Criminal Sociology [26]
considered in regard to the growth and activity of the population, has opened up an entirely new channel of fruitful observations, in the classification 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 of causes leading to crime, which had previously been indicated in a fragmentary and incomplete manner.[12]
[12] Bentham, in his ``Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,'' enumerates the following circumstances as necessary to be considered in legislation:--temperament, health, strength, physical imperfections, culture, intellectual faculties, strength of mind, dispositions, ideas of honour and religion, feelings of sympathy and antipathy, insanity, economic conditions, sex, age, social status, education, profession, climate, race, government, religious profession.
Lombroso, in the second edition of his ``Criminal,'' which embraces all the divisions of his classical work, has made but a rapid enumeration 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 classification of its contributory causes:--worldly or natural influences, ethnical or demographical influences, social influences, biopsychical influences.
From the consideration that human actions, whether honest or dishonest, social or anti-social, are always the outcome of a man's physio-psychical organism, and of the physical and social atmosphere which surrounds him, I have drawn attention to the anthropological or individual factors of crime, the physical factors, and the social factors.
The anthropological factors, inherent in the individual criminal, are the first condition of crime; and they may be divided into three sub-classes, according as we regard the criminal organically physically, or socially.
The organic constitution of the criminal comprises all anomalies of the skull, the brain, the vital organs, the sensibility, and the reflex activity, and all the bodily characteristics taken together, such as the physiognomy, tattooing, and so on.
The mental constitution of the criminal comprises anomalies of intelligence and feeling, especially of the moral sense, and the specialities of criminal writing and slang.
The personal characteristics of the criminal comprise his purely biological conditions, such as race, age, sex; bio-social conditions, such as civil status, profession, domicile, social rank, instruction, education, which have hitherto been regarded as almost the exclusive concern of criminal statistics.
The physical factors of crime are climate, the nature of the soil, the relative length of day and night, the seasons, the average temperature, meteoric conditions, agricultural pursuits.
The social factors comprise the density of population; public opinion, manners and religion; family circumstances; the system of education; industrial pursuits; alcoholism; economic and political conditions; public administration, justice and police; and in general, legislative, civil and penal institutions. We have here a host of latent causes, commingling and combining in all parts of the social organism, which generally escape the notice both of theorists and of practical men, of criminologists and of legislators.
This classification of the natural factors of crime, which has indeed been accepted by almost all criminal anthropologists and sociologists, seems to me more precise and complete than any other which has been proposed.
In respect of this classification of the natural factors of crime, it is necessary to make two final observations as to the practical results which may be obtained in the struggle for just laws and against the transgression of them.
In the first place, owing to ``the discovery of the unexpected relation amongst the various forces of nature, which had previously been thought to be independent,'' we must lay stress on this positive deduction,
In my ``Studies of Crime in France'' (1881) I arranged in three natural orders the whole series of causes leading to crime, which had previously been indicated in a fragmentary and incomplete manner.[12]
[12] Bentham, in his ``Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,'' enumerates the following circumstances as necessary to be considered in legislation:--temperament, health, strength, physical imperfections, culture, intellectual faculties, strength of mind, dispositions, ideas of honour and religion, feelings of sympathy and antipathy, insanity, economic conditions, sex, age, social status, education, profession, climate, race, government, religious profession.
Lombroso, in the second edition of his ``Criminal,'' which embraces all the divisions of his classical work, has made but a rapid enumeration 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 classification of its contributory causes:--worldly or natural influences, ethnical or demographical influences, social influences, biopsychical influences.
From the consideration that human actions, whether honest or dishonest, social or anti-social, are always the outcome of a man's physio-psychical organism, and of the physical and social atmosphere which surrounds him, I have drawn attention to the anthropological or individual factors of crime, the physical factors, and the social factors.
The anthropological factors, inherent in the individual criminal, are the first condition of crime; and they may be divided into three sub-classes, according as we regard the criminal organically physically, or socially.
The organic constitution of the criminal comprises all anomalies of the skull, the brain, the vital organs, the sensibility, and the reflex activity, and all the bodily characteristics taken together, such as the physiognomy, tattooing, and so on.
The mental constitution of the criminal comprises anomalies of intelligence and feeling, especially of the moral sense, and the specialities of criminal writing and slang.
The personal characteristics of the criminal comprise his purely biological conditions, such as race, age, sex; bio-social conditions, such as civil status, profession, domicile, social rank, instruction, education, which have hitherto been regarded as almost the exclusive concern of criminal statistics.
The physical factors of crime are climate, the nature of the soil, the relative length of day and night, the seasons, the average temperature, meteoric conditions, agricultural pursuits.
The social factors comprise the density of population; public opinion, manners and religion; family circumstances; the system of education; industrial pursuits; alcoholism; economic and political conditions; public administration, justice and police; and in general, legislative, civil and penal institutions. We have here a host of latent causes, commingling and combining in all parts of the social organism, which generally escape the notice both of theorists and of practical men, of criminologists and of legislators.
This classification of the natural factors of crime, which has indeed been accepted by almost all criminal anthropologists and sociologists, seems to me more precise and complete than any other which has been proposed.
In respect of this classification of the natural factors of crime, it is necessary to make two final observations as to the practical results which may be obtained in the struggle for just laws and against the transgression of them.
In the first place, owing to ``the discovery of the unexpected relation amongst the various forces of nature, which had previously been thought to be independent,'' we must lay stress on this positive deduction,