Criminal Sociology [29]
(climate, soil, &c.), were but the effect of social and economic conditions (of rural and industrial pursuits, and the like), I was able to make a very simple reply. For, apart even from statistical proofs, if the social conditions of such and such a province, which have an unquestionable influence, are really the absolute and exclusive cause of crime, we may still ask whether these social conditions of the province are not themselves the effect of the ethnical qualities of energy, intelligence, and so forth, in its inhabitants, and of the more or less favourable conditions of the climate and the soil.
But it may also be observed, more precisely, that even apart from strongly marked and conspicuous pathological conditions, which meanwhile assert themselves amongst the biological factors of crime, there is a very great number of these cases in which it cannot actually be said that the bio-psychical anomalies of the criminal are the effect of a physically and morally poisonous environment.
In every family in which there are several children, we find (in spite of identical surroundings and conditions of a favourable kind, and suitable methods of training and education), individuals who differ intellectually from the cradle; we also find in the degree or in the kind of their talent, the same individuals also differ from their cradle in physical and moral constitution. And though the phenomenon may only be manifest in the less numerous cases of types which are markedly normal or abnormal, it is none the less true also in the more numerous cases of ordinary types.
In this connection I may observe that physical and social conditions have a greater or a less influence in proportion as the physical and psychical constitution of the individual is more or less sound and vigorous.
The practical conclusion, therefore, of these general observations on the natural genesis of crime is this: Every crime is the result of individual physical and social conditions; and, since these conditions have a more or less dominant influence for various forms of crime, the most certain and profitable mode of defence which society can employ against criminality is of a twofold character, and both modes ought to be employed and brought into action simultaneously--in the first place, the amelioration of the social conditions, as a natural preventive of crime, in the nature of a substitute for punishment; and, secondly, measures of perpetual or temporary elimination of criminals, according as the influence of biological conditions in the evolution of crime is all but absolute, or more or less great, and more or less curable.
As a matter of fact, when we follow the periodic variations of crime, with its measured growth and decrease, we cannot fail to conclude that these constant and constantly occurring variations depend upon a corresponding variation of anthropological and physical factors. For, whilst criminal statistics are far from showing the regularity which Quetelet claimed with much exaggeration, the proportional figures in regard to the bearings of age, sex, calling, &c., upon criminality exhibit very insignificant variations from year to year. And as for the physical factors, if marked variations are explicable at some given period, it is nevertheless evident that neither climate, nor the nature of the soil, nor atmospheric conditions, nor the seasons, nor the temperature of different years could have undergone in the last half-century such constant and repeated variations as to correspond to those waves of criminality which we shall presently exhibit in almost every nation of Europe.
Thus it is to the social factors that we must chiefly attribute the periodic variations of criminality. For even the variations which can be detected in certain anthropological factors, like the influences of age and sex upon crime, and the more or less marked outbreak of anti-social and pathological tendencies, depend in their turn upon social factors, such as the protection accorded to abandoned infants, the participation of women in non-domestic,
But it may also be observed, more precisely, that even apart from strongly marked and conspicuous pathological conditions, which meanwhile assert themselves amongst the biological factors of crime, there is a very great number of these cases in which it cannot actually be said that the bio-psychical anomalies of the criminal are the effect of a physically and morally poisonous environment.
In every family in which there are several children, we find (in spite of identical surroundings and conditions of a favourable kind, and suitable methods of training and education), individuals who differ intellectually from the cradle; we also find in the degree or in the kind of their talent, the same individuals also differ from their cradle in physical and moral constitution. And though the phenomenon may only be manifest in the less numerous cases of types which are markedly normal or abnormal, it is none the less true also in the more numerous cases of ordinary types.
In this connection I may observe that physical and social conditions have a greater or a less influence in proportion as the physical and psychical constitution of the individual is more or less sound and vigorous.
The practical conclusion, therefore, of these general observations on the natural genesis of crime is this: Every crime is the result of individual physical and social conditions; and, since these conditions have a more or less dominant influence for various forms of crime, the most certain and profitable mode of defence which society can employ against criminality is of a twofold character, and both modes ought to be employed and brought into action simultaneously--in the first place, the amelioration of the social conditions, as a natural preventive of crime, in the nature of a substitute for punishment; and, secondly, measures of perpetual or temporary elimination of criminals, according as the influence of biological conditions in the evolution of crime is all but absolute, or more or less great, and more or less curable.
As a matter of fact, when we follow the periodic variations of crime, with its measured growth and decrease, we cannot fail to conclude that these constant and constantly occurring variations depend upon a corresponding variation of anthropological and physical factors. For, whilst criminal statistics are far from showing the regularity which Quetelet claimed with much exaggeration, the proportional figures in regard to the bearings of age, sex, calling, &c., upon criminality exhibit very insignificant variations from year to year. And as for the physical factors, if marked variations are explicable at some given period, it is nevertheless evident that neither climate, nor the nature of the soil, nor atmospheric conditions, nor the seasons, nor the temperature of different years could have undergone in the last half-century such constant and repeated variations as to correspond to those waves of criminality which we shall presently exhibit in almost every nation of Europe.
Thus it is to the social factors that we must chiefly attribute the periodic variations of criminality. For even the variations which can be detected in certain anthropological factors, like the influences of age and sex upon crime, and the more or less marked outbreak of anti-social and pathological tendencies, depend in their turn upon social factors, such as the protection accorded to abandoned infants, the participation of women in non-domestic,