Criminal Sociology [16]
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
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