already proved, the price of bread also has an
influence upon the course of criminality.
Under the heading “economic conditions”, he calls attention, in the
second place to “assistance, savings, property.” When we study the
effect of charity upon criminality in the departments of France, we see
that mendicity and vagrancy decrease, and that crimes are only of
moderate frequency, in places where the official assistance given is
the smallest, while criminality is pretty prevalent and even on the
increase where the greatest amount of official assistance is given.
“Thus very limited assistance will do less harm than if it were more
extensive. Such is the interpretation the mind gathers from a
comparison of the economic and judicial statistics. Excess in
alms-giving, with difficulty separable from a bad distribution of
wealth, will therefore have a demoralizing influence; it enervates and
sterilizes, and its fruits would appear more bitter if it were possible
to unveil the little secrets of assistance under the thousand forms
that it wears.” [156]
“Saving enlarges the field of the needs of the laborer, gives him
security for the future, strengthens his independence with regard to
the state, and his dignity in his relations with other citizens; it
permits him to surround his family with a greater degree of comfort,
and through education to raise his children into the professional
hierarchy. It is therefore useful, and has a moralizing influence.”
[157]
However, exaggerated saving is very prejudicial to morality for it
degenerates into avarice and thus becomes the cause of crime. We often
find the average number of depositors in savings-banks in the
departments that gave the lowest figure for crime. The departments with
a number of depositors above or below this average are apt to have high
figures for crime.
“It is possible to criticise academically the famous saying of
Proudhon, ‘property is theft.’ To refute it will be at times difficult.
I do not mean to say that all property is theft, but I maintain that
property in a measure that can be fixed is nothing else. As it is
organized with use, it is often immoral and one of the most active
factors in anti-social crime, latent or actual.” [158] According to the
author, one who owns property is a supporter of the state. For this
reason the number of small proprietors ought to be increased, even if
this is possible only by dividing great estates, which, however, have
almost always been gotten together by immoral means, by pillaging, by
paying very small wages in manufacturing, by gambling, etc. “They are
all, in the first instance, the fruit of a skill and a want of scruple
which would never obtain the sanction of a really equitable society; at
their blaze, which scorns poverty, the passion for gain is kindled, and
dull rage begins to develop the germ of reprisals. How shall we make
men who have nothing, and exhaust themselves to gain the bare
necessaries of life, satisfied that the persons who do no work and only
amuse themselves possess everything? You may talk of legal limitations
as much as you like, but conscience will revolt against a doctrine that
makes stolen property sacred after a certain period of impunity, and
leads to the cynical conclusion that any article or piece of land,
acquired by crime, is the legitimate possession of the bandit if during
5, 10, 20, 30 years he succeeds in warding off the attacks of the law.”
[159] Not only has property often been acquired in an illegal manner,
but the transmission of it is also immoral. For it is by this means
that persons have acquired great fortunes which they would never have
earned by their labor. It would be preferable to make private fortunes
accrue to the state, after provision had been made for the widow and
children “to provide for the needs of persons who are useful but made
unproductive by poverty, and to reënforce the collective labor.” In
this way a general prosperity would replace great fortunes; this would
increase the feeling of solidarity, while great fortunes only awaken
cupidity and lead to the commission of crimes. The richest departments
give the highest figures for criminality. By the suppression or
limitation of inheritance we should suppress also the numerous crimes
against life resulting from it.
In the sixth chapter, in which Dr. Corre examines the relative
importance of the principal sociological factors, he sums up his
opinion as to the influence of economic conditions upon criminality.
Too great wealth and too great poverty are both causes of crime. “The
first corrupts and the second degrades; both lead to crime through
lessening the resistance to temptation that promises the satisfaction
of wants fictitious or real, and when they both appear in the same
environment, they give more energy to bad impulses, more violence to
conflicts.” [160] This is why the agricultural class, in which moderate
prosperity prevails, is the least criminal. The means by which this
condition of things is to be improved is complex: “it is not altogether
to be found in the solution of the question of wages; it is chiefly to
be found in a better system for making the masses moral, in the
reduction of the influences which tempt them to improvidence and
idleness, lead them to drunkenness and alcoholism.” [161]
—The second part of this work will show sufficiently why, in my
opinion, the treatment of Dr. Corre is confused and incomplete,
notwithstanding the truth of some observations made by him with regard
to the subject which concerns us. The criticism of the author upon the
organization of society at present is that of the petty bourgeoisie; he
expects salvation only from the multiplication of small holdings, and
hopes that this will make mankind happier. However, the development of
large industries makes me believe that this hope will never be
realized.—
IV.
L. MANOUVRIER.
Of all the adherents of the “hypothesis of the environment,” Professor
Manouvrier is undoubtedly the one who has set forth this doctrine in
the clearest manner. Being an anthropologist it is evident that he has
not given his attention more especially to economic conditions. But it
seems to me that what he says in opposition to the theory of Professor
Lombroso, and in support of that of the environment, is of the greatest
importance. I will give a résumé, therefore, of his “Genèse normale du
crime”, [162] and in doing so will quote his own words as far as
possible, in order to give their full value. Although there is no
connection between the doctrine of Professor Lombroso and his
adherents, and this work, I shall be forced to follow his whole
demonstration, because of the interlacing of the theories of the
Italian school and the detailed exposition of the doctrine of the
“environment.”
The doctrine of the innate character of crime and the phrenology of
Gall and Spurzheim are closely connected. Gall thought that he had
discovered in the brain the organs of homicide and theft, without,
however, denying the importance of surroundings, so that he explained a
case of theft by means of circumstances when the bump of theft was
wanting in the thief.
This doctrine has been entirely supplanted by the theories of Lamarck
and Darwin. “In the place of attributing to the environment the rôle of
a simple player of a hand-organ, Lamarck sees in it a true musician
playing upon his instrument any airs suited to its complexity and
qualities. Further, the quality and characteristics of the instrument
can be modified, transformed under the influence of this marvelous
musician and that of the music executed. This was the ruin of
craniomancy. The diagnostics of phrenology found themselves limited at
once and for always to the faculties, the elementary dispositions that
Gall and Spurzheim had tried in vain to discover, and which are
consistent with the execution of acts indefinitely variable.
“The phrenologists are right in connecting the ‘properties of the soul
and mind’ with organization, but they are wrong in connecting such acts
as theft and homicide with organic causes, as if these acts had the
value of real, irreducible functions.” [163]
Notwithstanding the bond between phrenology and the positivist school,
this school does not rely upon the theory in question, but upon the
transformist theory, i.e. upon the theory that gives its attention to
environment. The cause of this is that the fundamental error that forms
the point of departure is still universally prevalent. “This error
consists in believing that acts sociologically defined, like crimes,
can be connected with the anatomical conformation, without being first
referred by a psychological analysis to their psychological elements,
the only ones, whether normal or pathological, that depend directly
upon anatomy. The same error consists in confusing the combinations of
aptitudes formed under the influence of environment, with the
elementary aptitudes resulting from the native organization or its
successive modifications. It also leads to a misunderstanding of the
primary fact that two individuals similarly constituted can be led, in
consequence of the influence of dissimilar environments to which they
have been subjected since their birth, to conduct themselves in
different, and even quite opposite, ways, without their acts ceasing to
be, on that account, conformed to their anatomical constitution.” [164]
It is a fact well known to biologists that in all living beings
qualities often occur that did not appear in their immediate forebears
but in more remote generations. This reappearance of qualities is
called atavism. Its importance has been too much exaggerated, however,
and it has been made into a magic word with which, it has been thought,
everything could be explained, including crime. The line of reasoning
has been as follows: crime is one of the ordinary phenomena among
savage peoples, and must therefore have been so among the ancestors of
the civilized peoples. It is observed that among the criminals of our
day there are more of the anatomical stigmata indicating atavism than
among non-criminals; consequently crime is a phenomenon of atavism!
There are numerous errors in this reasoning. “Since we are treating the
question of crime, we must first of all know what is understood by
crime, must give a definition of it indicating what crime corresponds
to physiologically, and to what order of anatomical characteristics the
physiological tendency to crime corresponds. Considered in themselves,
these acts suppose only the existence of a conformation permitting, and
of needs demanding, their accomplishment. If such a conformation and
such needs no longer exist in the normal state among civilized peoples,
where nevertheless the acts are frequent, it would be proper to examine
the authors of them for abnormal characteristics; not merely any
abnormal characteristics, but characteristics, anatomical or
physiological, that it would be possible to connect with these
aptitudes and needs that have become abnormal.” [165]
Among the anatomical stigmata observed in criminals in prison there are
several which, considered by themselves, have nothing abnormal about
them; none of them would serve to characterize criminals. We often
find, for example, that murderers have relatively large jaws, which are
ordinarily thus an index of a conformation disposed to brutality; “but
this brutality is absolutely of the same order as that of men compared
with women; it is a masculine characteristic, and the masculine
conformation is indubitably favorable to crimes of violence much more
than the feminine; but happily it happens that most men, in civilized
countries, live under conditions in which their natural brutality does
not prevent their being very peaceable citizens, though it would be
imprudent to molest them. Very vigorous men are ordinarily endowed with
square and very solid jaws; they are men for attack or defense, who may
be very useful to society or very harmful, as the case may be. Given to
acting vigorously and brutally, this they may be, but inclined to crime
they are not, any more than the men with small jaws, whose mildness is
often the effect of muscular weakness, and who, though little given to
striking and breaking down doors, nevertheless know how to be brutal
and violent in their own way.” [166]
However, it might be thought that these anatomical characteristics,
though not dangerous in themselves, are nevertheless an indication of a
tendency on their part to act like savages. But this is not the case;
these characteristics “are morphological accidents that are purely
local and are compatible with the most fortunate conformation.” But
this is not saying that every peculiarity must remain unutilized. Thus,
for example, there are persons who are able to move their ears. “If
murder and theft were acts as little complicated, and of as little
importance as moving the ears, and if these acts, having become
criminal, did not suppose very complex anatomical and psychological
coördinations; if there were, in other words, as Gall supposed,
cerebral organs specially and innately fitted for murder and theft, we
could believe that the mere atavistic presence of these organs would
constitute a tendency to commit these crimes; but neither
anatomo-physiological analysis, nor psychology will justify today so
simple a conception.” [167]
And then it has not been proved that murder and theft were habitual
with our ancestors; they had recourse to them only under stress of
circumstances, quite like any normal man of today. Considered from an
anatomical point of view our means of injuring our fellows have
decreased; on the other hand we have now other means at our disposal
(firearms, etc.). “As to the need of pleasure and of life, this can
only have increased, and never can cupidity have been more aroused than
in our civilized society. Never have the temptations to appropriate the
goods of others been stronger and more frequent. Civilization tends to
develop wants and appetites, whence there comes this colossal extension
of the means of repression and of coercion employed to make criminal
attempts dangerous, in order that crime may not be too easy a means of
acquiring fortune. Except for purely pathological cases, the criminal
is moved by his wants, by wants that have nothing extraordinary about
them; when a man has an interest, or thinks he has an interest in
committing a crime, he brings into play muscular and cerebral aptitudes
which every normal man possesses, the same elementary aptitudes as
those he might have made use of, under other circumstances, to pursue
and punish a criminal.” [168]
Some biological facts are to be explained by atavism; their explanation
nevertheless remains mysterious. But atavism loses all its importance
as a means of explanation as soon as we know how to explain a fact by
actually existing causes, as is the case with crime. “We should
understand that it would be a question of atavistic tendencies if
assassins killed for the sole pleasure of killing, if thieves stole for
the pleasure of stealing. Now we know well that theft and murder are
only means, and that their use is called ‘work’ by professional
criminals. If they prefer this kind of work it is because it is quicker
and less painful than regular work.” [169]
It might be objected here that the horror of blood being natural to
most men it would be necessary just the same to have recourse to
atavism to explain murder. This horror of blood is assuredly found in
most men, but only so far as their interest requires. Not a single
surgeon or butcher pursues his bloody trade through atavism, but only
because forced to it by his interests. More than one born-bourgeois
thinks that he would never eat meat rather than have to kill cattle
himself, but this is only pure illusion or an unconscious hypocrisy.
For he would do it without any doubt if he could not gain his
livelihood in any other way. Do not the bourgeoisie shoot their
inoffensive fellow citizens who revolt against a social condition that
no one would dare to call ideal? Do they not mow down savages with
machine guns in order to divide up their country? Or do they not make
war against other states in order to protect their own commercial
interests? It will be objected that these things are not crimes; this
is a question of definition, but assuredly they are similar to crime.
“It is not only in the prisons that we find born-criminals; but we are
all such, if we understand by this abusive expression the possession of
hereditary tendencies to enjoy things ourselves, in case of need, to
the detriment of our fellows. The human crimes to which I have just
alluded indicate chiefly the cruelty and ferocity of the species, and
of ethnic collectivities, social or otherwise. As to the individual
equivalents of crime, I will recall further that they are not difficult
to discover in the conduct of honest men, most of whom do not trouble
themselves to make use of means as harmful and immoral as those which
criminals do. The equivalents of crime among honest men present, it is
true, the great advantage of remaining more or less unperceived by the
penal code, by the police at least, and the psychologists of the New
School; but they are nevertheless recognized as immoral and harmful by
those who have recourse to them, and they suffice to show in what way
honest men would conduct themselves if the conditions in which they
live and have lived had not driven them away from crime, legally
so-called, with as much force as the opposite environmental conditions
have driven others to it.” [170]
Having made fuller remarks to the effect that the cruel and repugnant
professions referred to above are not practiced because of atavistic
tendencies, but solely from necessity, the author ends this part of his
article as follows: “There nevertheless remains a tremendous difference
between the killing of an animal and the killing of a man, from a moral
point of view, of course, but also from the point of view of the
motives generally fitted to prevent the killing. But it must be
remarked that these motives are connected with environmental influences
which are exceedingly variable, and which, for too many persons, are
considerably diminished and at the same time replaced by influences of
the opposite environment. Most assassins have received a certain
culture appropriate to the conception of murder and to its realization,
and this is simply facilitated by their conformation, which is in no
wise exceptional. If we had only to twirl our thumb to get rid of an
enemy we should have to put forth all our efforts to harm no one.
Already too many respectable men can order murders that they would not
be courageous enough to execute. Let us congratulate ourselves that
self-interest more often deters men from murder than drives them to it,
for every normal man possesses the cerebral and muscular qualities
necessary to conceive, prepare, and execute the crime. It is not
necessary to call in the return to animal instincts through atavism.
The continuity of man and the animals is much more perfect than the
atavistic school pretends. Man is always an animal; the most dangerous
of all because he is the most intelligent and because he can utilize
his faculties in all sorts of ways, harmful or useful to his fellows
according to his own interest. The formula to be applied is to arrange
things so that every man will find more advantage in being useful to
his fellows than in injuring them. Progress in this regard would be
more rapid without this unfortunate predilection for occult causes,
which leads so many excellent minds to seek in the clouds for
explanations that lie under their noses, but which have to be found
just where they are.
“Those ferocious instincts which seem the return of another world, in
brawls or in times of revolution, are not returning at all, because
they have never disappeared. During a certain time they do not manifest
themselves in the individual or the family, because there is no need
that they should; or possibly they manifest themselves in ways less
dangerous, in connection with ordinary circumstances and relatively
favorable to tranquillity. But let there arise any need, no matter
what, of a “mobilization of the offensive and defensive forces”, then
the mobilization takes place, and the most civilized man appears under
the form of the dangerous animal he has never ceased to be, happily for
himself and his species. This man whom you take for an atavistic
throw-back, appears such to you only because you have failed to
recognize in their mild form, in yourself and in others, the
fundamental brutality and egoism of the human species. Notwithstanding
the civilizing influences in the midst of which you have lived,
notwithstanding the peaceable habits that you have contracted, and all
the horror with which you are inspired by the contrary habits of which
you fear to fall the victim, it is enough that you should be worked
upon rather strongly by a combination of annoying circumstances, that
even you should become a dangerous individual. When we wish to study
crime as anthropologists or as psychologists, we must not be afraid to
look the truth in the face, and it is important to clear our minds
beforehand, as far as possible, of the illusions of self-love, and of
deceptive conventions.” [171]
Then Professor Manouvrier criticises in a manner as just as it is
witty, the hypothesis of the “delinquent man.” He demonstrates that,
according to the method of the New School, a work could be written upon
the “hunting man” also, full of scientific observations upon his argot,
his boasting, etc., etc., upon all sorts of signs, in short, which go
to show that a taste for hunting is an atavistic phenomenon. The
explanation of crime by atavism is no more true than this other, for
both can be explained by the environment.
If we hold absolutely to the expression: “born-criminal”, every man is
one, just as every dog is a born-swimmer. Every dog knows how to swim
very well, but this does not prevent a number of dogs from never
swimming, since ordinarily there are more convenient ways of crossing
the water. In the same way every man is a born-criminal, but most men
refrain from becoming actual criminals, since that course is more
advantageous to them than the other.
“No one is ignorant that the educational influences to which one is
subjected during his whole life and especially during infancy, and the
solicitations of self-interest, are exceedingly variable under
different circumstances and for different individuals; and that the
educational influences and the solicitations of self-interest unite
very generally to furnish the motive for criminal conduct and for
honest conduct as well. And it is this that governs every man’s manner
of acting in his relations with others; and it must not be forgotten in
treating of anthropology, whether anatomical, physio-psychological, or
sociological. It is never forgotten in practical life.
“We all know that, whatever our fundamental character may be and the
honest habits that we have been able to form, our manner of conducting
ourselves may vary considerably under the influence of changes in our
environment, and in proportion to those changes. It is a temptation to
which the most austere man would greatly dread to be exposed, and to
which he would never voluntarily expose himself, because he knows that
the tendencies imputed to criminals (said to be atavistic, but all
simply human) are not lacking in himself. These tendencies, when they
have found abundant and honorable means of satisfaction during long
years, become so much the more to be dreaded on this account, and run
great danger of becoming criminal as soon the legal means of
satisfaction disappear. The man who comes to lack these means finds
himself in a much more dangerous situation as far as the likelihood of
his becoming a criminal is concerned, than one who had become
accustomed to privations.” [172]
Professor Manouvrier begins the last section of his study by asking
what is the significance of the anatomical peculiarities observed in
the so-called born-criminals. “The truth probably is that we do find in
a number of criminals in prison more of the lower or abnormal
characteristics than in a like number of persons chosen at random. But
this in no wise proves that those among the criminals who have such
characteristics, have been predestined to crime from their physical
make-up. Those among them who are not so constituted are nevertheless
criminals, and honest men who bear the criminal marks have nevertheless
remained honest.
“The truth is that the ‘new school’ consider as criminals only the
refuse of this class, the prisoners; just as, when they wanted to
depict prostitutes, they took poor syphilitic girls who had been at
least three years in brothels, that is to say, the refuse of refuse.
Under what family and social conditions these criminals and prostitutes
lived during childhood and afterward, it is easy for anyone to imagine
who has caught but a glimpse of the slums of manufacturing towns. In
order to escape crime and prostitution or mendicity when one has grown
up in such an environment, it is necessary to have virtues that are
extremely rare among respectable people, so much the more so since, to
the temptations that come from poverty in the midst of luxury, is
ordinarily added the effect of example, and even of education of the
particular kind that is called criminal education. All this may be
resisted for some time, but it is only the first step that costs. The
good qualities themselves that one possesses become the causes of
crime. It may even be maintained that physical excellencies themselves
drive men to crime more strongly than defects, when once the external
conditions become favorable for crime.” [173]
The fact that we generally find more inferior individuals among the
criminals imprisoned than among other men must be attributed to the two
following circumstances: first, that criminals who have not been
arrested, owe their liberty generally to the fact that they are better
endowed; and second, that in all social classes a selection goes on by
which those best constituted are always in possession of the most
desirable and least painful means of existence, while to those less
privileged fall the lowest professions, and they “end sooner or later
by falling into the ditch where the influences that drive men to crime
reach their maximum frequency and power, while the contrary motives are
proportionately weak.” Those who have known better days sometimes
prefer suicide to crime; but those who are born in the ditch, know no
other life, and are consequently led into crime.
What is much more astonishing than crime is the fact that workmen labor
courageously and patiently for ten or twelve hours a day, and
notwithstanding this lead only a miserable life. The reason is that
they have known nothing but labor since infancy and have always had to
be content with very simple amusements. It goes without saying that one
man is more moved to commit crimes than another, although the
conditions under which they are living are the same, just as an athlete
will use violence quicker than a weakling. But this is no reason to
declare strength a factor of crime, since it serves for useful acts as
well. Acts which are contrary to the proper working of society are,
therefore, called abnormal and those are called normal that are in
harmony with it. But it is not therefore permissible to transfer this
distinction to the field of biology, and call the criminal abnormal.
“Aptitudes that are very normal physiologically, may be employed for
acts that are equally normal physiologically, but which, from a social
point of view are classed as abnormal, because contrary to the social
prosperity. Yet this is an abuse of the word ‘abnormal’, because
society as at present constituted is, in its normal functioning,
consistent with innumerable causes of conflict between its own
interests and those of individuals. And just as the annoying
consequences of our mistakes often make us recognize the truth, so
crimes very often serve to indicate to societies the reforms they ought
to bring about in order to perfect themselves.
“Every individual has wants to satisfy, wants primordial or secondary,
that may become infinitely complicated and clothed in forms as much
more various as the environment becomes more complex. Now it happens in
every society, and especially in very civilized societies, that the
different individuals do not find the same facilities, and further, do
not possess the same means of action. There is an evident disproportion
between the existing needs and the milder means of satisfying them;
whence the struggle for existence and well-being.
“In our estimating the intrinsic worth of criminals, we must not fail
to take account of this fact, that most honest men do not deprive
themselves of any of the pleasures which are the aim of criminals, and
that most criminals, in order to escape crime would have had to have
rare virtue. Among the legal means of satisfaction offered by society
there are those that are easy and agreeable, among others that of
drawing the income from capital amassed by one’s parents. There are
also difficult and painful ones, which are the lot of those whom
pecuniary heredity has not secured against the so-called criminal
heredity. In order to share legally in the pleasures of which they are
witnesses, those whom we may call disinherited by fortune, must make
efforts of which those born to wealth have no idea. This is why, if the
disinherited seek a short-cut, we must ask ourselves, before we
consider them as monstrous beings, whether under the same circumstances
we should be able to keep to the legal path.
“The struggle for existence and well-being is regulated by social laws.
If these were perfect, each individual could satisfy his wants in an
equitable measure, that is to say in the measure of his faculties, his
labor, and the service he renders to the community. Crimes would then
be diminished in an enormous proportion, but they would not be
suppressed, for there would still be inevitable competitions, and the
time will probably never come when, on the one hand, each individual
will have just the wants that his social worth will permit him to
satisfy legally, and, on the other, will have sufficient virtue to
renounce the satisfaction of wants, even factitious ones, which he has
once contracted without being able to comply with the conditions which
the most just law imposes for this satisfaction.” [174]
The penal law is one of the means the object of which is combating the
illegal satisfaction of wants. Everyone knows, however, that this means
does not always attain the end sought. The penal law will, in fact,
produce a diminution of criminality only when it shall have brought
about profound penal changes,—when punishment shall be no more than the
useful and necessary reaction against acts that are harmful to the
well-being of the community and to the development of society.
It is to be proved that there is, besides the normal, or ordinary,
origin of crime, a pathological, or extraordinary, origin. “It is quite
superfluous to bring in tendencies atavistically recalled by
pathological degeneracy, in order to explain the harmful effects of
this degeneracy, and of mental diseases, upon the way in which the
degenerate and mentally diseased act. The least functional trouble is
enough to alter our sensations, our judgment, our imagination, our
deliberations, and consequently, to make us act wrongly.” [175]
The theory of the innate character of crime through atavism is
consequently quite erroneous. “It would be unseemly on my part to refer
it, through atavism, to original sin or to the call of the blood of the
ancient melodramas. I will not even say that it is derived through
tradition, which is an environmental influence, from the old
phrenological doctrine, although that is an error of the same kind.
Errors, in fact, are like crimes; they have no need of atavism nor of
immediate heredity, nor even of tradition, in order to repeat
themselves. Causes of error or causes of crime, the springs are far
from being dried up. They always flow abundantly. It is necessary in
science to react against errors, and in society to react against
crimes. But it must never be forgotten that every man is normally
exposed to commit both errors and crimes.” [176]
—I shall make only a few observations upon Professor Manouvrier’s
study, a work which, in my opinion, is one of the best, not to say the
best, upon the origin of crime, and in about fifty pages says more than
many a bulky volume.
In the first place Professor Manouvrier shows that in our days wants
have increased greatly, and he believes that civilization is the cause
of it. I am of the opinion that this last assertion is not correct and
that civilization has nothing to do with it. Many writers commit this
error of confusing civilization and the present mode of production, and
it is just for this reason that it is useful and necessary to correct
it. All the evils that have been brought upon the peoples of Africa and
of China, war, alcohol, etc., etc., have been called by the collective
name of “civilization.” In reality it is those who have brought all
these calamities upon these countries, and have tried to destroy a
veritable, age-long civilization like that of China, who are the
barbarians. It is not a civilizing instinct that has driven European
states to a policy of expansion, but rather cupidity, eagerness for
gain on the part of the owning class, who are seeking a new outlet for
their merchandise; in short, it is the present mode of production,
capitalism.
The same is true with regard to the constant increase of wants; it is
the present system which creates wants. New methods of procuring profit
are invented, and it is only with this in view that many inventions are
made, most of them useless, often even harmful. And on the other hand
there is a class of persons who grasp at any means, even the most
absurd, of passing the time, and have the money to procure these means.
And these wants spring up in other persons also, and the impossibility
of satisfying them makes men the more eager. Consequently it is not
civilization, but capitalism, which must be designated as the cause of
this phenomenon.
In the second place, Professor Manouvrier thinks that criminality would
diminish enormously, but without disappearing entirely, if the social
laws were perfected so that each individual could satisfy his wants
according to his capacities, his labor, and his services to the
community. This is, in my opinion, entirely correct; but the maxim of
Saint-Simon, “to every man according to his capacities, to each
capacity according to its works”, which, in Professor Manouvrier’s
opinion, is perfect, by many others is not thought to be so, though
superior to the present distribution of commodities. We can set over
against this the rule, “that each shall work according to his faculties
and his strength, and receive according to his needs.” If this were
realized, crime would become almost unimaginable. Many persons are of
the opinion that such a thing could never be realized. But they forget
that it is exclusively from the environment that the enormous
differences in wants arise (the wife of the millionaire has perhaps a
thousand times as many needs as the wife of the proletarian). If these
two persons had been born and brought up in the same environment, the
wants of the one would have been to those of the other perhaps as 1 to
3, or even less, but certainly not more. And then those who believe in
a future distribution according to needs, are of the opinion (and think
they can prove it) that, if in the present organization of society
egoism is omnipotent, the feeling of solidarity will be so strengthened
in the future social organization, that the man endowed with great
abilities and much energy, will not begrudge his fellow less highly
endowed, the satisfaction of all his wants.
I would, at the same time, make a remark concerning the environmental
school in general, a remark not to be considered as a criticism, for I
agree perfectly that it is the environment that makes the criminal. It
is this: it is not enough for the treatment of the question of
criminality, to furnish proof of the assertion that the cause of crime
is not inherent in man; it is also necessary to show in what respects
the environment is criminogenous, and in what way it can be improved.
Now the French School has given but little attention to this.—
V.
A. BAER.
The work of Dr. Baer, “Der Verbrecher in anthropologischer Beziehung”,
has only an indirect importance for our subject, as the title
indicates. Since his medical and anthropological studies lead him to
the conclusion that the social atmosphere is the fundamental cause of
crime, it is worth while to note his opinion. For this it will be
sufficient to quote the following: “For us crime is, as Prins
excellently expresses it, not an individual phenomenon, but a social
one. ‘Criminality is made up of the elements of human society itself,
it is not transcendent but immanent. We can see in it a kind of
degeneration of the social organism.... The criminal and the honest man
are each dependent upon their environment. There are social conditions
that are favorable to moral health, where there is no tendency, no
inclination toward crime; there is a social environment where the
atmosphere is corrupt, where unwholesome elements have accumulated,
where crime settles as soot does in a flue, where the tendency toward
crime bears fruit.’ Though Ferri has recently advocated the opinion
that the criminal is the result of three factors, operative at the same
time, and that these three causes are individual (i.e.
anthropological), physical, [177] and social; in our opinion, on the
other hand, these three causes are actually to be reduced to a single
one, if, as he himself points out, we take into consideration the fact
that the first two are both dependent upon social conditions. The
anthropological and physical stigmata of criminals are, as we have
endeavored to show above, in most cases wholly conditioned by the
influences and circumstances of their environment.
“Crime, we will close this work by saying, is not the consequence of a
special organization of the criminal, an organization which is peculiar
to the criminal alone, and which forces him to the commission of
criminal acts. The criminal, such by habit and apparently born as such,
bears many marks of bodily and mental deformity, which have, however,
neither in their totality nor singly, so marked and peculiar a
character as to differentiate the criminal from his fellows as a
distinct type. The criminal bears the traces of degeneracy that are to
be found in abundance among the lower classes from which he mostly
takes his rise. These traces, acquired through social conditions and
transmitted, in his case at times emerge in stronger form. Whoever
would do away with crime must do away with the social wrongs in which
crime takes root and grows, and, in establishing and applying forms of
punishment, must give more weight to the individuality of the criminal
than to the category under which the crime falls.” [178]
CHAPTER V.
THE BIO-SOCIOLOGISTS.
I.
AD. PRINS.
I cannot better give Professor Prins’s opinion upon the subject of my
work than by quoting what he says in his book, “Criminalité et
répression”, and especially in his first chapter entitled “De la
criminalité en général. Des classes criminelles. Des délinquants
d’accident et des délinquants de profession.” There we read: “There
exists no abstract type of a moral man, nor of a guilty man; crime is
not an individual phenomenon, but a social phenomenon. Criminality
proceeds from the very elements of humanity itself; it is not
transcendent, but immanent; we can see in it a sort of degeneration of
the social organism.” [179]
There is an environment favorable to moral health, where the tendency
to crime is almost wholly lacking; there is a social environment where
the atmosphere is corrupt, where unwholesome elements are heaped up,
where the most vigorous perish, where criminality spreads like the
mould in the dunghill; the tendency toward crime there is formidable,
and we can say in this sense that it is a social fact with a social
cause, and that it is in intimate connection with a given social
organization.
Let us consider our own epoch for a moment. A century of progress and
refinement is a century of vices; the increasing complexity of our
mechanism creates, with new temptations, new occasions of falling. The
car of civilization, like that of Juggernaut, destroys many of those
who throw themselves under its wheels. The world has enormous appetites
that it cannot satisfy: sensuality, greed of gain, a taste for and
facility in speculation; the contrast between great wealth and extreme
poverty; the brutal necessities of the struggle for existence in the
face of the concentration of property and of capital; the defects of
the industrial organization, which abandons the proletariat to chance,
keeps no watch over apprenticeship, and leaves the child of the
working-man to the excitations of the streets and the promiscuity of
the workshop, and finally sharpens everywhere the obscure instincts of
animalism; all this recoils upon criminality with deplorable certainty.
How far wrong we should be in such an environment simply to contrast
the delinquent with the honest man! It is two social states that are
contrasted; the one is based upon comfortable means, sociability,
mutual protection, useful work, and thrift; the other upon poverty,
isolation, egoism, and unproductive labor. And in the great urban
agglomerations, pauperism, mendicity and vagrancy, idleness, the spirit
of adventure, prostitution, the dissipation of strength, everything, in
short, naturally concurs in developing social anemia.
“Take any district whatsoever, however poor, uncivilized, and wild, and
you will always find in the great cities, London or Paris, New York or
San Francisco, a worse environment and greater depravity. It is here,
in the lowest slums, where never a glimmer of physical or moral
well-being penetrates, that the disinherited live. They get a glimpse
of the splendor of luxury only to hate it; they respect neither
property nor life, because neither property nor life has any real value
for them; they are born, grow pale, struggle, and die, without
suspecting that for certain persons existence is good fortune, property
a right, virtue a habit, and calm a constant state. Such is the natural
and fatal home of criminality.
“In a quarter subjected to detestable hygiene, built upon marshy soil,
devoid of drainage and potable water, furrowed with narrow and filthy
streets, covered with hovels without life or air, where an atrophied
population vegetates, epidemics are inevitable and propagate themselves
with great intensity. In the same way, crime finds an easy and certain
prey in the environment of the poor of a great city. The illegitimate
and abandoned children, the children of convicts and prostitutes, the
vagrants, etc. are so many designated recruits. Without family, without
traditions, without fixed home or settled occupation, without relations
with the ruling classes, what wonder that they have no other motive
than complete egoism, no other activity than selfish and transitory
efforts for the immediate satisfaction of their material appetites? The
emigration from the country to the city still further increases this
army and multiplies the chances of crime. When the sons of peasants
leave the plow for the workshop and come to seek fortune in the furnace
of great cities, they follow the spirit of adventure; they must have,
at any price, a means of subsistence, and as competition is great and
temptations arise at every step, the prisons profit by this overplus
that the country gives to the city. Another consequence of the
immigration from the country is that the population becomes excessive,
places are lacking, and wages fall below the living expenses.
Ducpetiaux showed, in 1856, that the budget of the working-man in the
great cities is lower than the sum representing the budget of the
working-man in prison. This situation has not changed, and the laboring
class, badly lodged, badly nourished, vegetate at the mercy of economic
crises. The working-man is always on the verge of vagrancy, the vagrant
always on the verge of crime. The whole proletariat is thus exposed in
the front rank, and whether it is a question of sickness or crime, it
is the first to fall.” [180]
“Such are the conditions of the development of the criminal classes,
that is to say of the classes where we meet the tendency to crime. And
it is of importance to remark that we can determine their legal
character; they are the vagrants and delinquents by profession. They
are clearly differentiated from the vagabonds and delinquents by
accident. This distinction, which modern statistics has brought into
relief, is now the basis of penal science, and the judge can no longer
overlook it.
“The occasional delinquents constitute the minority, their life is
regular, their instincts are right; a sudden passion, an unpremeditated
outburst, a passing depression of the will, leads them into crime; a
sort of fever dominates them and, the fit once past, their normal life
takes up its course again.
“On the other hand, the professional delinquents, who make up the
largest part of the population of the prisons, are really the criminal
class. They are the hardened, the incorrigible, the recidivists. They
form, by the side of regular society, the great rebel tribe, where
gather and mingle poverty, ignorance, vice, idleness, and prostitution.
The soldiers of this army obey, not a momentary desire, but a permanent
tendency. They do not always commit crime for crime’s sake, but the
most trivial incident drives them to it; they profit by every
opportunity, and we can say that, as in certain circles virtue is a
reflex act, so crime is a reflex act with them. Further, they have,
quite like the civilized world, a public opinion which supports them,
arouses them, gives them their own kind of popularity, and constitutes,
in a word, an incentive for the heroes of vice, just as the other
public opinion encourages the soldiers of duty.
“What is true of criminal society as a whole, is equally true of the
individual as such. In each infraction of the law, besides the
accidental factor, i.e. age, character, temperament, in a word, the
personal disposition, there is the collective or social factor, i.e.
the environment, the permanent conditions, the general laws. With the
occasional delinquent the individual factor predominates, it is
especially the man that appears. With the habitual delinquent, it is
the social factor, the collectivity that comes upon the scene.
“In the well-to-do, polished, educated classes, who have lacked nothing
and have had the benefit of civilizing influences from the cradle, the
fault is chiefly personal, and it is the exception. In the lower
strata, where everything is lacking, where, to combat evil, men have
neither in the present, social protection, nor in the past, the
generations of ancestors who have enjoyed power, wealth, and education,
it is chiefly collective. In this sense, then, the collective forces
have a dominant action in criminality; in order to combat it these must
be attacked, and the legislator finds in the law only a blunted weapon
if he does not understand this supreme truth, the social character of
criminality.” [181]
II.
W. D. MORRISON.
The preface to “Crime and its Causes” contains an abridgment of the
opinion of the author upon the influence of economic conditions. He
says there:
“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.” [182]
The chapter “Climate and Crime” contains some observations that are of
interest in connection with our subject. In speaking of the great
number of crimes against persons in Italy, the author says:
“Nor can it be said to be entirely due to economic distress. A
condition of social misery has undoubtedly something to do with the
production of crime. In countries where there is much wealth side by
side with much misery, as in France and England, adverse social
circumstances drive a certain portion of the community into criminal
courses. But where this great inequality of social conditions does not
exist—where all are poor as in Ireland or Italy—poverty alone is not a
weighty factor in ordinary crime. In Ireland, for example, there is
almost as much poverty as exists in Italy, and if the amount of crime
were determined by economic circumstances alone, Ireland ought to have
as black a record as her southern sister. Instead of that she is on the
whole as free from crime as the most prosperous countries of Europe.”
[183]
—This quotation is one of the best samples of Morrison’s logic and
knowledge of facts! Italy is poor; Ireland is poor; the former has many
crimes, the latter few. Hence, economic conditions are not an important
factor. To say nothing of the care necessary in comparing two countries
where the penal law, police, courts, etc. are very different, there is
an error of logic in the quotation. For poverty may be in one of these
countries a determinant that leads to a certain phenomenon, while in
another country it does not lead to it, because neutralized by a
counter-determinant. And then, the knowledge of facts that Morrison
gives evidence of here, is not great. It is not at all true that in
Italy every one is poor. On the contrary, there is plenty of wealth in
that country, while Ireland, on the other hand, is drained by landlords
who live elsewhere. [184]—
The chapter that interests us next is that entitled “Destitution and
Crime.” “A ‘destitute person’ is a person who is without house or home,
who has no work, who is able and willing to work but can get none, and
has nothing but starvation staring him in the face.” [185]
According to Morrison there are two kinds of crime of which a destitute
person may be guilty, namely theft and mendicity. Two questions must be
answered, then, first, what percentage is there of these crimes?
second, how far can one attribute theft and mendicity to destitution?
During the years 1887–1888 the number of cases tried in England and
Wales was 726,698, of which 8% were crimes against property and 7%
offenses against the “Vagrancy Acts.” Consequently 15% of all the
crimes might have been committed because of destitution. From
investigations made by himself, half the thieves had work and were
earning something at the time they committed their crimes.
Now we still have to explain the other half of the cases of theft.
Those who committed these thefts were without work, then; but there
were among them habitual criminals, and these could probably have found
work, but did not want to work. Therefore they were not “destitute
persons.” This leaves still 25% of the thieves. Among these destitution
is now truly the direct cause. However lack of work is not the sole
cause, but the fact that children of proletarians are left to
themselves when their parents are sick or dead, enters in. And then
many aged working-men become criminals because they are too old to work
and no one supports them. Drunkards also at times come to commit crimes
because of poverty, since they find it difficult to work. The estimate
is, then, as follows:
Proportion of criminals earning at the time of arrest 4%
,, ,, ,, habitual thieves 2%
,, ,, ,, adults without shelter and old men 1%
,, ,, drunkards, vagrants 1%
,, ,, crimes against property compared with total
number of crimes 8%
Then come the infractions of the “Vagrancy Acts.” The offenses that are
punished under these laws are chiefly prostitution, presence in public
places with criminal intentions, presence in a particular house with
criminal intentions, and carrying burglars’ implements. Prostitution
aside, destitution ought not to be considered as the cause of these
infractions, according to the author, because the guilty persons are
those who ordinarily will not work and would not change their lot for
anyone else’s. The class of vagrants is no more unhappy than any other;
it has even its own philosophy. (—Who could be unhappy, then? This
statement of the case gives one a great desire to ask the author how it
happens that no people of means have adopted this enviable career.—)
The same reasoning applies to most of the mendicants (45% of those who
break the vagrancy laws), they do not want to work. Another fraction is
made up of those who cannot find work; their number is difficult to
determine; according to Morrison’s opinion it is not very high (he
estimates it at 2% for mendicants). It is especially aged persons who
belong to this class. There are two principal reasons for this.
First, the increasing use of machines, which throw workmen out of
employment, while increasing the possibility of utilizing the labor of
women and children.
—However true this observation, it is nevertheless very incomplete. It
is not the machine that is the cause, but the system of free labor,
which throws everyone on his own resources when he can work no longer,
whether this is from lack of work or from the disability of the
worker.—
A second cause of vagrancy and mendicity is to be found in the Trades
Unions. For these Unions have been able to obtain a uniform wage, and
aged workmen must, in accordance with their rules, earn as much as the
young ones although not able to do as much work. The employers, not
being able to afford to give them the whole amount, discharge them.
The circumstance that there are more male than female beggars is a
proof to the author that economic conditions are not the cause of
mendicity, etc., for women ordinarily live under worse conditions than
men.
“The only possible explanation of this state of thing is that vagrancy
is, to a very large extent, entirely unconnected with economic
conditions; the position of trade either for good or evil is a very
secondary factor in producing this disease in the body politic; its
extirpation would not be effected by the advent of an economic
millennium; its roots are, as a rule, in the disposition of the
individual and not to any serious degree in the industrial constitution
of society.” [186]
After having stated that, in his opinion, prostitution also has little
to do with economic conditions, Morrison arrives at the conclusion that
14% of the delinquents under the Vagrancy Acts have been made so by
destitution; as such delinquents constitute 7% of the total of the
criminal population, these destitute persons form 2% of the whole.
[187] Adding these 2% to the 2% of destitute persons among the thieves,
we get a total of 4%. Further, the author estimates the destitute
persons among the other criminals (those not punished for theft or
infractions of the Vagrancy Acts) at 1%. Of all criminals, then, 5%
have become such from destitution, according to Morrison.
—I shall not insist upon proving that these calculations have little
value. In the first place all the figures are only estimates, without
any indication of what they are based on. In the second place Morrison
has only proved, supposing his estimates are correct, that 5% of the
criminals belong to a category defined by the author himself. All this
gives him absolutely no right to conclude that economic conditions are
not a powerful factor in crime. Just where the writer believes that the
question has been solved the difficulties properly commence. If we wish
to treat the question of vagrancy in a scientific manner we must ask:
how does it happen that with the present mode of production there are
found persons who prefer vagrancy to work? This is one of the questions
that must be answered, yet for Morrison it does not exist. The causes
of professional theft, alcoholism, etc. seem, according to the author,
to have nothing to do with economic conditions. I shall show in the
second part of this work how far wrong he is.—
The following chapter treats of “poverty and crime.” To prove the
slightness of the causal connection between the two, Morrison gives the
following table:
Italy 1880–84 New cases of theft per an. to 100,000 inh. 221
France 1879–83 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 121
Belgium 1876–80 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 143
Germany 1882–83 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 262
England 1880–84 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 228
Scotland 1880–84 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 289
Ireland 1880–84 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 101
Hungary 1876–80 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 82
Spain 1883–84 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 74
England is six times as rich as Italy, and the figure for theft is
greater; hence, economic conditions are not causes, etc. etc. [188]
—It has been some years since Quetelet pointed out (see Chap. II, Sec.
II, of this work) that absolute wealth throws no light on the criminal
question, because the total wealth of a country gives no idea of its
distribution. Yet Morrison thinks that the preceding table proves the
correctness of his statement!—
The author sees a second proof in support of his reasoning in the fact
that during the prosperous period of 1870–74 criminality in England was
greater than during the period of economic depression from 1884 to
1888. (—See our summaries of the works of Tugan-Baranowsky and of
Müller, where it is shown that the economic conditions of that period
do have a relation to criminality. There is perhaps no country where
the connection between crime and the course of economic events is so
close as in England; and it is surprising that there are authors like
Morrison who are so little in touch with the situation, and who yet
express themselves so decidedly.—)
In America the immigrants commit fewer crimes on the average than those
who are born in the country; the position of these last being better,
economic conditions are not causes of crime. (—As if assertions as
vague as this: “the American has a better position than the immigrant”,
could have any value!—)
Morrison sees another proof in the fact that the criminality in the
English colony of Victoria, where prosperity is fairly general, differs
little from that of other countries where the prosperity is less. (—See
A. Sutherland, “Résultats de la déportation en Australie”, Compte Rendu
du Ve Congr. d’Anthr. Crim., p. 270, where it is shown that criminality
in Australia on account of the deportation of English criminals is
great, but has fallen continually since 1850, and now is not so high as
in Italy, Sweden, Saxony, and Prussia. So this proof given by the
author is not convincing.—)
Then the author draws attention to the fact that, according to him, the
number of criminals in the different classes of society in England is
proportional to the respective numbers of individuals in each of these
classes. Finally he also thinks that his thesis is supported by the
fact that during the summer months the prisons in England are more
populated than in winter.
—The author deceives himself, for to find out that more crimes are
committed in winter than in summer one has only to consult, not the
statistics of the prisons, but those of the courts; the former give no
information as to the time when the offense was committed; it is even
probable that a part of the prisoners incarcerated in summer committed
their offenses in winter. Many writers who have not fallen into this
error have come to the conclusion that crimes and misdemeanors against
property, which are those chiefly in question, increase in winter and
decrease in summer.
If one wished to make a complete criticism of Morrison’s work it would
be necessary to write a whole book, so great is the number of his
errors and omissions, which is why I refer to the second part of my
work.
The fundamental error of the author is that he believes that the
question of how far economic conditions lead to crime is exhausted when
the effect of poverty has been investigated. This is only a part
(though an important one) of the question, which though apparently
simple is in reality very complicated.
Finally, I must protest against the unmerited reproach that the English
Trades Unions are the cause of criminality among aged working-men. We
live in a society in which a great proportion of the men wear
themselves out for a small wage in order to enrich others, and where
aged working-men who can now do little or no work are tossed aside like
oranges from which the juice has been squeezed. When they commit
crimes, therefore, it is society that is the cause of it, and not the
unions, which, after years of struggle, have succeeded in getting
higher wages for their members than those of non-union labor. [189]—
III.
F. VON LISZT.
The following quotation, taken from “Die gesellschaftlichen Ursachen
des Verbrechens”, [190] gives the opinion of this author in a few
words:
“Crime is the necessary result of the joint action of two groups of
conditions. The first group is due, partly to the innate, partly to the
acquired character of the agent; the other to the environment
surrounding him. The microbe of crime flourishes only in the culture
medium of society. This sentence, which has gradually become a
commonplace, indicates the significance of social conditions for the
origination and development of criminality.” [191]
“It is obvious that a diminution in the number of certain crimes may be
brought about by an improvement in the social order. The impulse toward
crime is undoubtedly quickly strengthened by social conditions, and
also quickly made weaker. Political and religious offenses become so
much the more numerous, the more definitely and relentlessly the
dominant opinion takes its stand against diverse persuasions. If today
a certain tendency in art were to attain state recognition and the
protection of the criminal law, tomorrow the aesthetic heretic would be
persecuted as the religious heretics were persecuted in earlier
centuries. The sexual instinct will constantly long for satisfaction
and take it where it finds it. If you prohibit the possibility of such
satisfaction within the bounds of legality, the instinct will break the
bonds and lead to crime. And whoever finds neither bread nor work will,
in the great majority of cases, be able to discover ways and means of
securing the one without the other at the expense of society.... ‘The
beast in man’ is in all circles, in all strata of our society.... But
the beast, with all its wild passions, with rage and hate, with
covetousness and envy, with thirst for blood and insatiable vanity, is
it not derived from father or mother, who have drained the pleasures of
life or the woes of life to the dregs, who were corrupted in blood
through their own fault, or without their own fault, before they gave
life to the germ to which they imparted the curse of their forefathers
as a heritage?
“A reorganization of our social order will materially lessen the
impulsion to crime in the men who are living today, but infinitely more
important and infinitely more permanent will be its effect upon coming
generations. While diminishing the number of those tainted by heredity
it will tame the beast in man. This is no Utopia. It will be easier,
perhaps, to underestimate the effect of such a transformation, than to
appreciate its full value.
“But which transformation? That is the question that we must answer, if
we are not to be pushed aside as harmless visionaries.
“Our entire education, in school as in life, rests upon suggestion.
What keeps us from crime is the inhibitory ideas, which are instilled
into us until they permeate our flesh and blood and control our
actions, without our being conscious of it. ‘Thou shalt’, ‘thou shalt
not’, these general prescriptions of right and morality, of religion
and philanthropy, or whatever you choose to call it, must determine our
conduct, unless we stop to consider, hesitate, and delay....
“The inhibitory ideas, however, retain their force only if we live in
the community of our fellows, the enclosed circle held together by like
views and a community of interests. Put upon his own resources, the
true man makes himself known. But the men who can do this are rare. The
great majority of us need outside support. Who has not seen in his own
experience how the judgment and prejudice, the beliefs and
superstitions of his associates have a determining effect upon him; how
he supports others and is supported by them? Break up the enclosed
circle and you weaken or annihilate the inhibitory ideas; shatter
society to atoms, so that each stands by himself in the war of all
against all, and you set loose whatever evil instincts have their roots
in us; ‘declass’ man and you have driven him into the arms of crime.
“And this declassing has been most abundantly provided for by our
present economic system. It has unshackled egoism without setting any
bounds to it. It reaps what it sows. In the proletariat it has created
the very medium in which the microbe of crime flourishes. Next to the
wealth of individuals lies the misery of the masses. Do we still
wonder, then, that the criminal-statistician laments an increasing
number of cases. Every society has the criminals that it deserves.”
[192]
—The opinion of Professor von Liszt and of other bio-sociologists with
regard to crime is a union of the doctrine of the Italian and French
schools. Having already given a criticism of these schools I will limit
myself to a few remarks.
The formula, “every crime is the product of an individual factor on the
one side, and of social factors on the other”, is of little value for
the question, being applicable to every act, even the most laudable,
and explains very little of what is peculiar to crime. A more special
examination of the so-called individual factor of crime shows that it
is formed, for example, of great needs, of highly developed muscular
strength—in short, of things which do not belong to crime alone; or it
may be a lack of moral conceptions (the result of an unfavorable
environment, of bad education, etc.). A veritable individual factor is
to be found only in some special cases, where crime is the result of a
predisposition, resulting from a morbid mental condition, combined with
unfavorable circumstances. At times, then, crime is the resultant of an
individual factor with a social factor; in most cases this is not so.
In maintaining that it is always these two together which give birth to
crime, one makes use of a commonplace, since by individual factors are
understood conditions necessary to every act; or else the statement is
quite inaccurate.
Finally it may be said also that most of the bio-sociologists, while
recognizing the great influence exercised by environment do not give
any description of this environment. It is not enough to name social
imperfections existing in our days, and to demand their reform, one
after another; we must first of all find out whether these
imperfections are connected with the present economic system, and can
be removed without attacking the system itself. [193]—
IV.
P. NÄCKE. [194]
In his work, “Verbrechen und Wahnsinn beim Weibe”, Dr. Näcke treats the
criminal question from the medico-anthropological point of view.
However, his remarks upon the connection which exists between economic
conditions and crime are very important. In the fifth chapter,
entitled, “Die anthropologisch-biologischen Beziehungen zum Verbrechen
und Wahnsinn beim Weibe”, he puts the question: can one fix the idea of
“crime” anatomically?
According to him the answer must be an absolute negative. “Semal is
right when he says: ‘The moral sense is a slow and gradual acquisition
of the ages.... The conscience of peoples like that of the individual,
calls every act moral that is useful to the agent himself or to
others....’ Every people, then, fixes the concept ‘crime’ according to
the moral code prevailing among them at the time; it is consequently
not rooted in man physiologically, but is as Manouvrier brilliantly
demonstrates, purely sociological. It is therefore really nonsense to
seek for anthropological stigmata for a sociological concept.
“But another consideration also leads us to the same result. The
stability of a people demands the establishing of certain boundaries,
called ‘laws’, the transgression of which might disturb the social
order, and therefore must be punished. But the laws form only single
boundary marks, not a tight enclosure, so that between them many,
consciously or not, pass through without being caught or punished.
Besides, the laws of a higher morality do not always correspond with
the prevailing legal system, so that many things are offenses in the
eyes of the moral code that are not such in the eyes of the law, a fact
which, as is well known, the conscienceless take advantage of. It is
plain, therefore, that there are innumerable transgressions that are
not punished, innumerable criminals who pass as honest men, so that we
cannot really speak of criminals and honest men, but simply of the
punished and the unpunished.
“Punishment is, however, as we have already seen, a poor criterion.
Habitual criminals are often not nearly so depraved as many persons of
good reputation, especially in certain districts whose moral concepts
are of a very elastic kind; or as others who have, to be sure, been
punished but once, but who, in all their actions, have always been
crafty criminals.” [195]
“As there is to be found no such thing as absolute bodily and mental
soundness, so there is no such thing as an absolutely ‘honest’ man. ‘We
are altogether sinners’, say the Scriptures with entire truth—and not
in thought only—none of us is proof against becoming a criminal, and
under certain circumstances, even a great one.” [196]
“There is an unbroken gradation from the purest to the worst man. When
we speak simply of ‘criminals’ we mean only those standing on the
farthest step, who are not always, however, the worst. It is a
question, then, of the refuse of the world, and not of real crime. In
every environment there are always individuals who become evil-doers
exclusively or chiefly through circumstances—this possibility no mortal
can escape—and on the other hand there are those who owe this in part
(seldom, however, exclusively) to their inferior psychic personality,
which allows them to run counter to the prevailing morality and drives
them to breach of the law; these last constitute the criminals in the
narrow sense.” [197]
In chapter VI, “Zusammenhang von Verbrechen und Wahnsinn”, the author
explains that in case an individual factor exists, it is not ordinarily
this alone that leads to crime, but it must be coupled with a social
factor.
This is what Dr. Näcke says of the causes of this individual factor:
“Indeed it is even probable that in the last analysis the individual
factor is dependent upon the environment, since this so influenced the
parents, grandparents, etc. that the germ of the next generation must
have been injured directly or later through corrupted blood or narrow
pelvis on the part of the mother (both again dependent upon the
environment).” [198]
Further along he makes this idea more specific, when he is examining
the different causes of crime. Among these causes the author cites the
following:
1. Lesion of the germ (favored especially by the marriage of
degenerates).
2. Alcoholism.
3. Syphilis.
4. Malnutrition and unhealthy mode of life.
5. Excessive labor of women and children.
6. Bad domestic life.
7. Desertion in which children under age are left.
The author sums up in the following terms: “In what has gone before we
have attempted to pick out and follow up some threads of the complex
social fabric, in the firm persuasion that only an improvement of the
environment in its thousand-fold ramifications will be able effectively
to combat crime, and gradually to exert a favorable influence upon the
individual factors, which are certainly not to be undervalued.
“If we survey the whole matter, everything comes in the end to the
stomach-question; only so long as this is not solved—and perhaps it
never can be satisfactorily solved—must we keep the point of view given
above practically before us, which, upon the solution of the matter,
becomes in large measure no longer necessary.” [199]
V.
HAVELOCK ELLIS. [200]
The work of Dr. Havelock Ellis, entitled “The Criminal”, contains only
one passage which is of importance for the question of criminality
considered from the economic point of view. Like most bio-sociologists
he considers the social factors as the most important. This is the
passage in question:
“The problem of criminality is not an isolated one that can be dealt
with by fixing our attention on that and that alone. It is a problem
that on closer view is found to merge itself very largely into all
those problems of our social life that are now pressing for solution,
and in settling them we shall to a great extent settle it. The rising
flood of criminality is not an argument for pessimism or despair. It is
merely an additional spur to that great task of social organization to
which during the coming century we are called.
“It is useless, or worse than useless, to occupy ourselves with methods
for improving the treatment of criminals, so long as the conditions of
life render the prison a welcome and desired shelter. So long as we
foster the growth of reckless classes we foster the growth of
criminality. So long as there are a large body of women in the East of
London, and in other large centers, who are prepared to say, ‘It’s Jack
the Ripper or the bridge with me. What’s the odds?’ there will be a
still larger number of persons who will willingly accept the risks of
prison. ‘What’s the odds?’ Liberty is dear to every man who is fed and
clothed and housed, and he will not usually enter a career of crime
unless he has carefully calculated the risks of losing his liberty, and
found them small; but food and shelter are even more precious than
liberty, and these may be secured in prison. As things are, the asylum
and the workhouse, against which there is a deep prejudice, ingrained
and irrational, would have a greater deterring effect than the prison.
There are every morning in Paris 50,000 persons who do not know how
they will eat or where they will sleep. It is the same in every great
city; for such the prison can be nothing but a home. It is well known
that the life of the convict, miserable as it is, with its dull routine
and perpetual surveillance, is yet easier, less laborious, and far more
healthy than that to which thousands of honest working-men are
condemned throughout Great Britain.” [201]
VI.
CARROLL D. WRIGHT.
The author of the brochure, “The Relation of Economic Conditions to the
Causes of Crime”, begins by declaring that there are two kinds of
criminals; persons who have become such from their psycho-physical
constitution, and others who have become such from circumstances.
“I believe the criminal is an undeveloped man in all his elements,
whether you think of him as a worker or as a moral and intellectual
being. His faculties are all undeveloped, not only those which enable
him to labor honestly and faithfully for the care and support of
himself and his family, but also all his moral and intellectual
faculties. He is not a fallen being: he is an undeveloped individual.”
[202]
The author then continues by saying that since there is a relation more
or less close between all the important social questions and the labor
question, it is necessary to take that up also in studying the criminal
question.
We know that there are three great systems of labor: the system resting
upon slavery, the feudal system, and the system now in force, i.e. that
of free labor. In the first two, which intrinsically do not differ
much, crime had a totally different character from what it has under
the last. Under the feudal system the peasants lived in the most
deplorable condition, without hope of betterment. In many countries
conditions were so bad that great bands of thieves and brigands overran
them. During the reign of Henry VIII, which lasted 38 years, 72,000
criminals were executed. “Pauperism, therefore, did not attract
legislation, and crime, the offspring of pauperism and idleness, was
brutally treated; and these conditions, betokening an unsound social
condition, existed until progress made pauperism, and crime as well,
the disgrace of the nation, and it was then that pauperism began to be
recognized as a condition that might be relieved through legislation.”
[203]
In the end the feudal system was overthrown and that of free labor, the
present system, became general. Since then the differences between
poverty and wealth have appeared more distinctly.
“Carry industry to a country not given to mechanical production or to
any systematic form of labor, employ three-fourths of its inhabitants,
give them a taste of education, of civilization, make them feel the
power of moral forces even in a slight degree, and the misery of the
other fourth can be gauged by the progress of the three-fourths, and a
class of paupers and resultant criminals will be observed. We have in
our own day a most emphatic illustration of this in the emancipation of
slaves in this country (America). Under the old system the negro slave
was physically comfortable, as a rule. He was cared for, he was nursed
in sickness, fed and clothed, and in old age his physical comforts were
continued. He had no responsibility, and, indeed, exercised no skill
beyond what was taught him. To eat, to work and to sleep were all that
was expected of him, and, unless he had a cruel master, he lived the
life that belongs to the animal. Since his emancipation and his
endowment with citizenship he has been obliged to support himself and
his family, and to contend with all obstacles belonging to a person in
a state of freedom. Under the system of villeinage in the old country
it could not be said that there were any general poor, for the master
and the lord of the manor took care of the laborers their whole lives;
and in our Southern towns, during slavery, this was true, so that in
the South there were few, if any, poorhouses, and few, if any, inmates
of penal institutions. The South today knows what pauperism is, as
England learned when the system of villeinage departed. Southern
prisons have become active, and all that belongs to the defective, the
dependent, and the delinquent classes has come to be familiar to the
South....” “But so far as the modern industrial order superinduces
idleness or unemployment, in so far it must be considered as having a
direct relation to the causes of crime.” [204]
After having tried to show, by the aid of some historical examples,
that the conditions in the system which preceded ours were of a nature
much more serious than those of our own day, he continues as follows:
“In the study of economic conditions, and whatever bearing they may
have upon crime, I can do no better than to repeat, as a general idea,
a statement made some years ago by Mr. Ira Steward, of Massachusetts,
one of the leading labor reformers in that state in his day. He said:
‘Starting in the labor problem from whatever point we may, we reach, as
the ultimate cause of our industrial, social, moral, and material
difficulties, the terrible fact of poverty. By poverty we mean
something more than pauperism. The latter is a condition of entire
dependence upon charity, while the former is a condition of want, of
lack, of being without, though not necessarily a condition of complete
dependence.’
“It is in this view that the proper understanding of the subject given
me, in its comprehensiveness and the development of the principles
which underlie it, means the consideration of the abolition of
pauperism and the eradication of crime; and the definitions given by
Mr. Steward carry with them all the elements of those great special
inquiries embodied in the very existence of our vast charitable, penal,
and reformatory institutions, ‘How shall poverty be abolished, and
crime be eradicated?’” [205]
Let the circumstances be favorable or unfavorable, let the governments
be liberal or despotic, let the religion and commercial systems be what
they may, crime has always existed. This is why it would exist even if
there were no longer any unemployment, if everyone had received an
education, if the efforts of temperance societies and social reformers
had been realized, and Christianity were universal. But all these good
influences together would certainly reduce crime to the minimum.
Criminality will decrease but little if the improvements have to do
simply with the physical condition and not at the same time with moral
and intellectual conditions. It is, on the other hand, not to be
disputed, according to the author, that a development of these last
qualities will have a favorable influence upon criminality. For the man
who has received an education will betake himself to crime less quickly
than the ignorant man, while on account of his education he will
generally be able to find work to protect him against poverty and
crime. The lack of work is an important cause of crime; for example,
among the convicts of Massachusetts there were 68% who had been without
work, and in the whole United States in 1890, 74% of the murderers had
been without work. This lack of employment may have been because of an
antipathy to work or of a lack of opportunity. And it is this last case
especially that occurs only too often in the present social
organization.
Great improvements are urgently demanded; living conditions must become
better and more sanitary, and work must be better paid. The fundamental
complaint of the writer against political economy is that it has not
considered moral forces as one of its elements. As soon as it shall
have considered them as such it will have entered upon the way that
leads to real improvements.
After having indicated what these improvements ought to be, the author
goes on in these terms: “In a state in which labor had all its rights
there would be, of course, little pauperism and little crime. On the
other hand, the undue subjection of the laboring man must tend to make
paupers and criminals, and entail a financial burden upon wealth which
it would have been easier to prevent than to endure; and this
prevention must come in a large degree through educated labor.
“Do not understand me as desiring to give the impression that I believe
crime to be a necessary accompaniment of our industrial system. I have
labored in other places and at other times to prove the reverse, and I
believe the reverse to be true. Our sober, industrious working men and
women are as free from vicious and criminal courses as any other class.
What I am contending for, relates entirely to conditions affecting the
few. The great volume of crime is found outside the real ranks of
industry.” [206]
It might still be asked whether civilization favors crime. The answer
would have to be at once affirmative and negative. Affirmative in
exceptional times, otherwise negative. The more civilization advances,
the better the condition of the working people will become, the more
equitable will be the division of profits, and the more crime will
diminish. The attempts of Robert Owen and many others prove the truth
of this.
The author closes his study with these words: “Trade instruction,
technical education, manual training—all these are efficient elements
in the reduction of crime, because they all help to better and truer
economic conditions. I think, from what I have said, the elements of
solution are clearly discernible. Justice to labor, equitable
distribution of profits under some system which I feel sure will
supersede the present, and without resorting to socialism, instruction
in trades by which a man can earn his living outside a penal
institution, the practical application of the great moral law in all
business relations—all these elements, with the more enlightened
treatment of the criminal when apprehended, will lead to a reduction in
the volume of crime, but not to the millennium; for ‘human experience
from time immemorial tells us that the earth neither was, nor is, nor
ever will be, a heaven, nor yet a hell’, (Dr. A. Schäffle) but the
endeavor of right-minded men and women, the endeavor of every
government, should be to make it less a hell and more a heaven.” [207]
—The study of Carroll D. Wright contains some very true observations
upon the relation between crime and economic conditions (for example,
upon the difference between the slave and the free laborer, whose
liberty consists chiefly in this, that he can die of hunger if he
cannot find work or is no longer able to work). But in general the work
gives the impression of vagueness and hesitation proper to the school
of economists and sociologists to which the writer belongs. They
condemn certain manifestations of capitalism, but wish to maintain the
“causa causarum”, the system itself. This is not the place to speak of
this more fully and I will confine myself to pointing out some
historical errors of the author.
In the first place, a classification of economic systems into only
three is incomplete. It is very surprising that this error should have
been made by an American. For the North American Indians neither lived
under the feudal system nor under that of free labor, and for the most
part never knew slavery; the author has forgotten to mention the
primitive-communistic mode of production.
In the second place, it is incorrect to call all those who lived under
the feudal system “poor.”
In the third place it was not to the feudal system that the famous
executions under Henry VIII belong, but rather to incipient capitalism
which, by dispossessing a great number of peasants, made them poor.
(Compare More, “Utopia”, and Marx, “Capital.”)—
Among the partisans of the bio-sociological doctrine, I think that
certain other authors should also be classed, for example: L. Gordon
Rylands, “Crime, Its Causes and Remedy”; Dallemagne (see p. 224 of the
“Actes du IIIme Congrès d’Anthrop. Crimin.”); Drill (see “Des principes
fondamentaux de l’école d’anthropologie criminelle” and “Les fondements
et le but de la responsabilité pénale”); Kovalewsky, “La psychologie
criminelle”; Orchanski, “Les criminels russes.” With regard to Russian
criminologists see Frassati, “Die neue positive Schule des Strafrechts
in Russland.”
The Dutch criminologists must be reckoned as among the
bio-sociologists.
G. A. v. Hamel, “De tegenwoordige beweging op het gebied van het
strafrecht”, and “L’anarchisme et le combat contre l’anarchisme au
point de vue de l’anthropologie criminelle”; G. Jelgersma, “De geboren
misdadiger”; A. Aletrino, “Twee opstellen over crimineele
anthropologie”, and “Handleiding bij de studie der crimineele
anthropologie”; S. R. Steinmetz, “De ziekten der maatschappij.” Dr. C.
Winkler inclines, as it seems to me, rather toward the opinion of the
Italian criminologists. See: “Iets over crimineele anthropologie.”
[Note to the American Edition: Of the recent literature there should be
mentioned: in Germany, especially Aschaffenburg, “Das Verbrechen und
seine Bekämpfung”, and Wulffen, “Psychologie des Verbrechens.” In
Holland the authors already named, van Kan, and de Roos are to be
classed among the bio-sociologists. For Russia there should be added
von Bechterew, “Das Verbrechertum im Lichte der objektiven
Psychologie.” In America it seems to me more reliance is placed upon
the Italian theory than in Europe; see, for example, Henderson,
“Introduction into the Study of the Dependent, Defective, and
Delinquent Classes.” Upon the recent development of criminology in
Holland, England, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Greece, and Servia see the
study already cited of von Thót, “Die positive Strafrechtsschule in
einigen europäischen Ländern.”]
CHAPTER VI.
THE SPIRITUALISTS. [208]
I.
H. JOLY.
It is in the second chapter of his “France criminelle”, bearing the
title of “Richesse et misère”, that the author gives his opinion of the
connection between criminality and economic conditions. [209]
According to Joly, the opinion expressed by many persons that poverty
is the great factor in criminality, appears to be true, at least at
first sight; for the problem is, in fact, very complex and difficult.
In the first place a distinction must be made between voluntary and
involuntary poverty. “With vagrants by profession, beggars from choice
and speculation, drunkards, those who have made up their minds to live
no matter how, gamblers who have systematically used up their capital
and that of their family, workmen who have given up work only from
rebellion against society, yes, with all these poverty leads to crime.”
[210] The second kind of poverty springs from disease, accidents, etc.,
i.e. from causes independent of the will of man.