Ferri CriminalSociology

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THE CRIMINOLOGY SERIESEDITED BY IV. DOUGLAS MORRISON, M.A.

II

CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY

tU CHminology Series.EDITED BY W. DOUGLAS MORRISON.

THE FEMALE OFFENDER. By ProfessorCesar Lombroso and William Ferrero.Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50.

"A book of strong conclusions, and nobody who reads Itwill wonder that it should have excited wide interest."

NewYork Sun.

" Will be sure to attract universal attention and excite muchfavorable comment."

Boston Budget." A valuable addition to the works on criminology, and may

also prove of inestimable help in the prevention of crime."

Detroit Free Press." Must be considered a very valuable addition to rcientific

literature. ... It is not alone to the scientist that the workwill recommend itself. The humanitarian, anxious for thereform of the habitual criminal, will find in its pages manyvaluable suggestions."

Philadelphia Times." There is no book of recent issue that bears such important

relation to the great subject of criminology as this book."

New Haven Leader." Of great value as a basis for study and further investiga-

tion, and Professor Lombroso deserves to win fame as a rewardfor the immense labor involved."

Phila. Evening Bulletin."Every student of criminology, penology, etc., will find

this volume deeply interesting, replete with information de-rived from a wide range of experience and observation."

Ebnira Telegram."This book will probably constitute one of the most valuable

contributions in aid of a nineteenth-century sign of advancedcivilization known as prison reform."

Cinciti?iati Ti7nes-Star.

CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY. By Professor E.Ferri.

In preparation.

OUR JUVENILE OFFENDERS. By W.Douglas Morrison.

CRIME A SOCIAL STUDY. By ProfessorJOLY.

New^ York : D, Appleton & Co., 72 Fifth Avenue.

CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY

BY a-ENRICO FERRI

PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL LAWDEPUTY IN THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENT, ETC.

NEW YORKD. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1896

17^^^^

Authorized Edition.

^-b /J

PREFACE.

The following pages are a translation of that portionof Professor Ferri's volume on Criminal Sociologywhich is immediately concerned with the practicalproblems of criminality. The Report of the Govern-ment committee appointed to inquire into the treat-ment of habitual drunkards, the Report of thecommittee of inquiry into the best means of identi-fying habitual criminals, the revision of the Englishcriminal returns, the Reports of committees ap-pointed to inquire into the administration of prisonsand the best methods of dealing with habitualoffenders, vagrants, beggars, inebriate and juveniledelinquents, are all evidence of the fact that thtformidable problem of crime is again pressing itsway to the front and demanding re-examinationat the hands of the present generation. The realdimensions of the question, as Professor Ferri pointsout, are partially hidden by the superficial interpre-tations which are so often placed upon the returnsrelating to crime. If the population of prisons orpenitentiaries should happen to be declining, thisis immediately interpreted to mean that crime is

VI PREFACE.

on the decrease. And yet a cursory examinationof the facts is sufficient to show that a decreasein the prison population is merely the result of

shorter sentences and the substitution of fines orother similar penalties for imprisonment. If the

list of offences for trial before a judge andjury should exhibit any symptoms of diminution,this circumstance is immediately seized upon as aproof that the criminal population is declining, andyet the diminution may merely arise from the factthat large numbers of cases which used to be triedbefore a jury are now dealt with summarily by amagistrate. In other words, what we witness is achange of judicial procedure, but not necessarily adecrease of crime. Again, when it is pointed outthat the number of persons for trial for indictableoffences in England and Wales amounted to 53,044in 1874-8 and 56,472 in 1889-93, we are at a lossto see what colour these figures give to the state-ment that there has been a real and substantialdecrease of crime. The increase, it is true, maynot be keeping pace with the growth of the generalpopulation, but, as an eminent judge recently statedfrom the bench, this is to be accounted for by thefact that the public is every year becoming morelenient and more unwilling to prosecute. But anincrease of leniency, however excellent in itself, isnot to be confounded with a decrease of crime. Inthe study of social phenomena our paramount dutyis to look at facts and not appearances.

But whether criminality is keeping pace with thegrowth of population or not it is a problem of great

PREFACE. Vll

magnitude all the same, and it will not be solved,as Professor Ferri points out, by a mere resort topunishments of greater rigour and severity. Onthis matter he is at one with the Scotch depart-

mental committee appointed to inquire into thebest means of dealing with habitual offenders, va-

grants, and juveniles. As far as the suppression ofvagrancy is concerned the members of the committeeare unanimously of opinion that " the severest enact-ments of the general law are futile, and that the bestresults have been obtained by the milder provisionsof more recent statutes." They also speak of the" utter inadequacy of the present system in all thevariety of detail which it offers to deter the habitualoffender from a course of life which devolves thecost of his maintenance on the prison and the poor-house when he is not preying directly on the public."The committee state that they have had testimonyfrom a large number of witnesses supporting theview that " long sentences of imprisonment effect nogood result," and they arrive at the conclusion thatto double the present sentences would not diminishthe number of habitual offenders. In this conclusionthey are at one with the views of the Royal Com-mission on Penal Servitude, which acquiesced inthe objection to the penal servitude system on theground that it " not only fails to reform offenders,but in the case of the less hardened criminals andespecially first offenders produces a deterioratingeffect." A similar opinion was recently expressedby the Prisons Committee presided over by Mr.Herbert Gladstone. As soon as punishment reaches

Vlll PREFACE,

a point at which it makes men worse than theywere before, it becomes useless as an instrument ofreformation or social defence.The proper method of arriving at a more or less

satisfactory solution of the criminal problem is toinquire into the causes which are producing thecriminal population, and to institute remedies basedupon the results of such an inquiry. ProfessorFerri's volume has this object in view. The firstchapter, on the data of Criminal Anthropology, isan inquiry into the individual conditions which tendto produce criminal habits of mind and action. Thesecond chapter, on the data of criminal statistics,is an examination of the adverse social conditionswhich tend to drive certain sections of the popula-tion into crime. It is Professor Ferri's contention

that the volume of crime will not be materiallydiminished by codes of criminal law however skil-fully they may be constructed, but by an ameliora-tion of the adverse individual and social conditionsof the community as a whole. Crime is a productof these adverse conditions, and the only effectiveway of grappling with it is to do away as far aspossible with the causes from which it springs. Al-though criminal codes can do comparatively littletowards the reduction of crime, they are absolutelyessential for the protection of society. Accordingly,the last chapter, on Practical Reforms, is intended

to show how criminal law and prison administrationmay be made more effective for purposes of socialdefence.

W. D. M.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.PAGE

The Data of Criminal Anthropology. . i

Origin of Criminal Sociology, IOrigin of Criminal Anthro-pology, 4Methods of Criminal Anthropology, 4Relationbetween Criminal Anthropology and C/iminal Sociology, 5

Criminal Anthropology studies the organic and mental con-stitution of the criminal, 7The criminal skull and brain, 7Criminal physiognomy, 8Physical insensibility amongcriminals, 9Criminal heredity, 9Criminal psychology, 9

Moral insensibility among criminals, 10The criminal mind,10. II. The data of criminal anthropology only applies tothe habitual or congenital criminal, 1 1The occasional andhabitual criminal, iiComparison between the criminal andnon-criminal skull, 12Anomalies in the criminal skull, 12The habitual criminal, 13The crimes of habitual crimi-nals, 14The criminal type confined to habitual criminals,18The proportion of habitual criminals in the criminalpopulation, 18Forms of habitual criminality, 19Formsof occasional criminality, 21Classification of criminals, 23Criminal lunatics, 26Moral insanity, 26Born criminals,28Criminals by acquired habit, 30Criminal precocity, 31

Nature of juvenile crime, 32Relapsed criminals, 35

Precocity and relapse among criminals, 38Criminals ofpassion, 39Occasional criminals, 41Differences between

ix

CONTENTS.

the occasional and the born criminal, 41Criminal typesshade into each other, 44Numbers of several classes ofcriminals, 46Value of a proper classification of criminals,47A fourfold classification, 48.

CHAPTER II.

The Data of Criminal Statistics . , 5^Value of criminal statistics, 51The three factors of crime,52Anthropological factors, 53Physical factors, 53

Social factors, 53Crime a product of complex conditions,54Social conditions do not explain crime, 55Effects oftemperature on crime, 58Crime a result of biological aswell as social conditions, 59The measures to be takenagainst crime are of two kinds, preventive and eliminative,61The fluctuations of crime chiefly produced by socialcauses, 61Steadiness of the graver forms of crime, 63

Effect of judicial procedure on criminal statistics, 64Crimesagainst the person are high when crimes against property arelow, 64 Is crime increasing or decreasing ? 64Officialoptimism in criminal statistics, 67Density of populationand crime, 73Conditions on which the fluctuations of crimedepend, 77

Quetelet's law of the mechanical regularity ofcrime, 80The effect of environment on crime, 81Theeffect of punishment on crime, 82The value of punishmentis over-estimated, 82Statistical proofs of this, 86Bio-logical and sociological proofs, 92Crime is diminished byprevention not by repression, 96Legislators and adminis-trators rely too much on repression, 98The basis of thebelief in punishment, 99-r-Natural and legal punishment,103The discipline of consequences, 104The uncertaintyof legal punishment, I05Want of foresight among criminals,105Penal codes cannot alter invincible tendencies, 106

Force is no remedy, 107Negative value of punishment, 109.II. Substitutes for punishment, noThe elimination of thecauses of crime, 113Economic remedies for crime, 114

Drink and crime, 116Drunkenness an effect of bad socialconditions, 120Taxation of drink, 120Laws against

CONTENTS, xi

PAGE

drink, I2iSocial amelioration a substitute for penal law,121Social legislation and crime, 122Political ameliora-

tion as a preventive of crime, 124Decentralisation a pre-ventive, 126Legal and administrative preventives, 128

Prisoners' Aid Societies, 130Education and crime, 130

Popular entertainments and crime, 131Physical educationas a remedy for crime, 131To diminish crime its causesmust be eliminated, 132 The aim and scope of penalsubstitutes, 134Difficulty of applying penal substitutes,137Difference between social and police prevention, 139

Limited efficacy of punishment, 140Summary of con-clusions, 141.

CHAPTER in.

Practical Reforms .... 143

Criminal sociology and penal legislation, 143Classificationof punishments, 144The reform of criminal procedure, 145The two principles of judicial procedure, 147Principlesdetermining the nature of the sentence, 147Present prin-ciples of penal procedure a reaction against mediaeval abuses,147The "presumption of innocence," 148The verdict of"Not Proven," 149The right of appeal, 151A secondtrial, 151Reparation to the victims of crime, 152Need fora Ministry of Justice, 153Public and private prosecutors,154The growing tendency to drop criminal charges, 155

The tendency to minimise the official returns of crime, 156

Roman penal law, 156Revision of judicial errors, 158

Reparation to persons wrongly convicted, 158 Provision offunds for this purpose, 160Preparation to persons wronglyprosecuted, 161Many criminal offences should be tried ascivil offences, 162The object ofa criminal trial, 163. II. Thecrime and the criminal, 164The stages of a criminal trial,165The evidence, 166Anthropological evidence, 166

The utilisation of hypnotism, 168Psychological and psycho-pathological evidence, 168The credibility of witnesses, 168Expert evidence, 169An advocate of the poor, 172Thejudge and his qualifications, 172Civil and criminal judges

Xll CONTENTS.

should be distinct functionaries, 173The student of lawshould study criminals, 174Training of police and prisonofificers, 174The status of the criminal judge, 175Theauthority of the judge, 176. III. Thejury, 177Origin of thejury, 178Advantages of the jury, 179Defects of the jury,180The jury as a protection to liberty, 182The jury andcriminal law, 184

^Juries untrained and irresponsible, 186

Numbers fatal to wisdom, 188Defects of judges, 193Difference between the English and Continental jury, 194

Social evolution and thejury, 196The jury compared to theelectorate, 197How to utilise the jury, 198. IV. Existingprison systems a failure, 201Defects of existing penal

systems, 201The abuse of short sentences, 202Thegrowth of recidivism, 203Garofalo's scheme of punish-ments, 204Von Liszt's scheme of punishments, 206Thebasis of a rational system of punishment, 207The inde-terminate sentence, 207Flogging, 210The indefinitesentence for habitual offenders, 211Van Hamel's proposalsas to sentences, 212The liberation of prisoners on anindefinite sentence, 213The supervision of punishment,213Conditional release, 215Good conduct test in prisons,216Police supervision, 216Indemnification of the victimsof crime, 217The duty of the State towards the victims ofcrime, 222Defensive measures must be adapted to thedifferent classes of criminals, 225Uniformity of punish-ment, 225The prison staff, 227Classification of prisoners,227Prison labour, 228. V. Asylums for criminal lunatics,230The treatment of insane criminals, 232Crime andmadness, 234Classification of asylums for criminal lunatics,

237The treatment of born criminals, 238The deathpenalty, 239Extension of the death penalty, 243Inade-quacy of the death penalty, 245Imprisonment for life, 246Transportation, 248Labour settlements, 249Estab-lishments for habitual criminals, 250Criminal heredity, 251Incorrigible offenders, 252Cumulative sentences, 253

Uncorrected or incorrigible criminals, 254Cellular prisons,256Solitary confinement, 257The progressive system ofimprisonment, 257The evils of cellular imprisonment, 260The cell does not secure separation, 262Costliness of thecellular system, 263Labour under the cellular system, 264Open-air work the best for prisoners, 265The treatmentof habitual criminals, 266The treatment of occasional

CONTENTS. xill

criminals, 267The treatment of young offenders, 268

Futility of short sentences, 268Substitutes for short sen-tences, 269Compulsory work without imprisonment, 271Conditional sentences, 271Conditional sentences inBelgium, 273Conditional sentences in the United States,275Objections to conditional sentences, 276When theconditional sentence is legitimate, 282The treatment ofcriminals of passion, 282Conclusion, 284.

INTRODUCTION.

THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINAL LAW.

During the past twelve or fourteen years Italy haspoured forth a stream of new ideas on the subject ofcrime and criminals ; and only the short-sightednessof her enemies or the vanity of her flatterers canfail to recognise in this stream something more thanthe outcome of individual labours.

A new departure in science is a simple phenomenonof nature, determined in its origin and progress, likeall such phenomena, by conditions of time and place.Attention must be drawn to these conditions at theoutset, for it is only by accurately defining them thatthe scientific conscience of the student of sociology is

developed and confirmed.The experimental philosophy of the latter half

of our century, combined with human biology andpsychology, and with the natural study of humansociety, had already produced an intellectual atmos-phere decidedly favourable to a practical inquiry intothe criminal manifestations of individual and sociallife.

XVI INTRODUCTION,

To these general conditions must be added theplain and everyday contrast between the metaphysicalperfection of criminal law and the progressive increaseof crime, as well as the contrast between legal theoriesof crime and the study of the mental characteristicsof a large number of criminals.From this point onwards, nothing could be more

natural than the rise of a new school, whose objectwas to make an experimental study of social patho-logy in respect of its criminal symptoms, in order tobring theories of crime and punishment into harmonywith everyday facts. This is the positive school ofcriminal law, whereof the fundamental purpose isto study the natural genesis of criminality in thecriminal, and in the physical and social conditionsof his life, so as to apply the most effectual remediesto the various causes of crime.

Thus we are not concerned merely with the con-struction of a theory of anthropology or psychology,

or a system of criminal statistics, nor merely with thesetting of abstract legal theories against other theories

which are still more abstract. Our task is to showthat the basis of every theory concerning the self-defence of the community against evil-doers must bethe observation of the individual and of society intheir criminal activity. In one word, our task is to

construct a criminal sociology.

For, as it seems to me, all that general sociology

can do is to furnish the more ordinary and universalinferences concerning the life of communities ; andupon this canvas the several sciences of sociology

are delineated by the specialised observation of each

INTRODUCTION. XVll

distinct order of social facts. In this manner we mayconstruct a political sociology, an economic sociology,a legal sociology, by studying the special laws of normalor social activity amongst human beings, after previ-ously studying the more general laws of individual

and collective existence. And thus we may constructa criminal sociology, by studying, with such an aimand by such a method, the abnormal and anti-socialactions of human beingsor, in other words, bystudying crime and criminals.

Neither the Romans, great exponents as they were

of the civil law, nor the practical spirits of the MiddleAges, had been able to lay down a philosophic systemof criminal law. It was Beccaria, influenced far more

by sentiment than by scientific precision, who gave agreat impetus to the doctrine of crimes and punish-ments by summarising the ideas and sentiments ofhis age.i Out of the various germs contained in hisgenerous initiative there has been developed, to hiswell-deserved credit, the classical school of criminal

law.

This school had, and still has, a practical purpose,namely, to diminish all punishments, and to abolisha certain number, by a magnanimous reaction ofhumanity against the arbitrary harshness of mediaevaltimes. It had also, and still has, a method of its own,

^ Desjardins, in the Introduction to his " Cahiers des Etats Generauxen 1789 et la Legislation Criminelle," Paris, 1883, gives a good de-scription of the state of public opinion in that age. He speaks alsoof the charges which were brought against the advocates of the newdoctrines concerning crime, that they upset the moral and social orderof things. Nowadays, charges against the experimental school are citedfrom these same advocates ; for the revolutionary of yesterday is veryoften the conservative of to-day.

XVIU INTRODUCTION,

namely, to study crime from its first principles, as anabstract entity dependent upon law.

Here and there since the time of Beccaria anotherstream of theory has made itself manifest. Thusthere is the correctional school, which Roeder broughtinto special prominence not many years ago. Butthough it flourished in Germany, less in Italy andFrance, and somewhat more in Spain, it had no longexistence as an independent school, for it was only tooeasily confuted by the close sequence of inexorablefacts. Moreover, it could do no more than opposea few humanitarian arguments on the reformation ofoffenders to the traditional arguments of the theoriesof jurisprudence, of absolute and relative justice, ofintimidation, utility, and the like.No doubt the principle that punishment ought to

have a reforming effect upon the criminal survives asa rudimentary organ in nearly all the schools whichconcern themselves with crime. But this is only asecondary principle, and as it were the indirect objectof punishment ; and besides, the observations ofanthropology, psychology, and criminal statistics havefinally disposed of it, having established the fact that,under any system of punishment, with the most severeor the most indulgent methods, there are always cer-tain types of criminals, representing a large numberof individuals, in regard to whom amendment is simplyimpossible, or very transitory, on account of their

organic and moral degeneration. Nor must we for-get that, since the natural roots of crime spring notonly from the individual organism, but also, in largemeasure, from its physical and social environment,

INTRODUCTION, XIX

correction of the individual is not sufficient to pre-

vent relapse if we do not also, to the best of ourability, reform the social environment. The utilityand the duty of reformation none the less survive,even for the positive school, whenever it is possible,and for certain classes of criminals ; but, as a funda-mental principle of a scientific theory, it has passedaway.

Hitherto, then, the classical school stands alone,

with varying shades of opinion, but one and distinctas a method, and as a body of principles and conse-quences. And whilst it has achieved its aim in themost recent penal codes, with a great, and too fre-quently an excessive diminution of punishments, soin respect of theory, in Italy, Germany, and France,it has crowned its work with a series of masterpieces,amongst which I will only mention Carrara's " Pro-gramme of Criminal Law." As the author tells us inone of his later editions, from the d priori principlethat " crime is a fact dependent upon law, an infrac-tion rather than an action," he deducedand that bythe sheer force of an admirable logic a completesymmetrical scheme of legal and abstract conse-quences, wherein judges are compelled, whether theylike it or not, to determine the position of everycriminal who comes before them.

But now the classical school, which sprang from themarvellous little work of Beccaria, has completed itshistoric cycle. It has yielded all it could, and writersof the present day who still cling to it can only re-cast the old material. The youngest of them, indeed,are condemned to a sort of Byzantine discussion of

XX INTRODUCTION.

scholastic formulas, and to a sterile process of scientificrumination.

And meantime, outside our universities andacademies, criminality continues to grow, and thepunishments hitherto inflicted, though they can neitherprotect nor indemnify the honest, succeed in corruptingand degrading evil-doers. And whilst our treatisesand codes (which are too often mere treatises cut upinto segments) lose themselves in the fog of theirlegal abstractions, we feel more strongly every day,

in police courts and at assizes, the necessity forthose biological and sociological studies of crime andcriminals which, when logically directed, can throwlight as nothing else can upon the administration ofthe penal law.

W0V2 9I9I9^'

CHAPTER L

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY.

The experimental school of criminal sociology tookits original title from its studies of anthropology ; it isstill commonly regarded as little more than a "criminalanthropology school." And though this title no longercorresponds with the development of the school, whichalso takes into account and investigates the data ofpsychology, statistics, and sociology, it is none the lesstrue that the most characteristic impetus of the newscientific movement was due to anthropological studies.This was conspicuously the case when Lombroso,giving a scientific form to sundry scattered and frag-mentary observations upon criminals, added fresh lifeto them by a collection of inquiries which were notonly original but also governed by a distinct idea, andestablished the new science of criminal anthropology.

It is possible, of course, to discover a very early

origin for criminal anthropology, as for general

anthropology ; for, as Pascal said, man has alwaysbeen the most wonderful object of study to himself.For observations on physiognomy in particular wemay go as far backwards as to Plato, and his com-parisons of the human face and character with those

2 CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY.

of the brutes, or even to Aristotle, who still earlierobserved the physical and psychological correspon-dence between the passions of men and their facialexpression. And after the mediaeval gropings inchiromancy, metoscopy, podomancy and so forth,one comes to the seventeenth century studies in

physiognomy by the Jesuit Niquetius, by Cortes,Cardanus, De la Chambre, Delia Porta, &c., whowere precursors of Gall, Spurzheim, and Lavater onone side, and, on the other, of the modern scientificstudy of the emotions, with their expression in faceand gesture, conducted by Camper, Bell, Engel,Burgess, Duchenne, Gratiolet, Piderit, Mantegazza,

' Schaffhausen, Schack, Heiment, and above all byDarwin.With regard to the special observation of criminals,

over and above the limited statements of the oldphysiognomists and phrenologists, Lauvergne (1841)in France and Attomyr (1842) in Germany hadaccurately applied the theories of Gall to the examin-ation of convicts ; and their works, in spite of certainexaggerations of phrenology, are still a valuabletreasury of observations in anthropology. In Italy,De Rolandis (1835) had published his observationson a deceased criminal ; in America, Sampson (1846)had traced the connection between criminality andcerebral organisation ; in Germany, Camper (1854)published a study on the physiognomy of mur-derers ; and Ave Lallemant (1858-62) produced along work on criminals, from the psychological pointof view.

But the science of criminal anthropology, more

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 3

strictly speaking, only begins with the observations

of English gaol surgeons and other learned men, suchas Forbes Winslow (1854), Mayhew (i860), Thomson(1870), Wilson (1870), Nicolson (1872), Maudsley

(1873), and with the very notable work of Despine(1868), which indeed gave rise to the inquiries ofThomson, and which, in spite of its lack of synthetictreatment and systematic unity, is still, taken inconjunction with the work of Ave Lallemant, themost important inquiry in the psychological domainanterior to the work of Lombroso.

Nevertheless, it was only with the first edition of

"The Criminal" (1876) that criminal anthropologyasserted itself as an independent science, distinct fromthe main trunk of general anthropology, itself quiterecent in its origin, having come into existence withthe works of Daubenton, Blumenbach, Soemmering,Camper, White, and Pritchard.The work of Lombroso set out with two original

faults : the mistake of having given undue importance,at any rate apparently, to the data of craniology andanthropometry, rather than to those of psychology

;

and, secondly, that of having mixed up, in the firsttwo editions, all criminals in a single class. In later

editions these defects were eliminated, Lombrosohaving adopted the observation which I made in thefirst instance, as to the various anthropological cate-gories of criminals. This does not prevent certaincritics of criminal anthropology from repeating, witha strange monotony, the venerable objections as tothe "impossibility of distinguishing a criminal froman honest man by the shape of his skull," or of

4 CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY,

*' measuring human responsibility in accordance withdifferent craniological types." ^

But these original faults in no way obscure the twofollowing noteworthy factsthat within a few yearsafter the publication of " The Criminal " there werepublished, in Italy and elsewhere, a whole library ofstudies in criminal anthropology, and that a newschool has been established, having a distinct methodand scientific developments, which are no longer to belooked for in the classical school of criminal law.

I.

What, then, is criminal anthropology ? And ofwhat nature are its fundamental data, which lead usup to the general conclusions of criminal sociology?

If general anthropology is, according to thedefinition of M. de Quatrefages, the natural history ofman, as zoology is the natural history of animals,criminal anthropology is but the study of a singlevariety of mankind. In other words, it is the naturalhistory of the criminal man.

Criminal anthropology studies the criminal man inhis organic and psychical constitution, and in his lifeas related to his physical and social environment

just as anthropology has done for man in general, andfor the various races of mankind. So that, as alreadysaid, whilst the classical observers of crime study

^ Vol. ii. of the fourth edition of " The Criminal " (18S9) is speciallyconcerned with the epileptic and idiotic criminal (referred to alcoholism,hysteria, mattoidism) whether occasional or subject to violent impulse ;whilst vol. i. is concerned only with congenital criminality and moralinsanity.


various offences in their abstract character, on theassumption that the criminal, apart from particularcases which are evident and appreciable, is a man ofthe ordinary type, under normal conditions of intelli-gence and feeling, the anthropological observers ofcrime, on the other hand, study the criminal first ofall by means of direct observations, in anatomicaland physiological laboratories, in prisons and mad-houses, organically and physically, comparing himwith the typical characteristics of the normal man, aswell as with those of the mad and the degenerate.

Before recounting the general data of criminalanthropology, it is necessary to lay particular stress

upon a remark which I made in the original editionof this work, but which our opponents have too fre-quently ignored.

We must carefully discriminate between thetechnical value of anthropological data concerningthe criminal man and their scientific function incriminal sociology.

For the student of criminal anthropology, whobuilds up the natural history of the criminal, everycharacteristic has an anatomical, or a physiological,or a psychological value in itself, apart from thesociological conclusions which it may be possible todraw from it. The technical inquiry into these bio-psychical characteristics is the special work of thisnew science of criminal anthropology.Now these data, which are the conclusions of the

anthropologist, are but starting-points for the criminalsociologist, from which he has to reach his legaland social conclusions. Criminal anthropology is to


criminal sociology, in its scientific function, what thebiological sciences, in description and experimenta-tion, are to clinical practice.

In other words, the criminal sociologist is not in

duty bound to conduct for himself the inquiries ofcriminal anthropology, just as the clinical operator isnot bound to be a physiologist or an anatomist. Nodoubt the direct observation of criminals is a veryserviceable study, even for the criminal sociologist ;but the only duty of the latter is to base his legal andsocial inferences upon the positive data of criminal

anthropology for the biological aspects of crime, andupon statistical data for the influences of physical andsocial environment, instead of contenting himself with

mere abstract legal syllogisms.

On the other hand it is clear that sundry questionswhich have a direct bearing upon criminal anthropo-logyas, for instance, in regard to some particular

biological characteristic, or to its evolutionary signifi-

cancehave no immediate obligation or value forcriminal sociology, which employs only the funda-mental and most indubitable data of criminalanthropology. So that it is but a clumsy way ofpropounding the question to ask, as it is too fre-quently asked : " What connection can there bebetween the cephalic index, or the transversemeasurement of a murderer's jaw, and his responsi-bility for the crime which he has committed ? " Thescientific function of the anthropological data is a

very different thing, and the only legitimate questionwhich sociology can put to anthropology is this :

" Is the criminal, and in what respects is he, a normal

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY. 7

or an abnormal man? And if he is, or when he is,abnormal, whence is the abnormality derived ? Is itcongenital or contracted, capable or incapable of

rectification ? "

This is all ; and yet it is sufficient to enable thestudent of crime to arrive at positive conclusions con-cerning the measures which society can take in orderto defend itself against crime ; whilst he can drawother conclusions from criminal statistics.As for the principal data hitherto established by

criminal anthropology, whilst we must refer thereader for detailed information to the works ofspecialists, we may repeat that this new sciencestudies the criminal in his organic and in hispsychical constitution, for these are the two insepar-

able aspects of human existence.A beginning has naturally been made with the

organic study of the criminal, both anatomical andphysiological, since we must study the organ beforethe function, and the physical before the moral.This, however, has given rise to a host of miscon-ceptions and one-sided criticisms, which have not yetceased ; for criminal anthropology has been charged,by such as consider only the most conspicuous data,with narrowing crime down to the mere result ofconformations of the skull or convolutions of thebrain. The fact is that purely morphological obser-vations are but preliminary steps to the histologicaland physiological study of the brain, and of the bodyas a whole.

As for craniology, especially in regard to the twodistinct and characteristic types of criminals


murderers and thieves, an incontestable inferiority-has been noted in the shape of the head, by com-parison with normal men, together with a greaterfrequency of hereditary and pathological departuresfrom the normal type. Similarly an examinationof the brains of criminals, whilst it reveals in theman inferiority of form and histological type, givesalso, in a great majority of cases, indications ofdisease which were frequently undetected in theirlifetime. Thus M. Dally, who for twenty years pasthas displa}ed exceptional acumen in problems ofthis kind, said that " all the criminals who had beensubjected to autopsy (after execution) gave evidenceof cerebral injury." ^

Observations of the physiognomy of criminals,which no one will undervalue who has studiedcriminals in their lifetime, with adequate knowledgeas well as other physical inquiries, external andinternal, have shown the existence of remarkabletypes, from the greater frequency of the tattooedman to exceptionally abnormal conditions of theframe and the organs, dating from birth, togetherwith many forms of contracted disease.

Finally, inquiries of a physiological nature into

the reflex action of the body, and especially intogeneral and specific sensibility, and sensibility topain, and into reflex action under external agencies,conducted with the aid of instruments which recordthe results, have shown abnormal conditions, alltending to physical insensibility, deep-seated and

* In a discussion at the Medico-Psychological Society of Paris ;"Proceedings" for i88i, i. 93, 266, 280, 483.


more or less absolute, but incontestably different inkind from that which obtains amongst the averagemen of the same social classes.

These are organic conditions, it must be at onceaffirmed, which account as nothing else can for theundeniable fact of the hereditary transmission oftendencies to crime, as well as of predisposition to in-sanity, to suicide, and to other forms of degeneration.The second division of criminal anthropology,

which is by far the more important, with a moredirect influence upon criminal sociology, is thepsychological study of the criminal. This recogni-tion of its greater importance does not prevent ourcritics from concentrating their attack upon theorganic characterisation of criminals, in oblivion ofthe psychological characterisation, which even inLombroso's book occupies the larger part of the text.^

Criminal psychology presents us with the cha-racteristics which may be called specially descriptive,such as the slang, the handwriting, the secret symbols,the literature and art of the criminal ; and on theother hand it makes known to us the characteristicswhich, in combination with organic abnormality,account for the development of crime in the in-dividual. And these characteristics are grouped

^ A recent example of this infatuation amongst one-sided, and there-fore ineffectual critics is the work of Colajanni, " Socialism and CriminalSociology," Catania, 1889. In the first volume, which is devoted tocriminal anthropology, out of four hundred pages of argumentativecriticism (which does not prevent the author from taking our mostlundamental conclusions on the anthropological classification ofcriminals, and on crime, as phenomena of psychical atavism), there areonly six pages, 227-232, for the criticism of psychological types.

lO CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY,

in two psychical and fundamental abnormalities,namely, moral insensibility and want of foresight.

Moral insensibility, which is decidedly more con-genital than contracted, is either total or partial, andis displayed in criminals who inflict personal injuries,as much as in others, with a variety of symptomswhich I have recorded elsewhere, and which areeventually reduced to these conditions of the moralsense in a large number of criminalsa lack ofrepugnance to the idea and execution of the offence,previous to its commission, and the absence ofremorse after committing it.

Outside of these conditions of the moral sense,which is no special sentiment, but an expression ofthe entire moral constitution of the individual, as the

temperament is of his physiological constitution, othersentiments, of selfishness or even of unselfishness, are

not wanting in the majority of criminals. Hencearise many illusions for superficial observers ofcriminal life. But these latter sentiments are either

excessive, as hate, cupidity, vanity and the like, andare thus stimulants to crime, or else, as with religion,

love, honour, loyalty, and so on, they cease to be forcesantagonistic to crime, because they have no founda-

tion in a normal moral sense.From this fundamental inferiority of sentiment

there follows an inferiority of intelligence, which,

however, does not exclude certain forms of craftiness,

though it tends to inability to foresee the conse-quences of crime, far in excess of what is observedin the average members of the classes of society towhich the several criminals belong.

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY. II

Thus the psychology of the criminal is summedup in a defective resistance to criminal tendenciesand temptations, due to that ill-balanced impulsive-ness which characterises children and savages.

II.

I have long been convinced, by my study of workson criminal anthropology, but especially by directand continuous observation from a physiological ora psychological point of view of a large number ofcriminals, whether mad or of normal intelligence,that the data of criminal anthropology are notentirely applicable, in their complete and essentialform, to all who commit crimes. They are to beconfined to a certain number, who may be calledcongenital, incorrigible, and habitual criminals. Butapart from these there is a class of occasionalcriminals, who do not exhibit, or who exhibit inslighter degrees, the anatomical, physiological, andpsychological characteristics which constitute thetype described by Lombroso as " the criminal man."

Before further defining these two main classes ofcriminals, in their natural and descriptive character-isation, I must add a positive demonstration, whichcan be attested under two distinct forms

(i) by theresults of anthropological observation of criminals,and (2) by statistics of relapse, and of the manifesta-tions of crime which anthropologists have hithertochiefly studied.

As for organic anomalies, as I cannot here treat


the whole matter in detail, I will simply reproducefrom my study of homicide a summary of resultsfor a single category of these anomalies, which amethodical observation of every class of criminalswill carry further and render more precise, as Lom-broso has already shown (see the fourth edition ofhis work, 1889, p. 273).

Persons in whom I detected

No anomaly in the skullOne or two anomaliesThree or four anomaliesFive or six anomaliesSeven or more anomalies

Homicides sentenced

Top anal servi-tude (346)

II 9 p. c.47 2 5>33 9 5)67 J>3

>>

To Imprison-ment (363)

8'2 p. c.

56-6 32-6 2-3 5>3

Soldiers(711)

37 '2 p. c.

II J,o

,,

o

That is to say, men with normal skulls were threetimes as numerous amongst soldiers as they wereamongst criminals ; of men with a noteworthynumber of anomalies occurring together (three orfour), there were three times as many amongstcriminals as amongst soldiers ; and there was notone soldier amongst those who showed an extra-ordinary number (five or more).

This proves to demonstration not only the greaterfrequency of anomalous skulls (and the same is trueof physiognomical, physiological, and psychologicalanomalies) amongst criminals, but also that amongstthese criminals between fifty and sixty per cent, showvery few anomalies, whilst about one-third of thewhole number present a remarkable combination,and one-tenth are normal in this respect.


3

Amongst the statistical data exhibiting the primarycharacteristics of the majority of criminals, the dataconnected with relapsed criminals are especially con-

spicuous. Though relapses, like first offences, arepartly due to social conditions, they also have amanifest biological cause, since, under the operationof the same penal system, there are some liberated

prisoners who relapse and some who do not.The statistics of relapse are unfortunately very

difficult to collect, on account of differences in the

legislation of different countries, and in the prepara-tion of records, which, even under the more generaladoption of anthropometrical identification, rarely

succeed in preventing the use of fresh names byprofessional criminals. So that we may still say, inthe w^ords of one who is a very good judge in thismatter, M. Yvernes, not only that " the Prisons

Congress of London (1872) was compelled to leavevarious problems undecided for lack of documentaryevidence, and especially the question of relapsedcriminals," but also that to this day (1879), " we findvarying results in different countries, the exactsignificance of which is not apparent"

I have, however, published an essay on interna-tional statistics of relapsed criminals, from which Idrew the following general conclusion : that even inprison statistics, which often give higher totals ofrelapsed cases than are given by judicial statistics,because they are more personal, and therefore lessuncertain, we never obtain the full number of relapses,though the totals given vary from country to country,from district to district, and from prison to prison. It

3


would be impossible to state accurately what propor-tion the numbers given bear to the actual number

;

but I am justified in saying, from all the materials

which I have collected and compared in the aforesaidessay, that the number of relapses in Europe isgenerally between 50 and 60 per cent, and certainlyrather above than below this limit. Whilst the Italian

statistics, for instance, give 14 per cent, of relapses

amongst prisoners sentenced to penal servitude, I

found by experience 37 per cent, out of 346 whoadmitted to me that they had relapsed ; and, amongstthose who had been sentenced to simple imprison-ment, I found 60 per cent, out of 363, in place of the

33 per cent, recorded in the prison statistics. Thedifference may be due to the particular conditionsof the prisons which I visited ; but in any case

it establishes the inadequacy of the official figures

dealing with relapse.

After this statement of a general fact, which proves,

as Lombroso and Espinas said, that " the relapsedcriminal is the rule rather than the exception," we can

proceed to set down the special proportions of relapsefor each particular crime, so as to obtain an indication

of the forms of crime which are most frequently re-sorted to by habitual criminals.

For Italy I have found that the highest percentages

of relapse are afforded by persons convicted of theftand petty larceny, forgery, rape, manslaughter, con-spiracy, and, at the correctional courts, vagrancy

and mendicity. The lowest percentages are amongstthose convicted of assault and bodily harm, murders,

and infanticide.


For France, where legal statistics are remarkablyadapted for the most minute inquiry, I have drawnup the following table of statistics from the lists ofpersons convicted at the assize courts and correctionaltribunals, taking an average of the years 1877-81,

which is not sensibly affected by the results of suc-ceeding years.

It will be seen that the average of relapses forcrimes against the person is higher than the average

for the most serious cases of murderous and indecentassault, which are clearly an outcome of the mostanti-social tendencies (such as parricide, murder, rape,inflicting bodily harm on parents, &c.). Thus homi-cide and fatal wounding, though relapse is very fre-quent in these cases, still display a less abnormaland more occasional character by their lower positionin the table, as shown in the cases of infanticide, con-cealment of birth, and abandonment of infants. Asfor the very frequent occurrence of relapse in special

crimes, such as assaults on officials and resistance toauthority, which rarely come before the assize courtsthough even there they tend to support the highernumbers in the tribunalsthese are offences whichmay also be committed by criminals of every kind,and which, moreover, depend in some measure on thesocial factor of police organisation, and frequentlyon the psycho pathological state of particular indi-viduals.

The somewhat rare occurrence of relapse in such agrave type of murder as poisoning is noteworthy.But this is only an effect of the special psychology ofthese criminals, as I have explained elsewhere.

^ oc O(L) h-l

fo Onoo w vo CO t>. m to ';!0^ 00 t^ t^vO '^ * * ^ "^

W'^

pin

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c oo *^

oQ

^^

bXIc

>

e4

3 O

2^CLi c

^ >, h/D

c.^'gt/3 QJ0^ Xi

fcJO

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by)

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fii

oy

5oGO

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5 2*4

6o-8 > 49723 95 20-527 5> 8I }i 10-5

These figures, showing a greater frequency amongstfemales of precocious crimes against the person, andamongst males against property, are approximatelyrepeated in Switzerland, where young prisoners in1870-74 had been sentenced in these proportions :

For crimes and offences against the person .. 12' I per cent"

.."

morality . 57 incendiarism ; .

,

4-3 theft .. 65-5 ,,

swindling ..... 5-4

forgery . 1-9 vagrancy ... .. 4-6

The judicial statistics of France and Italy givethese proportions :


Assize Courts.

HomicideMurder (and robbery with homicide)ParricideInfanticideImprisonmentWilful wounding (followed by death)AbortionRape and indecent assault on adults |

,, ,,children)

Resistance to and attacks on publicfunctionaries

IncendiarismFalse moneyForgery in public and private docu-ments

Extortion, highway robbery withviolence

Specified and simple theft ...Unintentional wounding

Total of condemned and accused

Italy1866.Condemned.

Under14.

p. c.

1414

14

141428

14 1

p. C.

25II

I

19

10

5

5

919

179

p. c.

2410

8

4

24

716

2

475

France18Accused.

Under16.

p. c,

37377-5

37

3-73-7

41

1621

p. c.

3769

6I

3-8II1*2

II

3-12-5

2*1

3-651

27I

641

The French statistics for the tribunalsno completeItalian statistics being available, are as follows :

Correctional Tribunals.France -1886.

Male. Female.

Offences. Under 16. 1621. Under 16. 1621.

Resistance to authoritiesAssaults on public functionaries ...A^agrancy ... ...MendicityWilful woundingUnintentional woundingOffences against public decency ...Defamation and abuseTheftFrauds on refreshment-house keepersSwindlingBreach of confidenceInjury to crops and plantsGame-law offences

per cent.2

8

4"44-85-18

1-6

I

57-5I

5

9

5

15-1

4,937

per cent.2*2

51

1-2

4i8-5

71-82

30 "42-11-2

133

14-2

per cent.I

73-2

12-53-6I

31i-i

63I

2-4

7'3

I'l

per cent.114-1

5'53-6

II

I'-

'->

1-6

54-36

3'3

1-252

Total of accused 24,811 659 1 2,821


Here we have a statistical demonstration of a morefrequent precocity, amongst various forms of crimi-nality, -in respect of inborn tendencies (murder andhomicide, rape, incendiarism, specific thefts), or in

respect of tendencies contracted by habit (simpletheft, mendicity, vagrancy).

Also this characteristic of precocity is accompaniedby that of relapse, which accordingly we have seento be more frequent in the same forms of natural

criminality, and which we can now tabulate inrespect of its persistency in these born and habitualcriminals.

It has been well said that the large number ofrelapsed persons who are brought to trial year afteryear proves that thieves ply their trade as a regular

calling ; the thief who has once tasted prison life issure to return to it.^ And again, there are very fewcases in which a man or a woman who has turnedthief ceases to be one. Whatever the reason may be,as a matter of fact the thief is rarely or never reformed.

When you can turn an old thief into an honest worker,you may turn an old fox into a house dog.^We must, however, read these testimonies of

practical men, which could easily be multiplied, inthe light of our distinction between incorrigiblecriminals, who are so from their birth, and such asare made incorrigible by the effect of their prisonand social environment. The former could scarcelybe reduced in number, whilst the latter could be

* Qtiarferly Review, 187 1, "The London Police."^ Thomson, "The Psychology of Criminals," Journal 0/ Mental

Sciencef 1870.


considerably diminished by the penal alternatives ofwhich I will speak later.The following statistics of relapse are quoted from

Yvernes, "La Recidive en Europe" (Paris, 1874) :

T?^i^r.c.=o England 1871.Relapses.prisoners.

Sweden 1871.Thieves.

France1826-74.Accused

and broughtto trial.

Italy1870.Accused

and broughtto trial.

Once 38 per cent.Twice ... 18 ,,Three times 44

54 per cent.28 18

45 per cent.20 35

60 per cent.30 >.10

In Prussia (1878-82), 17 per cent, had relapsedonce, 16 per cent, twice, 16 per cent three times, 13per cent, four times, 10 per cent, five times, and 28per cent, six times or oftener.^At the Prisons Congress of Stockholm the following

figures were given for Scotland. Out of a total offorty-nine relapsed prisoners, 16 percent, had relapsedonce, 13 per cent, twice or three times, 6 per cent,

four or five times, 6 per cent from six to ten times,

5 per cent from ten to twenty times, 4 per cent, from

twenty to fifty times, and I per cent more than fiftytimes.

At the meeting of the Social Science Congress,held at Liverpool, in 1876, Mr. Nugent stated thatupwards of 4,107 women had relapsed four times oroftener, and that many of them were classed asincorrigible, having been convicted twenty, forty, orfifty times, whilst one had been convicted 130 times.The judicial statistics of Italy for 1887 give the

following results :

Starke, " Verbrechen und Verbrecher," Berlin, 1884, p. 229.


ItalyConvicted, per cent.

Relapses. ^-Justices ofPeace.

Tribunals. Assizes.

OnceTwo to five timesMore than five times ...

57349

424018

504010

Actual totals of relapses 27,068 16,240 1,870

I have found from my inquiries amongst 346condemned to penal servitude and 353 prisonersfrom the correctional tribunals the following per-centages :

Relapsed. Convicts. ImprisonedOnce 83-2 26Twice 12-5 .. . i6-S3 times 3*1 14-6

4 . IO-85 6-8 6-6

6 5-27 1-6 718 2-8

9 ,y 2-810 23II 9

12 5

13 >, 914 1-4

15 920 5

Actual totals of relapses 128 212

Chronic relapse is naturally less frequent in the caseof those condemned to long terms ; but it is a con-spicuous symptom of individual and social pathologyin the two classes of born and habitual criminals.


Lombroso, in the second volume of his work on" The Criminal," denies that precocity and relapseare characteristics distinguishing feorn and habitualfrom occasional criminals. But it is only a question

of terms. He considers that born and habitualcriminals confine themselves almost exclusively to

serious crime, and occasional criminals to minoroffences. And as the figures which I have givenshow that precocity and relapse are even morefrequent for minor offences than for crimes, hethinks that they contradict instead of confirming

my conclusions.The mere seriousness of an act cannot by any

means divide the categories of criminals ; for homi-cide as well as theft, assault and battery as wellas forgery, may be committed, though in differentpsychological and social conditions, as easily byborn and habitual criminals as by occasionalcriminals and criminals of passion.

Moreover, the figures which I have given show thatprecocity and relapse are more frequent in the formsof criminality which, apart from their gravity, are the

common practices of born and habitual criminals,such as murder, homicide, robbery, rape, &c., whilst

they are far more uncommon, even if they can besaid to be observed at all, in the case of the crimes

and offences usually committed by occasional crimi-nals, such as infanticide, and certain of the offencesmentioned above.

It remains to say something of the occasionalcriminals, and the criminals of passion.


The latter are but a variety of the occasional crimi-nals, but their characteristics are so specific that they

may be very readily distinguished. In fact Lombroso,in his second edition, supplementing the observationsof Despine and Bittinger, separated them from othercriminals, and classified them according to theirsymptoms. I need only summarise his observa-tions.

In the first place, the criminals who constitute thestrongly marked class of criminals by irresistibleimpulse are very rare, and their crimes are almostinvariably against the person. Thus, out of 71criminals of passion inquired Into by Lombroso, 69were homicides, 6 had in addition been convicted oftheft, 3 of incendiarism, and i of rape.

It may be shown that they number about 5 percent, of crimes against the person.

They are as a rule persons of previous goodbehaviour, sanguine or nervous by temperament, ofexcessive sensibility, unlike born or habitual crimi-nals, and they are often of a neurotic or epileptoldtemperament, of which their crimes may be, strictlyspeaking, an unrecognised consequence.

Frequently they transgress in their youth, espe-

cially in the case of women, under stress of a passionwhich suddenly spurns constraint, like anger, or out-raged love, or Injured honour. They are highlyemotional before, during, or after the crime, whichthey do not commit treacherously, but openly, andoften by ill-chosen methods, the first that presentthemselves. Now and then, however, one encounterscriminals of passion who premeditate a crime, and

'40 CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY.

carry it out treacherously, either by reason of theircolder and less impulsive temperament, or as the out-come of preconceived ideas or a widespread sentiment,in cases where we have to do with a popular form oflawlessness, such as the vendetta.

This is why the test of premeditation has no abso-lute value in criminal psychology, as a distinction

between the born criminal and the criminal ofpassion ; for premeditation depends especially onthe temperament of the individual, and is exem-plified in crimes committed by both anthropologicaltypes.

Amongst other symptoms of the criminal ofpassion, there is also the precise motive which leadsto a crime complete in itself, and never as a means ofattaining another criminal purpose.

These offenders immediately acknowledge theircrime, with unassumed remorse, frequently so keenthat they instantly commit, or attempt to commit,suicide. When convictedas they seldom are by ajurythey are always repentant prisoners, andamend their lives, or do not become degraded, sothat in this way they encourage superficial observersto affirm as a general fact, and one possible in allcircumstances, that ameliorative effect of imprison-

ment which is really a mere illusion in the case ofthe far more numerous classes of born and habitualcriminals.

In these same offenders we very rarely observe, if

at all, the organic anomalies which create a criminaltype. And even the psychological characteristics aremuch slighter in countries where certain crimes of


passion are endemic, almost ranking amongst the

customs of the community, like the homicides whichoccur in Corsica and Sardinia for the vindication ofhonour, or the political assassinations in Russia andIreland.

The last class is that of occasional criminals, who,without any inborn and active tendency to crime,lapse into crime at an early age through the tempta-

tion of their personal condition, and of their physicaland social environment, and who do not lapse intoit, or do not relapse, if these temptations disappear.Thus they commit those crimes and offences which

do not indicate natural criminality, or else crimesand offences against person or property, but underpersonal and social conditions altogether differentfrom those in which they are committed by born andhabitual criminals.

There is no doubt that, even with the occasionalcriminal, some of the causes which lead him intocrime belong to the anthropological class ; for ex-ternal causes would not suffice without individualpredispositions. For instance, during a scarcity or ahard winter, not all of those who experience privationhave recourse to theft, but some prefer to endurewant, however undeserved, without ceasing to behonest, whilst others are at the utmost driven to begtheir food ; and amongst those who yield to thesuggestion of crime, some stop short at simple theft,whilst others go as far as robbery with violence.

But the true difference between the born and theoccasional criminal is that, with the former, the


external cause is less operative than the internaltendency, because this tendency possesses, as it were,a centrifugal force, driving the individual to commitcrime, whilst, for the occasional criminal, it is rather

a case of feeble power of resistance against externalcauses, to which most of the inducement to crime isdue.

The casual provocation of crime in the borncriminal is generally the outcome of an instinct ortendency already existing, and far more of a pretextthan an occasion of crime. With the occasionalcriminal, on the other hand, it is the casual provoca-tion which matures, no doubt in a favouring soil,the growth of criminal tendencies not previouslydeveloped.

For this reason Lombroso calls the occasionalcriminals " criminaloids," in order to show preciselythat they have a distinctly abnormal constitution,though in a less degree than the born criminals, justas we have the metal and the metalloid, the epilepticand the epileptoid.And this, again, is the reason why Lombroso's

criticisms on my description of occasional criminalsare lacking in force. He says, as Benedikt said atthe Congress at Rome, that all criminals are crimi-

nals by birth, so that there is no such thing as anoccasional criminal, in the sense of a normal indi-vidual casually launched into crime. But I have

not, any more than Garofalo, drawn such a pictureof the occasional criminal, for as a matter of fact I

have said precisely the opposite, as indeed Lombrosohimself acknowledges a little further on (ii. 422),


namely, that between the born and the occasionalcriminal there is only a difference of degree andmodality, as in all the criminal classes.

To cite a few details of criminal psychology, itmay be stated that of the two physiological condi-tions of crime, moral insensibility and improvidence,occasional crime is especially due to the latter, andinborn and habitual crime to the former. With theborn criminal it is, above all, the lack or the weaknessof m.oral sense which fails to withstand crime, whereaswith the occasional criminal the moral sense is almost

normal, but inability to realise beforehand the conse-quences of his act causes him to yield to externalinfluences.

Every man, however pure and honest he may be,is conscious now and then of a transitory notion ofsome dishonest or criminal action. But with thehonest man, exactly because he is physically andmorally normal, this notion of crime, which simul-taneously summons up the idea of its grievous con-sequences, glances off the surface of the normalconscience, and is a mere flash without the thunder.With the man who is less normal and has less fore-thought, the notion dwells, resists the weak repulsionof a not too vigorous moral sense, and finally prevails;for, as Victor Hugo says, " Face to face with duty,to hesitate is to be lost." ^

^ For instance, I will recall a fact which Morel has related of him-self, how one day, as he was crossing a bridge in Paris, he saw aworking-man gazing into the water, and a homicidal idea flashed acrosshis mind, so that he had to hurry away, for fear of yielding to thetemptation to throw the man into the water. Again, there is the caseof Humboldt's nurse, who was attacked one day by the temptation tokill her charge, and ran with him to his mother in order to avoid a


The criminal of passion is one who is strongenough to resist ordinary temptations of no excep-tional force, to which the occasional criminal wouldyield, but who does not resist psychological stormswhich indeed are sometimes actually irresistible.The forms of occasional criminality, which are deter-

mined by these ordinary temptations, are also de-termined by age, sex, poverty, worldly influences,influences of moral environment, alcoholism, personalsurroundings, and imitation. Tarde has ably demon-strated the persistent influence of these conditions on

the actions of men.

In this connection, Lombroso has drawn a cleardistinction between two varieties of occasional crimi-nals : the " pseudo-criminals," or normal humanbeings who commit involuntary offences, or offenceswhich do not spring from perversity, and do not hurtsociety, though they are punishable by law, and" criminaloids," who commit ordinary offences, butdiffer from true criminals for the reasons alreadygiven.

A final observation is necessary in regard to thisanthropological classification of criminals, and itmeets various objections raised by our syllogisticcritics. The difference existing amongst the fivecategories is only one of degree, and depends upontheir organic and psychological types, and upon theinfluence of physical and social environment.

In every natural classification the differences

disaster. Brierre de Boismont also tells us of a learned man who, atthe sight of a picture in a public gallery, was tempted to cut the can-vas, and ran away from his impulse to crime.


between various groups and varieties are never any-thing but relative. This deprives them of none oftheir theoretical and practical importance, and so itis with this anthropological classif ^ation of criminals.

It follows that, as in natural history we advance bydegrees and shades from the inorganic to the organiccreation, life beginning in the mineral domain withthe laws of crystallisation, so in criminal anthro-

pology we pass by degrees and shades from the madto the born criminal, through the links of moralmadmen and epileptics ; and from the born criminalto the occasional, through the link of the habitualcriminal, who begins by being an occasional criminal,and ends by acquiring and transmitting to his childrenthe characteristics of the born criminal And finally,we pass from the occasional criminal to the criminalof passion, who is but a species of the other, andwho further, with his neurotic and epileptoid tem-perament, not infrequently approximates to thecriminal of unsound mind.Thus in our everyday life, as in science, we very

often find intermediate types, for complete andunmixed types are always the most uncommon.And whilst legislators and judges, in their com-placent psychology, exact and establish markedlines of cleavage between the sane and the insanecriminal, experts in psychiatry and anthropology areoften constrained to place a prisoner somewherebetween the mad and the born criminal, or betweenthe occasional criminal and the normal m.an.

But it is evident that even when a criminal cannotbe classed precisely in one or the other category, and

5


stands between the two, this is in itself a sufficientlydefinite classification, especially from a sociologicalpoint of view. There is consequently no weight inthe objection of those who, basing their argumenton an abstract and nebulous idea of the criminal ingeneral, and judging him merely according to thecrime which has been committed, without knowinghis personal characteristics and the circumstancesof his environment, affirm that criminal anthropologycannot classify all who are detained and accused.

In my experience, however, as a counsel and as anobserver, I have never had any difficulty in classi-fying all persons detained or condemned for crimesand offences, by relying upon organic, and especiallyupon psychological symptoms.

Thus, as Garofalo recently said, whilst the acceptedcriminal science recognises only two terms, the

offence and the punishment, criminal sociology onthe other hand recognises three : the crime, thecriminal, and the means best calculated for socialself-defence. And it may be concluded that up tothis time, science, legislation, and, in a minor degree,but without any scientific method, the administrationof justice, have judged and punished crime in theperson of the criminal, but that hereafter it will benecessary to judge the criminal as well as thecrime.

After these general observations on the anthropo-

logical classes of criminals, it might seem necessaryto establish their respective numerical proportions.

But as there is no absolute separation between one


and another, and as the frequency of the severalcriminal types varies according to the crimes oroffences, natural or otherwise, against persons or

property, no precise account can be rendered of thecriminal world as a whole.By way of approximation, however, it may be said

in the first place that the classes of mad criminalsand criminals of passion are the least numerous,and represent something like 5 or 10 per cent, of thetotal.

On the other hand, we have seen that born andhabitual criminals are about 40 or 50 per cent. ; sothat the occasional criminals would also be between40 and 50 per cent.These are figures which naturally vary according

to the different groups of crime and of criminalswhich come under observation, and which cannot bemore accurately determined without a series ofspecial studies in criminal anthropology, as I saidwhen answering the objections which have beenraised against the methods of this novel science.

It remains for us, before concluding our firstchapter, to establish a fact of great scientific andpractical value. This is that, after the anthropo-logical classification which I have maintained forsome ten years past, all who have been devotingthemselves to the subject of crime as regarded froma biological and social standpoint have recognisedthe need for a classification less simple than that ofhabitual and occasional criminals, and which will bemore or less complex according to the criterion whichmay be adopted.


In the first place, the necessity is generally recog-

nised of abandoning the old arbitrary and algebraictype in favour of a classification which shall corre-spond more accurately with the facts of the case.This classification, originating in observations madewithin the prison walls, I have extended in thedomain of criminal sociology, wherein it is now^established as a fundamental criterion of legislativemeasures which must be taken as a protectionagainst criminals, as well as a criterion of their

responsibility.

Secondly, the classifications of criminals hitherto

given are not essentially and integrally distinct. Ithas been seen, as a matter of fact, that all the classi-fications which have been set forth amount to arecognition of four types, the born, the insane, the

occasional criminals, and the criminals of passion ;and this again resolves itself into the simple andprimitive distinction betw^een occasional and in-stinctive criminals. The category of criminals bycontracted habit would not be accepted by allobservers, but it corresponds too closely to our daily

experience to stand in need of further proof And onthe other hand I must frankly decline to accept theauthority of those who put forward classificationsmore or less symmetrical without having made adirect study of criminals ; for the experimental

method does not admit systems based on mereimagination, or on vague recollections of criminal

trials, or on argumentative constructions built upfrom the systems of others.

As a matter of fact, apart from the differences


of nomenclature, It Is evident that the partial dis-crepancies In this anthropological classification ofcriminals are due in some measure to the differentpoints of view taken by observers. For Instance,the classification of Lacassagne, Joly, Krauss, Badik,and Marro rest upon a purely descriptive criterionof the organic or psychological characteristics ofcriminals. The classifications of Liszt, Medem, andMInzloff, on the other hand, depend solely upon thecurative and defensive Influence of punishment ; andthose of Foehring and Starke upon certain specialpoints of view, such as the assistance of releasedprisoners, on their tendency to relapse.My own point of view, on the contrary, has been

general and reproductive, for my classification Isbased upon the natural causes of crime. Individual,physical, and social, and to this extent It correspondsmore closely with the theoretical and practical re-quirements of criminal sociology. If the curative artof society, like that of Individuals, expects frompositive knowledge an Indication of remedies, it isclear that a classification based on the fundamentalcauses of crime Is best fitted to indicate a socialcure for this manifestation of disease, which is theessential object of criminal sociology. For, as inbiology one is carried from purely descriptive ana-tomy to genetic anatomy and physiology, so in socio-logy we must pass on from purely legal descriptionsof crimes to the genetic knowledge of the criminalswho commit these crimes.For this reason all the chief classifications of

criminals, as has been seen, may be brought into


line with my own, by virtue of the more completeand fruitful test which has established it. Andthus we have a manifest proof that this classificationactually represents the common and permanentbasis of all the chief anthropological categories ofcriminals, whether in regard to their natural causalityand their specific character, or in regard to thedifferent forms of social self-defence which springout of them, and which must be adapted to thenatural causes of crime, and to the principalcriminal types.

But whatever classification may be accepted, weshall always have, as the fundamental axiom ofcriminal anthropology, this variety in the types ofcriminals, which must henceforth be indispensableto all who are theoretically or practically concernedwith crime.

CHAPTER II.

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL STATISTICS.

For moral and social facts, unlike physical andbiological facts, experiment is very difficult, andfrequently even impossible ; observation in thisdomain brings the greatest aid to scientific research.And statistics are amongst the most efficaciousinstruments of such observation.

It is natural, therefore, that criminal sociology,after studying the individual aspect of the naturalgenesis of crime, should have recourse to criminalstatistics for the study of the social aspect. Statisticalinformation in the words of Krohne, " is the firstcondition of success in opposing the armies of crime,for it discharges the same function as the Intelligencedepartment in war."From statistics, in fact, the modern idea of the

close relation between offences and the conditions ofsocial life, in some of its aspects, and above all incertain particular forms, has most directly sprung.The science of criminal statistics is to criminal

sociology what histology is to biology, for it exhibits,in the conditions of the individual elements ofthe collective organism, the factors of crime as a

SI


social phenomenon. And that not only for scientificinductions, but also for practical and legislative pur-poses ; for, as Lord Brougham said at the LondonStatistical Congress in i860, " criminal statistics are

for the legislator what the chart and the compass arefor the navigator."

The experimental school, accepting the fundamentaland incontestible idea, apart from its numerical andoptimistic exaggerations, that the statistics of crimemust be considered in regard to the growth andactivity of the population, has opened up an entirelynew channel of fruitful observations, in the classifi-

cation and study of the natural factors of crime.In my "Studies of Crime in France" (1881) I

arranged in three natural orders the whole series ofcauses leading to crime, which had previously beenindicated in a fragmentary and incomplete manner.^From the consideration that human actions,

whether honest or dishonest, social or anti-social, arealways the outcome of a man's physio-psychical

organism, and of the physical and social atmospherewhich surrounds him, I have drawn attention to

^ Bentham, in his "Introduction to the Principles of Morals andLegislation," enumerates the following circumstances as necessary tobe considered in legislation :temperament, health, strength, physicalimperfections, culture, intellectual faculties, strength of mind, dispo-sitions, ideas of honour and religion, feelings of sympathy and anti-pathy, insanity, economic conditions, sex, age, social status, education,profession, climate, race, government, religious profession.

Lombroso, in the second edition of his " Criminal," which embracesall the divisions of his classical work, has made but a rapid enumera-tion of the principal points :race, civilisation, poverty, heredity, age,sex, civil status, profession, education, organic anomalies, sensations,imitation. Morselli, treating of suicide, has given a fuller classificationof its contributory causes :worldly or natural influences, ethnical ordemographical influences, social influences, biopsychical influences.

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL STATISTICS. 53

^i^iX'^ anthropological OX individual factors of crime, the

physical factors, and the social factors.The anthropological factors, inherent in the indi-

vidual criminal, are the first condition of crime ; andthey may be divided into three sub-classes, accordingas we regard the criminal organically physically, or ,

socially.

The organic constitution of the criminal comprisesall anomalies of the skull, the brain, the vital organs,the sensibility, and the reflex activity, and all thebodily characteristics taken together, such as the

physiognomy, tattooing, and so on.The mental constitntion of the criminal comprises

anomalies of intelligence and feeling, especially ofthe moral sense, and the specialities of criminalwriting and slang.

The personal characteristics of the criminal comprisehis purely biological conditions, such as race, age,

sex ; bio-social conditions, such as civil status, pro-

fession, domicile, social rank, instruction, education,

which have hitherto been regarded as almost theexclusive concern of criminal statistics.

The physicalfactors of crime are climate, the natureof the soil, the relative length of day and night, theseasons, the average temperature, meteoric conditions,

agricultural pursuits.

The social factors comprise the density of popula-tion

;public opinion, manners and religion ; family

circumstances ; the system of education ; industrialpursuits ; alcoholism ; economic and political condi-tions

;public administration, justice and police ; and

in general, legislative, civil and penal institutions.


We have here a host of latent causes, comminglingand combining in all parts of the social organism,which generally escape the notice both of theoristsand of practical men, of criminologists and of legis-lators.

This classification of the natural factors of crime,

which has indeed been accepted by almost all criminalanthropologists and sociologists, seems to me more

precise and complete than any other which has beenproposed.

In respect of this classification of the natural factors

of crime, it is necessary to make two final observa-tions as to the practical results which may be obtainedin the struggle for just laws and against the trans-gression of them.

In the first place, owing to " the discovery of theunexpected relation amongst the various forces ofnature, which had previously been thought to beindependent," we must lay stress on this positive

deduction, that we cannot find an adequate reasoneither for a single crime or for the aggregate crimi-nality of a nation if we do not take into account eachand all of the different natural factors, which we mayisolate in the exigencies of our studies, but whichalways act together in an indissoluble union.

No crime, whoever commits it, and in whatevercircumstances, can be explained except as the out-come of individual free-will, or as the natural effect of

natural causes. Since the former of these explana-tions has no scientific value, it is impossible to give

a scientific explanation of a crime (or indeed of any

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL STATISTICS. 55

Other action of man or brute) unless it is consideredas the product of a particular organic and psychicalconstitution, acting in a particular physical and socialenvironment.

Therefore it is far from being exact to assert thatthe positive criminal school reduces crime to a purelyand exclusively anthropological phenomenon. Asa matter of fact, this school has always from thebeginning maintained that crime is the effect ofanthropological, physical, and social conditions,which evolve it by their simultaneous and insepar-able operation. And if inquiries into biologicalconditions have been more abundant and more con-spicuous by their novelty, this in no way contradictsthe fundamental conclusion of criminal sociology.That being stated, we have still to examine the

relative value of these three classes of conditions in

the natural evolution of crime.

It seems to me that this question is generally

stated inaccurately, and also that it cannot be an-swered absolutely, and in a word.

It is generally stated inaccurately ; because they

who think, for instance, that crime is nothing elsethan a purely and exclusively social phenomenon inthe evolution of which the organic and psychicalanomalies of the criminal have had no part, ignoremore or less consciously the universal correlation of

natural forces, and forget that, in regard to anyphenomenon whatsoever, it is impossible to set anabsolute limit to the network of its causes, immediateand remote, direct and indirect.To put this question in an arbitrary sense would

56 CRIMINAL SOCIOLCGY,

be like asking if a mammal is the product of itslungs, or its heart, or its stomach, or of vegetable

constituents, or of the atmosphere ; whereas each ofthese conditions, internal and external, is necessaryto the life of the animal.

In fact, if crime were the exclusive product of *the social environment, how could one explainthe fam.iliar fact that in the same social environ-

ment, and in identical circumstances of poverty,abandonment, lack of education, sixty per cent,do not commit crimes, and, of the other forty, fiveprefer suicide, five go mad, five simply becomebeggars or tramps not dangerous to society, whilstthe remaining twenty-five actually commit crimes ?And amongst the latter, whilst some go no furtherthan theft without violence, why do others committheft with violence, and even kill their victim out-right, before he offers resistance, or threatens them,

or calls for help, and this with no other object thangain ?The secondary differences of social condition,

which may be observed even amongst the membersof a single family, rotting in one of the slums of our

great towns, or amongst those who are surrounded bythe temptations of money or power, or the like, areclearly not enough in themselves to explain the vastdifferences in the actions which grow out of them,varying from honesty under the greatest discourage-ment to suicide and murder.The question, therefore, must be asked in a relative

sense altogether, and we must inquire which ofthe three kinds of natural causes of crime has a

THE DATA OF CRIMINAL STATISTICS, 57

greater or less influence in determining each parti-cular crime at any given moment in the individualand social life.No clear answer of general application can be given

to this question, for the relative influence of the

anthropological, physical, and social conditions varieswith the psychological and social characteristics ofeach offence against the law.

For instance, if we consider the three great classesof crimes against the person, against property, andagainst personal purity, it is evident that each classof determining causes, but especially the biologicaland social conditions, have a distinctly different in-fluence in evolving homicide, theft, or indecentassaults. And so it is in every category of crimes.The undeniable influence of social conditions, and

still more of economic conditions, in leading up tothe commission of theft, is far inferior in the genesisof homicides and indecent assaults. And similarly,in each category of crimes, the influence of the deter-mining conditions varies greatly according to thespecial forms of crime.

Certain casual homicides are plainly the result ofsocial conditions (gambling, drink, public opinion,&c.) in a much higher degree than homicides whichfor the most part spring from brutality, from themoral insensibility ot individuals, or from theirpsycho-pathological conditions, corresponding to ab-normal organic conditions.

In like manner, certain indecent assaults, incests,&c., are largely the outcome of social environment,which, condemning a number of persons to live in


hovels without air or h'ght, with a promiscuity of sexbetween parents and children such as obtains amongstthe brutes, effaces or deadens all normal sense ofmodesty. On the other hand, there are cases of rapeand the like which are mostly due to the biologicalcondition of the individual, either in manifest formsof sexual disease or, less manifest though none theless actual, ot biological anomaly.For thefts, again, whilst occasional simple thefts

are largely the effect of social and economical con-ditions, this influence becomes feebler in comparisonwith impulses due to the personal constitution,organic and psychical, as, for instance, in the caseof thefts with violence, and especially of murder forthe purpose of robbery, which scoundrels of the" swell-mob " so frequently commit in cold blood.The same observation applies to the conditions of

physical environment. For instance, if the regularincrease of crimes against property in winter (and, as

I showed for the first time from French statistics, inyears when the cold is greatest) is only an indirectresult, through the social and economic influences oftemperature, the increase of crimes of passion andindecent assaults during the months and years whenthe temperature is highest is only a direct effect of

temp

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