-- I --8 -- 2 1 'I
Political Crimes and Offences .
Political Crimes and Offences .
Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri
5
Attempts against railways 37. 5
Serious wounds followed by death 36. 8
----
General average 35. 8
Abortion 30. 0
Perjury 26. 7
Sequestration 18. 8
Poisoning 16. 7
Infanticide 6. 0
Stealing, substitution or abandoning children 4. 9
CRIMES
(Against property) p. 100
Theft in churches 74. 3
Thefts, simple 71. 7
Robbery, with violence, not on the highway 66. 0
Burning buildings not inhabited, woods, etc. 59. 8
----
General average 58. 5
Barratry 50. 0
Theft by servants 44. 2
Counterfeiting 43. 8
Forgery, private writings 42. 5
Burning inhabited dwellings 41. 5
Forgery, commercial paper 38. 3
Forgery, public documents 37. 0
Fraudulent bankruptcy 35. 3
Abuse of confidence by domestic servant 32. 5
Extortion 30. 7
Embezzlement of public funds 28. 5
Robbing the mails by postal employees
Smuggling by customs officers
CORRECTIONAL TRIBUNALS
DELICTS p. 100
Infractions of surveillance 100
Infractions of expulsion of foreign fugitives 93. 0
Infractions of interdiction to sojourn 89. 0
Drunkenness 78. 4
Vagabondage 71. 3
Begging 65. 7
Fraud (escroquerie) 47. 8
Insult to public officers 46. 8
Forcible entry 45. 3
Thefts 45. 2
Breach of trust 43. 8
----
General average 41. 9
Riot, resistance 40. 3
Written or verbal threats 39. 6
Prohibited weapons, etc. 37. 3
Political, electoral, and newspaper delicts 35. 7
Outrage to public morality 34. 5
Public outrage to decency 32. 2
Voluntary wounds and blows 31. 0
Unlawful opening of cafes, inns 27. 7
Unlawful practice of medicine or pharmacy 26. 6
Contraventions of railway regulations 25. 3
Hunting or carrying prohibited arms 24. 2
Breach of good morals, tending to corruption 23. 8
Simple bankruptcy 23. 6
Insult to ministers of religion 20. 4
Fraudulent sales of merchandise 16. 7
Defamations, insults, calumnies 14. 2
Rural delicts 12. 0
Amongst crimes against property, the most frequent relapses are
found in the case of thieves (not including thefts and breaches of
trust by domestic servants, which thus, proving their more
occasional character, confirm the agreement of statistics with
criminal psychology). The same thing is observed in regard to
forgers of commercial documents and to fraudulent bankrupts, who
are partly drawn into crime under the stress of personal or
general crises. And the infrequency of relapse amongst postal
employees condemned for embezzlement, and amongst customs officers
who have been guilty of smuggling, is only a further confirmation
of the inducement to crime by the opportunities met with in each
case, rather than by personal tendencies.
Amongst minor offences, apart from that evasion of supervision
which is no more than a legal condition, there are, both in France
and in Italy, very frequent cases of relapse by vagabonds and
mendicants, which is a consequence of social environment, as well
as of the feeble organisation of the individuals. Other relapses
above the average, included amongst these offences, constitute a
sort of accessory criminality, existing side by side with the
habitual criminality of thieves, murderers, and the like, such as
drunkenness, attacks on public functionaries, infractions of the
regulations of domicile, &c.
In thefts and resistance to authorities, relapse is less frequent
here than in the assize courts, for in the majority of these minor
offences, in their general forms, there is a greater number of
occasional offences, as is also the case with bankruptcies,
defamation, abuse, rural offences, &c. , which demonstrate
their more occasional character by their very low figures.
Hence the statistics of general and specific relapse indirectly
confirm the fact that criminals, as a whole, have no uniform
anthropological type; and that the bio-psychical types and
anomalies belong more especially to the category of habitual
criminals and those born into the criminal class, who, after all,
are the only ones hitherto studied by criminal anthropologists.
What, then, is the numerical proportion of habitual criminals to
the aggregate number of criminals?
In the absence of direct inquiry, it is possible to get at this
proportion indirectly, from facts of two kinds. In the first
place, a study of the works on criminal anthropology supplies us
with an approximate figure, since the biological characteristics
united in individuals, in sufficient number to create a criminal
type, are met with in between forty and fifty per cent. of the
total.
And this conclusion may be confirmed by other data of criminal
statistics.
Whilst the statistics of relapse give us a very limited number of
crimes and offences committed by born and habitual criminals,
science and criminal legislation give us a far more extended
classification.
Ellero reckoned in the penal code of the German Empire 203 crimes
and offences; and I find that the Italian code of 1859 enumerates
about 180, the new code about 200, and the French penal code about
150. Thus the kind of crimes of habitual criminals would
only be about one-tenth of the complete legal classification of
crimes and offences.
It is easy indeed to suppose that born and habitual criminals do
not generally commit political crimes and offences, nor offences
connected with the press, nor against freedom of worship, nor in
corruption of public functionaries, nor misuse of title or
authority; nor calumny, making false attestations or false
reports; nor adultery, incest, or abduction of minors; nor
infanticide, abortion, or palming of children; nor betrayal of
professional secrets; nor bankruptcy offences, nor damage to
property, nor violation of domicile, nor illegal arrests, nor
duels, nor defamation, nor abuse. I say generally; for, as there
are occasional criminals who commit the offences characteristic of
habitual criminality, such as homicides, robberies, rapes, &c. , so
there are born criminals who sometimes commit crimes out of their
ordinary course.
It is now necessary to add a few statistical data in respect of
the classification of crime, which I take, like the others, from
the essay already mentioned.
HABITUAL CRIMINALITY ITALY. FRANCE. BELGIUM.
(homicide, theft, conspiracy,
rape, incendiarism,
vagrancy, swindling) A* B* C* A* B* C* A* B* C*
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Proportion of the persons p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c.
convicted of these crimes
and offences to the total
number of convictions . . 84 32 38 90 34 35 86 30 30
{* NOTE: A, B and C above are `Assizes,' `Tribunals,' and `Totals,'
respectively. }
That is to say, habitual criminality would be represented, in
Italy, by about 40 per cent. of the total number of condemned
persons, and by somewhat less in France and Belgium. This would
be accounted for in Belgium by the exclusion of vagrancy; but the
difference is virtually due to the greater frequency in Italy of
certain crimes, such as homicide, highway robbery with violence,
and conspiracies.
Further, it is apparent that in all these countries the types of
habitual criminality, with the exception of thefts and vagrancy,
are in greater proportion at the assizes, on account of their
serious character.
The actual totals, however, are larger at the tribunals, for as,
in the scale of animal life, the greatest fecundity belongs to the
lower and smaller forms, so in the criminal scale, the less
serious offences (such as simple theft, swindling, vagrancy, &c. )
are the more numerous. Thus, out of the total of 38 per cent. in
Italy, 32 belong to the tribunals and 6 to the assizes; out of 35
per cent in France, 33 belong to the tribunals and 2 to the
assizes; and out of 30 per cent. in Belgium, 29 belong to the
tribunals and 1 to the assizes. This also is partly accounted for
by legislative distinctions as to the respective jurisdictions of
these courts.
As to the particulars of the totals, it is found that thefts are
the most numerous types in Italy (20 per cent. ), in France (24 per
cent. ), in Belgium (23 per cent. ), and in Prussia (37 per cent. ,
including breaches of trust). [5]
[5] Starke, ``Verbrechen und Verbrecher in Preussen,'' Berlin,
1884, p. 92.
After theft, the most numerous in Italy are vagrancy (5 per
cent. ), homicides (4 per cent. ), swindling (3 per cent. ), forgery
(. 9 per cent. ), rape (. 4 per cent. ), conspiracy (. 4 per cent. ),
and incendiarism (. 2 per cent. ).
In France and Belgium we find the same relative frequency of
vagrancy and swindling; but homicide, incendiarism, and conspiracy
are less frequent, whilst rape is more common in France (. 5 per
cent. ) and in Belgium (1 per cent. ).
Such then are the most frequent forms of habitual criminality in
the generality of condemned persons; and it will be useful now to
contrast the more frequent forms of occasional criminality. For
Italy the only judicial statistics which are valuable for detailed
inquiry are those of 1863, 1869-72. For France, every volume of
the admirable series of criminal statistics may be utilised.
It will be seen that the frequency of these occasional crimes and
offences in Italy and in France is very variable, though assaults
and wounding, resistance to authorities, damage, defamation and
abuse, are the most numerous in both countries.
The proportion of each offence to the total also varies
considerably, not only through a difference of legislation between
Italy and France in regard to poaching, drunkenness, frauds on
refreshment-house keepers, and so forth, but also by reason of the
different condition of individuals and of society in the two
countries. Thus assaults and wounding, which in Italy comprise 23
per cent. of the total of convictions, reach in France no more
than 14 per cent. , whilst resistance to the authorities, &c. ,
which
YEARLY AVERAGE or CONDEMNED
PERSONS.
ITALY, 1863-72. FRANCE
1877-81
CRIMES AND OFFENCES OF GREATEST
FREQUENCY
(not including those of Habitual Criminals).
p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c.
Wilful Assault and Wounding . . .
Illegally carrying Arms . . . . . . -- 8 7 -- 3 3
Resistance to Authority, Assaults and
Violence against Public Functionaries . . . 3 5 4 --2 10 10
Injury to Property . . . . . . . . . -- 2 2 -- I 1-6 1 5
Defamation and Abuse . . . . . . . . . -- s-S 1-6 -- I-6 1 5
Written or Spoken Threats . . . . . . -- 1 4 1'2 -- '2 --2
Illegal Games . . . . . . . . . . . .
-- I --8 -- 2 1 'I
Political Crimes and Offences . . . . . . 31. 7 -- --2 -- 4 2 --2
Press Crimes and Offences . . . . . . 4 4 --4 -- --6 --6
Embezzlement, Corruption, Malfeasance
of Public Functionaries -- --3 . 3 -- -- --
Escape from Detention --1 --2 2 -- --6 --6
False Witness . . . . . . . . . . . --7 2 --2 09 6 --6
Violation of Domicile . . . . . . . . . -- 17 . 15 -- lo --9
Calumny . . . --. --1 I 1 --oS --o8
Exposure, Palming or ``Suppression''
of Infants -- --12 1 --2 --1 --1
Bankruptcy Offences . . . . . . . . . I 1 --1 1'3 5 --6
Offences against Religion and Ministers
of Religion -- 1 --1 -- --7 . 07
Duelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- . 04 . 03 -- -- --
Abortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- og -- --OI
Offences against the Game Laws -- -- -- -- 13 12-7
Drunkenness -- -- -- -- 1 5 1 5
Offences against Public Decency -- -- -- -- I-8 1. 7
Adultery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- --5 5
Offences against Morality, with Incitement
to Immorality . . . . . . -- -- -- -- --2 --2
Involuntary Homicide -- -- -- -- --2 --2
'' Wounding -- -- -- -- --6 --6
'' Incendiarism -- -- -- -- --2 --2
Illegal Practising of Medicine and
Surgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- -- --2 --2
Frauds on Keepers of Refreshment
Houses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- -- I-4 1 4
Rural Offences . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- -- 6 --6
-- -- m
_________________________________________________________________________
_
Yearly Average of Convictions,
Gross Totals 6,273 43,584 49,857 3,300 163,997
167,297
[1] Devastation of crops, destruction of fences. [2] Unauthorised gaming
houses; secret lotteries. [3] An exceptional figure, owing to 528
convictions
in 1863, whilst the average of the other years was nine convictions.
[4] Electoral offences.
are 4 per cent. in Italy, touch 9 per cent in France.
Sexual crimes and offences (as we saw in the case of rape), such
as abortion, adultery, indecent assaults, and incitement to
immorality, which in Italy present very small and negligible
figures, are more frequent in France. Whilst the illegal carrying
of arms, threats, false witness, escape from detention, violations
of domicile, calumny, are of greater frequency in Italy than in
France, the contrary is true of bankruptcy offences, political and
press crimes and offences, on account of a manifest difference of
the moral, economic, and social conditions of the two countries,
which are plainly discernible behind these apparently dry figures.
In addition to this demonstration, we have given anthropological
and statistical proofs of the fundamental distinction between
habitual and occasional criminals, which had been pointed out by
many observers, but which had hitherto remained a simple assertion
without manifest consequences.
This same distinction ought to be not only the basis of all
sociological theory concerning crime, but also a point of
departure for other distinctions more precise and complete, which
I set forth in my previous studies on criminals, and which were
subsequently reproduced, with more or less of assent, by all
criminal sociologists.
In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish, amongst
habitual criminals, those who present a conspicuous and clinical
form of mental aberration, which accounts for their anti-social
activity.
In the second place, amongst habitual criminals who are not of
unsound mind, however little the inmates of prisons may have been
observed with adequate ideas and experience, there is a clear
indication of a class of individuals, physically or mentally
abnormal, induced to crime by inborn tendencies, which are
manifest from their birth, and accompanied by symptoms of extreme
moral insensibility. Side by side with these, another class
challenges attention, of individuals who have also been criminals
from childhood, and who continue to be so, but who are in a
special degree a product of physical and social environment, which
has persistently driven them into the criminal life, by their
abandonment before and after the first offence, and which,
especially in the great towns, is very often forced upon them by
the actual incitement of their parents.
Amongst occasional criminals, again, a special category is created
by a kind of exaggeration of the characteristics, mainly
psychological, of the type itself. In the case of all occasional
criminals, the crime is brought about rather by the effects of
environment than by the active tendencies of the individual; but
whilst in most of these individuals the deciding cause is only a
circumstance affecting all alike, with a few it is an exceptional
constraint of passion, a sort of psychological tempest, which
drives them into crime.
Thus, then, the entire body of criminals may be classed in five
categories, which as early as 1880 I described as criminal madmen,
born criminals, criminals by contracted habits, occasional
criminals, and criminals of passion.
As already observed, criminal anthropology will not finally
establish itself until it has been developed by biological,
psychological, and statistical monographs on each of these
categories, in such a manner as to present their anthropological
characteristics with greater precision than they have hitherto
attained. So far, observers continue to give us the same
characteristics for a large aggregate of criminals, classifying
them according to the form of their crime rather than according to
their bio-social type. In Lombroso's work, for instance, or in
that of Marro (and to some extent even in my work on homicide),
the characteristics are stated for a total, or for legal
categories of criminals, such as murderers, thieves, forgers, and
so on, which include born criminals, occasional and habitual
criminals, and madmen. The result is a certain measure of
inconsistency, according to the predominance of one type or the
other in the aggregate of criminals under observation. This also
contributes to render the conclusions of criminal anthropology
less evident.
Nevertheless, we may sum up the inquiries which have been made up
to the present time; and in particular we may now point out the
general characteristics of the five classes of criminals, in
accordance with my personal experience in the observation of
criminals. It is to be hoped that successive observations of a
more methodical kind will gradually reinforce the accuracy of this
classification of symptoms.
In the first place, it is evident that in a classification not
exclusively biological, if it is to form the anthropological basis
of criminal sociology, criminals of unsound mind must in all
fairness be included.
The usual objection, recently repeated by M. Joly (``Le Crime,''
p. 62), which holds the term ``criminal madness'' to be self-
contradictory, since a madman is not morally responsible, and
therefore cannot be a criminal, is not conclusive. We maintain
that responsibility to society, the only responsibility common to
all criminals, exists also for criminals of unsound mind.
Nor, again, is it correct to say, with M. Bianchi, that mad
criminals should be referred to psychiatry, and not to criminal
anthropology; for, though psychiatry is concerned with mad
criminals in a psycho-pathological sense, this does not prevent
criminal anthropology and sociology from also concerning
themselves with the same subjects, in order to constitute the
natural history of the criminal, and to suggest remedies in the
interest of society.
As for criminals of unsound mind, it is necessary to begin by
placing in a separate category such as cannot, after the studies
of Lombroso and the Italian school of psychiatry, be distinguished
from the born criminals properly so-called. These are the persons
tainted with a form of insanity which is known under various
names, from the ``moral insanity'' of Pritchard to the ``reasoning
madness'' of Verga. Moral insanity, illustrated by the works of
Mendel, Legrand du Saulle, Maudsley, Krafft-Ebing, Savage, Hugues,
Hollander, Tamburini, Bonvecchiato, which, with the lack or atrophy of
the
moral or social sense, and of APPARENT soundness of mind, is properly
speaking only the essential psychological condition of the born criminal.
Beyond these morally insane people, who are very rare--for, as
Krafft-Ebing and Lombroso have pointed out, they are found more
frequently in prisons than in mad-houses--there is the unhappily
large body of persons tainted by a common and clinical form of
mental alienation, all of whom are apt to become criminal.
The whole of these criminals of unsound mind cannot be included in
a single category; and such, indeed, is the opinion expressed by
Lombroso, in the second volume of the fourth edition of his work,
after his descriptive analysis of the chief forms of mental
alienation. As a matter of fact, not only are the organic, and
especially the psychological, characteristics of criminal madmen
sometimes identical with and sometimes opposed to those of born
and occasional criminals, but these very characteristics vary
considerably between the different forms of mental alienation, in
spite of the identity of the crime committed.
It is further to be observed, in respect of criminal madmen, that
this category also includes all the intermediary types between
complete madness and a rational condition, who remain in what
Maudsley has called the ``middle zone. '' The most frequent
varieties in the criminality of these partially insane persons, or
``mattoides,'' are the perpetrators of attacks upon
statesmen, who are generally men with a grievance, irascible men,
writers of insane documents, and the like, such as Passanante,
Guiteau, and Maclean.
In the same category are those who commit terrible crimes without
motive, and who nevertheless, according to the complacent
psychology of the classical school, would be credited with a
maximum of moral soundness.
Again, there are the necrophiles, like Sergeant Bertrand, Verzeni,
Menesclou, and very probably the undetected ``Jack the Ripper'' of
London, who are tainted with a form of sexual psychopathy. Yet
again there are such as are tainted with hereditary madness, and
especially the epileptics and epileptoids, who may also be
assigned to the class of born criminals, according to the
plausible hypothesis of Lombroso as to the fundamental identity of
congenital criminality, moral madness, and epilepsy. I have
always found in my own experience that outrageous murders, not to
be explained according to the ordinary psychology of criminals,
are accompanied by psychical epilepsy, or larvea.
Born or instinctive criminals are those who most frequently
present the organic and psychological characteristics established
by criminal anthropology. These are either savage or brutal men,
or crafty and idle, who draw no distinction between homicide,
robbery or other kinds of crime, and honest industry. ``They are
criminals just as others are good workingmen,'' says Fregier;
and, as Romagnosi put it, actual punishment affects them
much less than the menace of punishment, or does not affect them
at all, since they regard imprisonment as a natural risk of their
occupation, as masons regard the fall of a roof, or as miners
regard fire-damp. ``They do not suffer in prison. They are like
a painter in his studio, dreaming of their next masterpiece. They
are on good terms with their gaolers, and even know how to make
themselves useful. ''[5]
[5] Moreau, ``Souvenirs de la petite et grande Roquette,'' Paris,
1884, ii. 440.
The born criminals and the occasional criminals constitute the
majority of the characteristic and diverse types of homicide and
thief. Prison governors call them ``gaol-birds. '' They pass on
from the police to the judge and to the prison, and from the
prison to the police and to the judge, with a regularity which has
not yet impaired the faith of law-makers in the efficacy of
punishment as a cure for crime. [6]
[6] Wayland, ``The Incorrigible,'' in the Journal of Mental
Science, 1888. Sichart, ``Criminal Incorrigibles.
Attempts against railways 37. 5
Serious wounds followed by death 36. 8
----
General average 35. 8
Abortion 30. 0
Perjury 26. 7
Sequestration 18. 8
Poisoning 16. 7
Infanticide 6. 0
Stealing, substitution or abandoning children 4. 9
CRIMES
(Against property) p. 100
Theft in churches 74. 3
Thefts, simple 71. 7
Robbery, with violence, not on the highway 66. 0
Burning buildings not inhabited, woods, etc. 59. 8
----
General average 58. 5
Barratry 50. 0
Theft by servants 44. 2
Counterfeiting 43. 8
Forgery, private writings 42. 5
Burning inhabited dwellings 41. 5
Forgery, commercial paper 38. 3
Forgery, public documents 37. 0
Fraudulent bankruptcy 35. 3
Abuse of confidence by domestic servant 32. 5
Extortion 30. 7
Embezzlement of public funds 28. 5
Robbing the mails by postal employees
Smuggling by customs officers
CORRECTIONAL TRIBUNALS
DELICTS p. 100
Infractions of surveillance 100
Infractions of expulsion of foreign fugitives 93. 0
Infractions of interdiction to sojourn 89. 0
Drunkenness 78. 4
Vagabondage 71. 3
Begging 65. 7
Fraud (escroquerie) 47. 8
Insult to public officers 46. 8
Forcible entry 45. 3
Thefts 45. 2
Breach of trust 43. 8
----
General average 41. 9
Riot, resistance 40. 3
Written or verbal threats 39. 6
Prohibited weapons, etc. 37. 3
Political, electoral, and newspaper delicts 35. 7
Outrage to public morality 34. 5
Public outrage to decency 32. 2
Voluntary wounds and blows 31. 0
Unlawful opening of cafes, inns 27. 7
Unlawful practice of medicine or pharmacy 26. 6
Contraventions of railway regulations 25. 3
Hunting or carrying prohibited arms 24. 2
Breach of good morals, tending to corruption 23. 8
Simple bankruptcy 23. 6
Insult to ministers of religion 20. 4
Fraudulent sales of merchandise 16. 7
Defamations, insults, calumnies 14. 2
Rural delicts 12. 0
Amongst crimes against property, the most frequent relapses are
found in the case of thieves (not including thefts and breaches of
trust by domestic servants, which thus, proving their more
occasional character, confirm the agreement of statistics with
criminal psychology). The same thing is observed in regard to
forgers of commercial documents and to fraudulent bankrupts, who
are partly drawn into crime under the stress of personal or
general crises. And the infrequency of relapse amongst postal
employees condemned for embezzlement, and amongst customs officers
who have been guilty of smuggling, is only a further confirmation
of the inducement to crime by the opportunities met with in each
case, rather than by personal tendencies.
Amongst minor offences, apart from that evasion of supervision
which is no more than a legal condition, there are, both in France
and in Italy, very frequent cases of relapse by vagabonds and
mendicants, which is a consequence of social environment, as well
as of the feeble organisation of the individuals. Other relapses
above the average, included amongst these offences, constitute a
sort of accessory criminality, existing side by side with the
habitual criminality of thieves, murderers, and the like, such as
drunkenness, attacks on public functionaries, infractions of the
regulations of domicile, &c.
In thefts and resistance to authorities, relapse is less frequent
here than in the assize courts, for in the majority of these minor
offences, in their general forms, there is a greater number of
occasional offences, as is also the case with bankruptcies,
defamation, abuse, rural offences, &c. , which demonstrate
their more occasional character by their very low figures.
Hence the statistics of general and specific relapse indirectly
confirm the fact that criminals, as a whole, have no uniform
anthropological type; and that the bio-psychical types and
anomalies belong more especially to the category of habitual
criminals and those born into the criminal class, who, after all,
are the only ones hitherto studied by criminal anthropologists.
What, then, is the numerical proportion of habitual criminals to
the aggregate number of criminals?
In the absence of direct inquiry, it is possible to get at this
proportion indirectly, from facts of two kinds. In the first
place, a study of the works on criminal anthropology supplies us
with an approximate figure, since the biological characteristics
united in individuals, in sufficient number to create a criminal
type, are met with in between forty and fifty per cent. of the
total.
And this conclusion may be confirmed by other data of criminal
statistics.
Whilst the statistics of relapse give us a very limited number of
crimes and offences committed by born and habitual criminals,
science and criminal legislation give us a far more extended
classification.
Ellero reckoned in the penal code of the German Empire 203 crimes
and offences; and I find that the Italian code of 1859 enumerates
about 180, the new code about 200, and the French penal code about
150. Thus the kind of crimes of habitual criminals would
only be about one-tenth of the complete legal classification of
crimes and offences.
It is easy indeed to suppose that born and habitual criminals do
not generally commit political crimes and offences, nor offences
connected with the press, nor against freedom of worship, nor in
corruption of public functionaries, nor misuse of title or
authority; nor calumny, making false attestations or false
reports; nor adultery, incest, or abduction of minors; nor
infanticide, abortion, or palming of children; nor betrayal of
professional secrets; nor bankruptcy offences, nor damage to
property, nor violation of domicile, nor illegal arrests, nor
duels, nor defamation, nor abuse. I say generally; for, as there
are occasional criminals who commit the offences characteristic of
habitual criminality, such as homicides, robberies, rapes, &c. , so
there are born criminals who sometimes commit crimes out of their
ordinary course.
It is now necessary to add a few statistical data in respect of
the classification of crime, which I take, like the others, from
the essay already mentioned.
HABITUAL CRIMINALITY ITALY. FRANCE. BELGIUM.
(homicide, theft, conspiracy,
rape, incendiarism,
vagrancy, swindling) A* B* C* A* B* C* A* B* C*
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Proportion of the persons p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c.
convicted of these crimes
and offences to the total
number of convictions . . 84 32 38 90 34 35 86 30 30
{* NOTE: A, B and C above are `Assizes,' `Tribunals,' and `Totals,'
respectively. }
That is to say, habitual criminality would be represented, in
Italy, by about 40 per cent. of the total number of condemned
persons, and by somewhat less in France and Belgium. This would
be accounted for in Belgium by the exclusion of vagrancy; but the
difference is virtually due to the greater frequency in Italy of
certain crimes, such as homicide, highway robbery with violence,
and conspiracies.
Further, it is apparent that in all these countries the types of
habitual criminality, with the exception of thefts and vagrancy,
are in greater proportion at the assizes, on account of their
serious character.
The actual totals, however, are larger at the tribunals, for as,
in the scale of animal life, the greatest fecundity belongs to the
lower and smaller forms, so in the criminal scale, the less
serious offences (such as simple theft, swindling, vagrancy, &c. )
are the more numerous. Thus, out of the total of 38 per cent. in
Italy, 32 belong to the tribunals and 6 to the assizes; out of 35
per cent in France, 33 belong to the tribunals and 2 to the
assizes; and out of 30 per cent. in Belgium, 29 belong to the
tribunals and 1 to the assizes. This also is partly accounted for
by legislative distinctions as to the respective jurisdictions of
these courts.
As to the particulars of the totals, it is found that thefts are
the most numerous types in Italy (20 per cent. ), in France (24 per
cent. ), in Belgium (23 per cent. ), and in Prussia (37 per cent. ,
including breaches of trust). [5]
[5] Starke, ``Verbrechen und Verbrecher in Preussen,'' Berlin,
1884, p. 92.
After theft, the most numerous in Italy are vagrancy (5 per
cent. ), homicides (4 per cent. ), swindling (3 per cent. ), forgery
(. 9 per cent. ), rape (. 4 per cent. ), conspiracy (. 4 per cent. ),
and incendiarism (. 2 per cent. ).
In France and Belgium we find the same relative frequency of
vagrancy and swindling; but homicide, incendiarism, and conspiracy
are less frequent, whilst rape is more common in France (. 5 per
cent. ) and in Belgium (1 per cent. ).
Such then are the most frequent forms of habitual criminality in
the generality of condemned persons; and it will be useful now to
contrast the more frequent forms of occasional criminality. For
Italy the only judicial statistics which are valuable for detailed
inquiry are those of 1863, 1869-72. For France, every volume of
the admirable series of criminal statistics may be utilised.
It will be seen that the frequency of these occasional crimes and
offences in Italy and in France is very variable, though assaults
and wounding, resistance to authorities, damage, defamation and
abuse, are the most numerous in both countries.
The proportion of each offence to the total also varies
considerably, not only through a difference of legislation between
Italy and France in regard to poaching, drunkenness, frauds on
refreshment-house keepers, and so forth, but also by reason of the
different condition of individuals and of society in the two
countries. Thus assaults and wounding, which in Italy comprise 23
per cent. of the total of convictions, reach in France no more
than 14 per cent. , whilst resistance to the authorities, &c. ,
which
YEARLY AVERAGE or CONDEMNED
PERSONS.
ITALY, 1863-72. FRANCE
1877-81
CRIMES AND OFFENCES OF GREATEST
FREQUENCY
(not including those of Habitual Criminals).
p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c.
Wilful Assault and Wounding . . .
Illegally carrying Arms . . . . . . -- 8 7 -- 3 3
Resistance to Authority, Assaults and
Violence against Public Functionaries . . . 3 5 4 --2 10 10
Injury to Property . . . . . . . . . -- 2 2 -- I 1-6 1 5
Defamation and Abuse . . . . . . . . . -- s-S 1-6 -- I-6 1 5
Written or Spoken Threats . . . . . . -- 1 4 1'2 -- '2 --2
Illegal Games . . . . . . . . . . . .
-- I --8 -- 2 1 'I
Political Crimes and Offences . . . . . . 31. 7 -- --2 -- 4 2 --2
Press Crimes and Offences . . . . . . 4 4 --4 -- --6 --6
Embezzlement, Corruption, Malfeasance
of Public Functionaries -- --3 . 3 -- -- --
Escape from Detention --1 --2 2 -- --6 --6
False Witness . . . . . . . . . . . --7 2 --2 09 6 --6
Violation of Domicile . . . . . . . . . -- 17 . 15 -- lo --9
Calumny . . . --. --1 I 1 --oS --o8
Exposure, Palming or ``Suppression''
of Infants -- --12 1 --2 --1 --1
Bankruptcy Offences . . . . . . . . . I 1 --1 1'3 5 --6
Offences against Religion and Ministers
of Religion -- 1 --1 -- --7 . 07
Duelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- . 04 . 03 -- -- --
Abortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- og -- --OI
Offences against the Game Laws -- -- -- -- 13 12-7
Drunkenness -- -- -- -- 1 5 1 5
Offences against Public Decency -- -- -- -- I-8 1. 7
Adultery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- --5 5
Offences against Morality, with Incitement
to Immorality . . . . . . -- -- -- -- --2 --2
Involuntary Homicide -- -- -- -- --2 --2
'' Wounding -- -- -- -- --6 --6
'' Incendiarism -- -- -- -- --2 --2
Illegal Practising of Medicine and
Surgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- -- --2 --2
Frauds on Keepers of Refreshment
Houses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- -- I-4 1 4
Rural Offences . . . . . . . . . . . . -- -- -- -- 6 --6
-- -- m
_________________________________________________________________________
_
Yearly Average of Convictions,
Gross Totals 6,273 43,584 49,857 3,300 163,997
167,297
[1] Devastation of crops, destruction of fences. [2] Unauthorised gaming
houses; secret lotteries. [3] An exceptional figure, owing to 528
convictions
in 1863, whilst the average of the other years was nine convictions.
[4] Electoral offences.
are 4 per cent. in Italy, touch 9 per cent in France.
Sexual crimes and offences (as we saw in the case of rape), such
as abortion, adultery, indecent assaults, and incitement to
immorality, which in Italy present very small and negligible
figures, are more frequent in France. Whilst the illegal carrying
of arms, threats, false witness, escape from detention, violations
of domicile, calumny, are of greater frequency in Italy than in
France, the contrary is true of bankruptcy offences, political and
press crimes and offences, on account of a manifest difference of
the moral, economic, and social conditions of the two countries,
which are plainly discernible behind these apparently dry figures.
In addition to this demonstration, we have given anthropological
and statistical proofs of the fundamental distinction between
habitual and occasional criminals, which had been pointed out by
many observers, but which had hitherto remained a simple assertion
without manifest consequences.
This same distinction ought to be not only the basis of all
sociological theory concerning crime, but also a point of
departure for other distinctions more precise and complete, which
I set forth in my previous studies on criminals, and which were
subsequently reproduced, with more or less of assent, by all
criminal sociologists.
In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish, amongst
habitual criminals, those who present a conspicuous and clinical
form of mental aberration, which accounts for their anti-social
activity.
In the second place, amongst habitual criminals who are not of
unsound mind, however little the inmates of prisons may have been
observed with adequate ideas and experience, there is a clear
indication of a class of individuals, physically or mentally
abnormal, induced to crime by inborn tendencies, which are
manifest from their birth, and accompanied by symptoms of extreme
moral insensibility. Side by side with these, another class
challenges attention, of individuals who have also been criminals
from childhood, and who continue to be so, but who are in a
special degree a product of physical and social environment, which
has persistently driven them into the criminal life, by their
abandonment before and after the first offence, and which,
especially in the great towns, is very often forced upon them by
the actual incitement of their parents.
Amongst occasional criminals, again, a special category is created
by a kind of exaggeration of the characteristics, mainly
psychological, of the type itself. In the case of all occasional
criminals, the crime is brought about rather by the effects of
environment than by the active tendencies of the individual; but
whilst in most of these individuals the deciding cause is only a
circumstance affecting all alike, with a few it is an exceptional
constraint of passion, a sort of psychological tempest, which
drives them into crime.
Thus, then, the entire body of criminals may be classed in five
categories, which as early as 1880 I described as criminal madmen,
born criminals, criminals by contracted habits, occasional
criminals, and criminals of passion.
As already observed, criminal anthropology will not finally
establish itself until it has been developed by biological,
psychological, and statistical monographs on each of these
categories, in such a manner as to present their anthropological
characteristics with greater precision than they have hitherto
attained. So far, observers continue to give us the same
characteristics for a large aggregate of criminals, classifying
them according to the form of their crime rather than according to
their bio-social type. In Lombroso's work, for instance, or in
that of Marro (and to some extent even in my work on homicide),
the characteristics are stated for a total, or for legal
categories of criminals, such as murderers, thieves, forgers, and
so on, which include born criminals, occasional and habitual
criminals, and madmen. The result is a certain measure of
inconsistency, according to the predominance of one type or the
other in the aggregate of criminals under observation. This also
contributes to render the conclusions of criminal anthropology
less evident.
Nevertheless, we may sum up the inquiries which have been made up
to the present time; and in particular we may now point out the
general characteristics of the five classes of criminals, in
accordance with my personal experience in the observation of
criminals. It is to be hoped that successive observations of a
more methodical kind will gradually reinforce the accuracy of this
classification of symptoms.
In the first place, it is evident that in a classification not
exclusively biological, if it is to form the anthropological basis
of criminal sociology, criminals of unsound mind must in all
fairness be included.
The usual objection, recently repeated by M. Joly (``Le Crime,''
p. 62), which holds the term ``criminal madness'' to be self-
contradictory, since a madman is not morally responsible, and
therefore cannot be a criminal, is not conclusive. We maintain
that responsibility to society, the only responsibility common to
all criminals, exists also for criminals of unsound mind.
Nor, again, is it correct to say, with M. Bianchi, that mad
criminals should be referred to psychiatry, and not to criminal
anthropology; for, though psychiatry is concerned with mad
criminals in a psycho-pathological sense, this does not prevent
criminal anthropology and sociology from also concerning
themselves with the same subjects, in order to constitute the
natural history of the criminal, and to suggest remedies in the
interest of society.
As for criminals of unsound mind, it is necessary to begin by
placing in a separate category such as cannot, after the studies
of Lombroso and the Italian school of psychiatry, be distinguished
from the born criminals properly so-called. These are the persons
tainted with a form of insanity which is known under various
names, from the ``moral insanity'' of Pritchard to the ``reasoning
madness'' of Verga. Moral insanity, illustrated by the works of
Mendel, Legrand du Saulle, Maudsley, Krafft-Ebing, Savage, Hugues,
Hollander, Tamburini, Bonvecchiato, which, with the lack or atrophy of
the
moral or social sense, and of APPARENT soundness of mind, is properly
speaking only the essential psychological condition of the born criminal.
Beyond these morally insane people, who are very rare--for, as
Krafft-Ebing and Lombroso have pointed out, they are found more
frequently in prisons than in mad-houses--there is the unhappily
large body of persons tainted by a common and clinical form of
mental alienation, all of whom are apt to become criminal.
The whole of these criminals of unsound mind cannot be included in
a single category; and such, indeed, is the opinion expressed by
Lombroso, in the second volume of the fourth edition of his work,
after his descriptive analysis of the chief forms of mental
alienation. As a matter of fact, not only are the organic, and
especially the psychological, characteristics of criminal madmen
sometimes identical with and sometimes opposed to those of born
and occasional criminals, but these very characteristics vary
considerably between the different forms of mental alienation, in
spite of the identity of the crime committed.
It is further to be observed, in respect of criminal madmen, that
this category also includes all the intermediary types between
complete madness and a rational condition, who remain in what
Maudsley has called the ``middle zone. '' The most frequent
varieties in the criminality of these partially insane persons, or
``mattoides,'' are the perpetrators of attacks upon
statesmen, who are generally men with a grievance, irascible men,
writers of insane documents, and the like, such as Passanante,
Guiteau, and Maclean.
In the same category are those who commit terrible crimes without
motive, and who nevertheless, according to the complacent
psychology of the classical school, would be credited with a
maximum of moral soundness.
Again, there are the necrophiles, like Sergeant Bertrand, Verzeni,
Menesclou, and very probably the undetected ``Jack the Ripper'' of
London, who are tainted with a form of sexual psychopathy. Yet
again there are such as are tainted with hereditary madness, and
especially the epileptics and epileptoids, who may also be
assigned to the class of born criminals, according to the
plausible hypothesis of Lombroso as to the fundamental identity of
congenital criminality, moral madness, and epilepsy. I have
always found in my own experience that outrageous murders, not to
be explained according to the ordinary psychology of criminals,
are accompanied by psychical epilepsy, or larvea.
Born or instinctive criminals are those who most frequently
present the organic and psychological characteristics established
by criminal anthropology. These are either savage or brutal men,
or crafty and idle, who draw no distinction between homicide,
robbery or other kinds of crime, and honest industry. ``They are
criminals just as others are good workingmen,'' says Fregier;
and, as Romagnosi put it, actual punishment affects them
much less than the menace of punishment, or does not affect them
at all, since they regard imprisonment as a natural risk of their
occupation, as masons regard the fall of a roof, or as miners
regard fire-damp. ``They do not suffer in prison. They are like
a painter in his studio, dreaming of their next masterpiece. They
are on good terms with their gaolers, and even know how to make
themselves useful. ''[5]
[5] Moreau, ``Souvenirs de la petite et grande Roquette,'' Paris,
1884, ii. 440.
The born criminals and the occasional criminals constitute the
majority of the characteristic and diverse types of homicide and
thief. Prison governors call them ``gaol-birds. '' They pass on
from the police to the judge and to the prison, and from the
prison to the police and to the judge, with a regularity which has
not yet impaired the faith of law-makers in the efficacy of
punishment as a cure for crime. [6]
[6] Wayland, ``The Incorrigible,'' in the Journal of Mental
Science, 1888. Sichart, ``Criminal Incorrigibles.
