Crime, Its Origin, Cause, and Cure

Part II

Chapter I

Origin and Causes of Crime

In order to determine the origin of actions which we call criminal, we shall be forced to hark back to a very remote period in the history of the human race. In all the epochs of which records exist, we find traces of criminal actions. In fact, if we study minutely the customs of savage peoples, past and present, we find that many acts that are now considered criminal by civilised nations were legitimate in former times, and are to-day reputed such among primitive races.

According to Pictet the Latin word crimen is derived from the Sanscrit karman, which signifies action corresponding to kri to do. This is contradicted by Vanicek who derives it from kru, to hear, croemen (accusation). At any rate, the Sanscrit word apaz, which means sin, corresponds to apas, work (opus), the Latin facinus derives from facere, and culpa according to Pictet and Pott, from the Sanscrit kalp, to do or execute. The Latin word fur (thief) which Vanicek derives from bahr, to carry, the Hebrew ganav and the Sanscrit sten only signify to put aside, to hide, to cover (gonav). The Greek word peirao (πειράω) from which pirate is derived, signifies to risk; the Greek chleptein (χλέπτειν) to hide or steal, is derived from the Sanscrit harp-hlap to hide and steal (Vanicek).

In India, from Ceylon to the Himalayas, infanticide is sanctified by religion, not only among the more barbarous races, but also among the Rajputs, the nobles, who think themselves dishonoured if one of their daughters remains unmarried. The inhabitants of the Island of Tikopia, kill more male children than female, a fact that accounts for their practice of polygamy.

Marco Polo speaks of the infanticide practised in Japan and China, which was then, as it is now, a means of regulating the population. The same practice—common to Bushmen, Hottentots, Fijians, also existed among the natives of Hawaii and America. In the Island of Tahiti, according to the testimony of missionaries, two thirds of the children born are destroyed by their parents.

"Amongst the Guaranys," says D'Azara, "mothers kill a large proportion of their female infants, in order that the survivors may be more highly valued." (Travels in America, 1835.)

The Carthaginians had originally the custom of offering the noblest and most beautiful children to Kronos (Moloch), but later victims were always bought and bred for the purpose. After their defeat at the hand of Agathokles they sacrificed two hundred children belonging to the noblest Carthaginian families, in order to appease the Divine wrath.

Phœnicians, Egyptians, Cretans, Cypriotes, Rhodians, and Persians had similar practices.

Among the Lydians, the sacred courtesans were so numerous and wealthy that their contributions to the Mausoleum of Alyattes exceeded those of the artists and merchants combined (Herodotus, Book I.); in Armenia (Strabo XII.) the priestesses alone were permitted to practise polyandry, and in Media, a woman boasting of five husbands was greatly honoured, which shows that polyandry was not only allowed, but esteemed.

In Thibet, the eldest male of a family shares his wife with his brothers, the whole family live in the bride's house and the children inherit from her. Among the Todas, the wife espouses all her husband's younger brothers as they attain their majority, and they in their turn become the husbands of her younger sisters (Short).

Among the Nairs, a noble negro caste of Malabar, it is customary for one woman to have five or six husbands, the maximum number allowed being ten.

In Egypt, the business of thief was a recognised one. Those who wished to exercise this calling inscribed their names on a public tablet, collected all the stolen goods in one spot and restored them to their owners in exchange for a certain coin. The ancient Germans encouraged the youthful portion of the population to make raids on the property of neighbouring peoples, so that they should not develop habits of idleness. Thucydides states that the Greeks, as well as the barbarous peoples inhabiting the islands and along the coasts, were pirates, and the calling was a noble one.

Amongst Spartans, as is well known, theft was allowed, but the unlucky marauder who was caught in the act, was punished, not for the deed itself, but for his want of skill. In East Africa, according to Burton (First Footsteps in East Africa, p. 176), robbery is considered honourable. In Caramanza (Portuguese Guinea) in Africa, side by side with the peaceful rice-cultivating Bagnous dwell the Balantes who subsist upon the chase and the spoils of their raids. While they kill the individual who presumes to steal in his native village, they encourage depredations upon the other tribes (Revue d' Anthropologie, 1874). The cleverest thieves are greatly esteemed, are paid for instructing boys in their profession, and are chosen to lead the expeditions.

In India the tribe Zakka Khel is devoted to this dishonest calling, and at birth every male child is consecrated to thievish practices by a peculiar ceremony, in which the new-born infant is passed through a breach in the wall of his father's house, whilst the words "Become a thief" are chanted three times in chorus. Amongst the ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, thefts perpetrated outside the boundary of the tribe itself were by no means infamous. In the midst of a great assembly, the chief called upon those he wished to follow him; they showed their willingness by rising to their feet amid the applause of the crowd. Those who refused to take part were looked upon as deserters and traitors (Spencer, Principles of Ethics, 1895). Among the Comanches (Mülhausen, Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Pacific) no man was considered worthy of being numbered among the warriors of the tribe, unless he had taken part in some successful pillaging expedition. The cleverest thieves were the most respected members of the tribe. No Patagonian is deemed worthy of a wife unless he has graduated in the art of despoiling a stranger (Snow, Two Years' Cruise round Tierra del Fuego). Among the Kukis (Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal) skill in stealing is the most esteemed talent. In Mongolia (Gilmour, Among the Mongols), thieves are regarded as respectable members of the community, provided they steal cleverly and escape detection.

Criminality in Children

The criminal instincts common to primitive savages would be found proportionally in nearly all children, if they were not influenced by moral training and example. This does not mean that without educative restraints, all children would develop into criminals. According to the observations made by Prof. Mario Carrara at Cagliari, the bands of neglected children who run wild in the streets of the Sardinian capital and are addicted to thievish practices and more serious vices, spontaneously correct themselves of these habits as soon as they have arrived at puberty.

This fact, that the germs of moral insanity and criminality are found normally in mankind in the first stages of his existence, in the same way as forms considered monstrous when exhibited by adults, frequently exist in the fœtus, is such a simple and common phenomenon that it eluded notice until it was demonstrated clearly by observers like Moreau, Perez, and Bain. The child, like certain adults, whose abnormality consists in a lack of moral sense, represents what is known to alienists as a morally insane being and to criminologists as a born criminal, and it certainly resembles these types in its impetuous violence.

Perez (Psychologie de l'enfant, 2d ed., 1882) remarks on the frequency and precocity of anger in children:

"During the first two months, it manifests by movements of the eyebrows and hands undoubted fits of temper when undergoing any distasteful process, such as washing or when deprived of any object it takes a fancy to. At the age of one, it goes to the length of striking those who incur its displeasure, of breaking plates or throwing them at persons it dislikes, exactly like savages."

Moreau (De l'Homicide chez les enfants, 1882) cites numerous cases of children who fly into a passion if their wishes are not complied with immediately. In one instance observed by him a very intelligent child of eight, when reproved, even in the mildest manner by his parents or strangers, would give way to violent anger, snatching up the nearest weapon, or if he found himself unable to take revenge, would break anything he could lay his hands on.

A baby girl showed an extremely violent temper, but became of gentle disposition after she had reached the age of two (Perez). Another, observed by the same author, when only eleven months old, flew into a towering rage, because she was unable to pull off her grandfather's nose. Yet another, at the age of two, tried to bite another child who had a doll like her own, and she was so much affected by her anger that she was ill for three days afterwards.

Nino Bixio, when a boy of seven (Vita, Guerzoni, 1880) on seeing his teacher laugh because he had written his exercise on office letter-paper, threw the inkstand at the man's face. This boy was literally the terror of the school, on account of the violence he displayed at the slightest offence.

Infants of seven or eight months have been known to scratch at any attempt to withdraw the breast from them, and to retaliate when slapped.

A backward and slightly hydrocephalous boy whom my father had under observation, began at the age of six to show violent irritation at the slightest reproof or correction. If he was able to strike the person who had annoyed him, his rage cooled immediately; if not, he would scream incessantly and bite his hands with gestures similar to those often witnessed in caged bears who have been teased and cannot retaliate.

The above cases show that the desire for revenge is extremely common and precocious in children. Anger is an elementary instinct innate in human beings. It should be guided and restrained, but can never be extirpated.

Children are quite devoid of moral sense during the first months or first years of their existence. Good and evil in their estimation are what is allowed and what is forbidden by their elders, but they are incapable of judging independently of the moral value of an action.

"Lying and disobedience are very wrong," said a boy to Perez, "because they displease mother." Everything he was accustomed to was right and necessary.

A child does not grasp abstract ideas of justice, or the rights of property, until he has been deprived of some possession. He is prone to detest injustice, especially when he is the victim. Injustice, in his estimation, is the discord between a habitual mode of treatment and an accidental one. When subjected to altered conditions, he shows complete uncertainty. A child placed under Perez's care modified his ways according to each new arrival. He began ordering his companions about and refused to obey any one but Perez.

Affection is very slightly developed in children. Their fancy is easily caught by a pleasing exterior or by anything that contributes to their amusement; like domestic animals that they enjoy teasing and pulling about, and they exhibit great antipathy to unfamiliar objects that inspire them with fear. Up to the age of seven or even after, they show very little real attachment to anybody. Even their mothers, whom they appear to love, are speedily forgotten after a short separation.

In conclusion, children manifest a great many of the impulses we have observed in criminals; anger, a spirit of revenge, idleness, volubility and lack of affection.

We have also pointed out that many actions considered criminal in civilised communities, are normal and legitimate practices among primitive races. It is evident, therefore, that such actions are natural to the early stages, both of social evolution and individual psychic development.

In view of these facts, it is not strange that civilised communities should produce a certain percentage of adults who commit actions reputed injurious to society and punishable by law. It is only an atavistic phenomenon, the return to a former state. In the criminal, moreover, the phenomenon is accompanied by others also natural to a primitive stage of evolution. These have already been referred to in the first chapter, which contains a description of many strange practices common to delinquents, and evidently of primitive origin—tattooing, cruel games, love of orgies, a peculiar slang resembling in certain features the languages of primitive peoples, and the use of hieroglyphics and pictography.

The artistic manifestations of the criminal show the same characteristics. In spite of the thousands of years which separate him from prehistoric savages, his art is a faithful reproduction of the first, crude artistic attempts of primitive races. The museum of criminal anthropology created by my father contains numerous specimens of criminal art, stones shaped to resemble human figures, like those found in Australia, rude pottery covered with designs that recall Egyptian decorations (Fig. 22) or scenes fashioned in terra-cotta (Fig. 23) that resemble the grotesque creations of children or savages.

The criminal is an atavistic being, a relic of a vanished race. This is by no means an uncommon occurrence in nature. Atavism, the reversion to a former state, is the first feeble indication of the reaction opposed by nature to the perturbing causes which seek to alter her delicate mechanism. Under certain unfavourable conditions, cold or poor soil, the common oak will develop characteristics of the oak of the Quaternary period. The dog left to run wild in the forest will in a few generations revert to the type of his original wolf-like progenitor, and the cultivated garden roses when neglected show a tendency to reassume the form of the original dog-rose. Under special conditions produced by alcohol, chloroform, heat, or injuries, ants, dogs, and pigeons become irritable and savage like their wild ancestors.

This tendency to alter under special conditions is common to human beings, in whom hunger, syphilis, trauma, and, still more frequently, morbid conditions inherited from insane, criminal, or diseased progenitors, or the abuse of nerve poisons, such as alcohol, tobacco, or morphine, cause various alterations, of which criminality—that is, a return to the characteristics peculiar to primitive savages—is in reality the least serious, because it represents a less advanced stage than other forms of cerebral alteration.

The ætiology of crime, therefore, mingles with that of all kinds of degeneration: rickets, deafness, monstrosity, hairiness, and cretinism, of which crime is only a variation. It has, however, always been regarded as a thing apart, owing to a general instinctive repugnance to admit that a phenomenon, whose extrinsications are so extensive and penetrate every fibre of social life, derives, in fact, from the same causes as socially insignificant forms like rickets, sterility, etc. But this repugnance is really only a sensory illusion, like many others of widely diverse nature.

Pathological Origin of Crime. The atavistic origin of crime is certainly one of the most important discoveries of criminal anthropology, but it is important only theoretically, since it merely explains the phenomenon. Anthropologists soon realised how necessary it was to supplement this discovery by that of the origin, or causes which call forth in certain individuals these atavistic or criminal instincts, for it is the immediate causes that constitute the practical nucleus of the problem and it is their removal that renders possible the cure of the disease.

These causes are divided into organic and external factors of crime: the former remote and deeply rooted, the latter momentary but frequently determining the criminal act, and both closely related and fused together.

Heredity is the principal organic cause of criminal tendencies. It may be divided into two classes: indirect heredity from a generically degenerate family with frequent cases of insanity, deafness, syphilis, epilepsy, and alcoholism among its members; direct heredity from criminal parentage.

Indirect Heredity. Almost all forms of chronic, constitutional diseases, especially those of a nervous character: chorea, sciatica, hysteria, insanity, and above all, epilepsy, may give rise to criminality in the descendants.

Of 559 soldiers convicted of offences, examined by Brancaleone Ribaudo, 10% had epileptic parents. According to Dejerine, this figure reaches 74.6% among criminal epileptics. Arthritis and gout have been known to generate criminality in the descendants. But the most serious, and at the same time most common, form of indirect heredity is alcoholism, which, contrary to general belief, wreaks destruction in all classes of society, amongst the rich and poor without distinction of sex, for alcohol may insinuate itself everywhere under the most refined and pleasant disguises, in liqueurs, sweets, and coffee.

According to calculations made by my father, 20% of Italian criminals descend from inebriate families; according to Penta the percentage is 27 and in dangerous criminals, 33%. The Jukes family, of whom we shall speak later, descended from a drunkard.

The first salient characteristic in hereditary alcoholism is the precocious taste for intoxicants; secondly, the susceptibility to alcohol, which is infinitely more injurious to the offspring of inebriates than to normal individuals; and thirdly, the growth of the craving for strong drinks, which inevitably undermine the constitution.

Direct Heredity. The effects of direct heredity are still more serious, for they are aggravated by environment and education. Official statistics show that 20% of juvenile offenders belong to families of doubtful reputation and 26% to those whose reputation is thoroughly bad. The criminal Galletto, a native of Marseilles, was the nephew of the equally ferocious anthropophagous violator of women, Orsolano. Dumollar was the son of a murderer; Patetot's grandfather and great-grandfather were in prison, as were the grandfathers and fathers of Papa, Crocco, Serravalle and Cavallante, Comptois and Lempave; the parents of the celebrated female thief Sans Refus, were both thieves.

The genealogical study of certain families has shown that there are whole generations, almost all the members of which belong to the ranks of crime, insanity, and prostitution (this last being amongst women the equivalent of criminality amongst men). A striking example is furnished by the notorious Jukes family, with 77 criminal descendants.

Ancestor, Max Jukes: 77 criminals; 142 vagabonds; 120 prostitutes; 18 keepers of houses of ill-fame; 91 illegitimates; 141 idiots or afflicted with impotency or syphilis; 46 sterile females.

A like criminal contingent may be found in the pedigrees of Chrêtien, the Lemaires, the Fieschi family, etc.

Race. This is of great importance in view of the atavistic origin of crime. There exist whole tribes and races more or less given to crime, such as the tribe Zakka Khel in India. In all regions of Italy, whole villages constitute hot-beds of crime, owing, no doubt, to ethnical causes: Artena in the province of Rome, Carde and San Giorgio Canavese in Piedmont, Pergola in Tuscany, San Severo in Apulia, San Mauro and Nicosia in Sicily. The frequency of homicide in Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia is fundamentally due to African and Oriental elements.

In the gipsies we have an entire race of criminals with all the passions and vices common to delinquent types: idleness, ignorance, impetuous fury, vanity, love of orgies, and ferocity. Murder is often committed for some trifling gain. The women are skilled thieves and train their children in dishonest practices. On the contrary, the percentage of crimes among Jews is always lower than that of the surrounding population; although there is a prevalence of certain specific forms of offences, often hereditary, such as fraud, forgery, libel, and chief of all, traffic in prostitution; murder is extremely rare.

Illnesses, Intoxications, Traumatism

These causes, although apparently as important as heredity, are in fact, decidedly less so. Both disease and trauma may intensify or call forth latent perversity, but they are less frequently the cause of it. There are, however, certain cases in which traumatism meningitis, typhus, or other diseases that affect the brain have undoubtedly evoked criminal tendencies in individuals hitherto normal. Twenty out of 290 criminals studied by my father with minute care had suffered from injury to the head in childhood; and recently a case came under his notice in which a youth of good family and excellent character received an injury to his head at the age of fourteen and became epileptic, developing subsequently into a gambler, thief, and murderer. Such cases, however, are not very common.

There is one disease that without other causes—either inherited degeneracy or vices resulting from a bad education and environment—is capable of transforming a healthy individual into a vicious, hopelessly evil being. That disease is alcoholism, which has been discussed in a previous chapter, but to which I must refer briefly again, because it is such an important factor of criminality.

Temporary drunkenness alone will give rise to crime, since it inflames the passions, obscures the mental and moral faculties, and destroys all sense of decency, causing men to commit offences in a state of automatism or a species of somnambulism. Sometimes drunkenness produces kleptomania. A slight excess in drinking will cause men of absolute honesty to appropriate any objects they can lay their hands upon. When the effects of drink have worn off, they feel shame and remorse and hasten to restore the stolen goods. Alcohol, however, more often causes violence. An officer known to my father, when drunk, twice attempted to run his sword through his friends and his own attendant.

Among Oriental sects of murderers, as is well known, homicidal fury was excited and maintained by a drink brewed for the purpose from hemp-seed.

Büchner shows that dishonest instincts can be developed in bees by a special food consisting of honey mixed with brandy. The insects acquire a taste for this drink in the same way as human beings do, and under its influence cease to work. Ants show similar symptoms after narcosis by means of chloroform. Their bodies remain motionless, with the exception of their heads, with which they snap at all who approach them.

The above cited cases show that there exists a species of alcoholic psychic epilepsy, similar to congenital epilepsy, in which after alcoholic poisoning, the individual is incited to raise his hand against himself or others without any due cause. But besides the crimes of violence committed during a drunken fit, the prolonged abuse of alcohol, opium, morphia, coca, and other nervines may give rise to chronic perturbation of the mind, and without other causes, congenital or educative, will transform an honest, well-bred, and industrious man into an idle, violent, and apathetic fellow,—into an ignoble being, capable of any depraved action, even when he is not directly under the influence of the drug.

When we were children, a frequent visitor at our house was a certain Belm... (see Fig. 16, Chap. III.), a very intelligent man and an accomplished linguist. He was a military officer, but later took to journalism, and his writings were distinguished by vivacious style and elevation of thought. He married and had several children, but at the age of thirty some trouble caused him to take to drink. His character soon underwent a complete change. Although formerly a proud man, he was not ashamed to pester all his friends for money and to let his family sink into the direst poverty.

Social Causes of Crime

Education. We now come to the second series of criminal factors, those which depend, not on the organism, but on external conditions. We have already stated that the best and most careful education, moral and intellectual, is powerless to effect an improvement in the morally insane, but that in other cases, education, environment, and example are extremely important, for which reason neglected and destitute children are easily initiated into evil practices.

At Naples, "Esposito" (foundling) is a common name amongst prisoners, as is at Bologna and in Lombardy the name "Colombo," which signifies the same thing. In Prussia, illegitimate males form 6% of offenders, illegitimate females 1.8%; in Austria, 10 and 2% respectively. The percentage is considerably larger amongst juvenile criminals, prostitutes, and recidivists. In France, in 1864, 65% of the minors arrested were bastards or orphans, and at Hamburg 30% of the prostitutes are illegitimate. In Italy, 30% of recidivists are natural children and foundlings.

This depends largely on hereditary influences, which are generally bad, but still more on the difficulty of finding a means of subsistence, owing to the state of neglect in which these wretched beings exist, even when herded together in charity schools and orphanages—both of which are even more anti-hygienic morally, than they are physically.

A depraved environment, which counsels or even insists on wrong-doing, and the bad example of parents or relatives, exercise a still more sinister influence on children than desertion. The criminal family Cornu, finding one of their children, a little girl, strongly averse to their evil ways, forced her to carry the head of one of their victims in her pinafore for a couple of miles, after which she became one of the most ferocious of the band.

Meteoric Causes are frequently the determining factor of the ultimate impulsive act, which converts the latent criminal into an effective one. Excessively high temperature and rapid barometric changes, while predisposing epileptics to convulsive seizures and the insane to uneasiness, restlessness, and noisy outbreaks, encourage quarrels, brawls, and stabbing affrays. To the same reason may be ascribed the prevalence during the hot months, of rape, homicide, insurrections, and revolts. In comparing statistics of criminality in France with those of the variations in temperature, Ferri noted an increase in crimes of violence during the warmer years. An examination of European and American statistics shows that the number of homicides decreases as we pass from hot to cooler climates. Holzendorf calculates that the number of murders committed in the Southern States of North America is fifteen times greater than those committed in the Northern States. A low temperature, on the contrary, has the effect of increasing the number of crimes against property, due to increased need, and both in Italy and America the proportion of thefts increases the farther north we go.

Density of Population. The agglomeration of persons in a large town is a certain incentive to crimes against property. Robbery, frauds, and criminal associations increase, while there is a decrease in crimes against the person, due to the restraints imposed by mutual supervision.

"He who has studied mankind, or, better still, himself [writes my father], must have remarked how often an individual, who is respectable and self-controlled in the bosom of his family, becomes indecent and even immoral when he finds himself in the company of a number of his fellows, to whatever class they may belong. The primitive instincts of theft, homicide, and lust, the germs of which lie dormant in each individual as long as he is alone, particularly if kept in check by sound moral training, awaken and develop suddenly into gigantic proportions when he comes into contact with others, the increase being greater in those who already possess such criminal tendencies in a marked degree."

In all large cities, low lodging-houses form the favourite haunts of crime.

Imitation. The detailed accounts of crimes circulated in large towns by newspapers, have an extremely pernicious influence, because example is a powerful agent for evil as well as for good.

At Marseilles in 1868 and 1872, the newspaper reports of a case of child desertion provoked a perfect epidemic of such cases, amounting in one instance to eight in one day.

Before Corridori murdered the Head-master of his boarding-school, he is said to have declared: "There will be a repetition of what happened to the Head-master at Catanzaro" (who had been murdered in the same way).

The anarchist Lucchesi killed Banti at Leghorn shortly after the murder of Carnot by Caserio, and in a similar manner. Certain forms of crime which become common at given periods, the throwing of bombs, the cutting up of the bodies of murdered persons, particularly those of women, and frauds of a peculiar type may certainly be attributed to imitation, as may also the violence committed by mobs, in whom cruelty takes the form of an epidemic affecting even individuals of mild disposition.

Immigration. The agglomeration of population produced by immigration is a strong incentive to crime, especially that of an associated nature,—due to increased want, lessened supervision and the consequent ease with which offenders avoid detection. In New York the largest contingent of criminality is furnished by the immigrant population.

The fact of agglomeration explains the greater frequency of homicide in France in thickly populated districts.

The criminality of immigrant populations increases in direct ratio to its instability. This applies to the migratory population in the interior of a country, specially that which has no fixed destination, as peddlers, etc. Even those immigrants whom we should naturally assume to be of good disposition—religious pilgrims—commit a remarkable number of associated crimes. The Italian word mariuolo which signifies "rogue" owes its origin to the behaviour of certain pilgrims to the shrines of Loreto and Assisi, who, while crying Viva Maria! ("Hail to the Virgin Mary!") committed the most atrocious crimes, confident that the pilgrimage itself would serve as a means of expiation. In his Reminiscences Massimo d' Azeglio notes that places boasting of celebrated shrines always enjoy a bad reputation.

Prison Life. The density of population in the most criminal of cities has not such a bad influence as has detention in prisons, which may well be called "Criminal Universities."

Nearly all the leaders of malefactors: Maino, Lombardo, La Gala, Lacenaire, Soufflard, and Hardouin were escaped convicts, who chose their accomplices among those of their fellow-prisoners who had shown audacity and ferocity. In fact, in prison, criminals have an opportunity of becoming acquainted with each other, of instructing those less skilled in infamy, and of banding together for evil purposes. Even the expensive cellular system, from which so many advantages were expected, has not attained its object and does not prevent communication between prisoners. Moreover, in prison, mere children of seven or eight, imprisoned for stealing a bunch of grapes or a fowl, come into close contact with adults and become initiated into evil practices, of which these poor little victims of stupid laws were previously quite ignorant.

Education. Contrary to general belief, the influence of education on crime is very slight.

The number of illiterates arrested in Europe is less, proportionally, than that of educated individuals. Nevertheless, although a certain degree of instruction is often an aid to crime, its extension acts as a corrective, or at least tends to mitigate the nature of crimes committed, rendering them less ferocious, and to decrease crimes of violence, while increasing fraudulent and sexual offences.

Professions. The trades and professions which encourage inebriety in those who follow them (cooks, confectioners, and inn-keepers), those which bring the poor (servants of all kinds, especially footmen, coachmen, and chauffeurs) into contact with wealth, or which provide means for committing crimes (bricklayers, blacksmiths, etc.) furnish a remarkable share of criminality. Still more so is this the case with the professions of notary, usher of the courts, attorneys, and military men.

It should be observed, however, that the characteristic idleness of criminals makes them disinclined to adopt any profession, and when they do, their extreme fickleness prompts them to change continually.

Economic Conditions. Poverty is often a direct incentive to theft, when the miserable victims of economic conditions find themselves and their families face to face with starvation, and it acts further indirectly through certain diseases: pellagra, alcoholism, scrofula, and scurvy, which are the outcome of misery and produce criminal degeneration; its influence has nevertheless often been exaggerated. If thieves are generally penniless, it is because of their extreme idleness and astonishing extravagance, which makes them run through huge sums with the greatest ease, not because poverty has driven them to theft. On the other hand the possession of wealth is frequently an incentive to crime, because it creates an ever-increasing appetite for riches, besides furnishing those occupying high public offices or important positions in the banking and commercial world with numerous opportunities for dishonesty and persuading them that money will cover any evil deed.

Sex. Statistics of every country show that women contribute a very small share of criminality compared with that furnished by the opposite sex. This share becomes still smaller when we eliminate infanticide, in view of the fact that the guilty parties in nearly all such cases should be classed as criminals from passion. In Austria, crimes committed by females barely constitute 15% of the total criminality; in Spain 11%; and in Italy 8.2%.

However, this applies only to serious crimes. For those of lesser gravity, statistics are at variance with the results obtained by the Modern School, which classes prostitutes as criminals. According to this mode of calculation, the difference between the criminality of the two sexes shows a considerable diminution, resulting perhaps in a slight prevalence of crime in women. In any case, female criminality tends to increase proportionally with the increase of civilisation and to equal that of men.

Age. The greater number of crimes are committed between the ages of 15 and 30, whereas, outbreaks of insanity between these ages are extremely rare, the maximum number occurring between 40 and 50. On the whole, criminality is far more precocious than mental alienation, and its precocity, which is greater among thieves than among murderers, swindlers, and those guilty of violence and assault is another proof of the congenital nature of crime and its atavistic origin, since precocity is a characteristic of savage races.

Seldom do we find among born criminals any indication of that so-called criminal scale, leading by degrees from petty offences to crimes of the most serious nature. As a general rule, they commence their career with just those crimes which distinguish it throughout, even when these are of the gravest kind, like robbery and murder. Rather may it be said that every age has its specific criminality, and this is the case especially with criminaloids. On the borderland between childhood and adolescence, there seems to be a kind of instinctive tendency to law-breaking, which by immature minds is often held to be a sign of virility. The Italian novelist and poet Manzoni describes this idea very well in his Promessi Sposi, when speaking of the half-witted lad Gervaso, who "because he had taken part in a plot savouring of crime, felt that he had suddenly become a man."

This idea lurks in the slang word omerta used by Italian criminals, which signifies not only to be a man but a man daring enough to break the law.

Chapter II

The Prevention of Crime

The curability of crime is an entirely novel idea, due to the Modern Penal School. As long as, in the eyes of the world, the criminal was a normal individual, who voluntarily and consciously violated the laws, there could be no thought of a cure, but rather of a punishment sufficiently severe to prevent his recidivation and to inspire others with a salutary fear of offending the law.

The penalties excogitated in past centuries were varied: flogging, hard labour, imprisonment, and exile. During the last century they have been crystallised in the form of imprisonment, as being the most humane, although in reality it is the most illogical form, since it serves neither to intimidate the offender nor to reform him. In fact, although prison with its forced separation from home and family is a terrible penalty for those honest persons, who sometimes suffer with the guilty, it is a haven of rest for ordinary criminals, or at the worst, in no wise inferior to their usual haunts. There is a certain amount of privation of air, light, and food, but these disadvantages are fully counterbalanced by the enjoyment of complete leisure and the company of men of their own stamp.

If imprisonment does not serve to intimidate instinctive criminals, still less is it a means of rehabilitation. In virtue of what law, should any man, even if he be normal, become reformed after a varying period of detention in a gloomy cell, where he is isolated from the better elements of society and deprived of every elevating influence—art, science, and high ideals; where he loses regular habits of work, the disciplining struggle with circumstances, and the sense of responsibility natural to free citizens and is tainted by constant contact with the worst types of humanity?

The autobiographies of criminals show us that far from reforming evil-doers, prison is in reality a criminal university which houses all grades of offenders during varying periods; that far from being a means of redemption, it is a hot-bed of depravity, where are prepared and developed the germs which are later to infect society, yet it is to this incubator of crime that society looks for defence against those very elements of lawlessness which it is actively fostering.

In his book Prison Palimpsests my father has made a collection of all the inscriptions, drawings, and allegories scratched or written by criminals while in prison, on walls, utensils, and books. Of lamentations, despair, and repentance, scarcely a trace, but innumerable imprecations, plans of revenge against enemies without, project of future burglaries and murders, and advice for the sound instruction of criminals.

Although the Modern School has demonstrated the uselessness, nay the injuriousness of prison, it has no desire to leave society suddenly unprotected and the criminal at large. Nature does not proceed by leaps, and the Modern School aims at effecting a revolution, not a revolt, in Penal Jurisprudence. It proposes, therefore, the gradual transformation of the present system, which is to be rendered as little injurious and as beneficial as possible. Such has been the course pursued by the modern science of medicine, which from the original absurd remedies and equally absurd empirical operations, has now succeeded in placing the cure of diseases on the more solid basis of experience.

The Modern School aims at preventing the formation of criminals, not punishing them, or, failing prevention, at effecting their cure; and, failing cure, at segregating such hopeless cases for life in suitable institutes, which shall protect society better than the present system of imprisonment, but be entirely free from the infamy attaching to the prison. The Modern School proposes the cure of criminals by preventive and legislative measures.

Preventive Institutions for Destitute Children

The cure of crime, as of any other disease, has the greater chance of success, the earlier it is taken in hand. Attention, therefore, should be specially concentrated on the childhood of those likely to become criminals: orphans and destitute children, who as adults contribute the largest contingent of criminality. A community seriously resolved to protect itself from evil should, above all, provide a sound education for those unfortunate waifs who have been deprived of their natural protectors by death or vice. The greatest care must be exercised in placing them, whenever it is possible, in respectable private families where they will have careful supervision, or in suitable institutes where no pains are spared to give them a good education and, more important still, sound moral training.

In order to attain this end, the State cannot do better than follow in the footsteps of philanthropists of rare talent like Don Bosco, Dr. Barnardo, General Booth, Brockway, and many others, who have been so successful in rescuing destitute children.

Don Bosco, the Black Pope, as he was familiarly styled at Turin, where he lived during the latter half of the last century, was a Roman Catholic priest who founded numerous institutes for orphans in all parts of Italy and many parts of both Americas, especially South America. The psychological basis on which he founded the training of children in these schools, was mainly derived from experience, and proved so successful in practice that it is worthy of quotation:

"Most neglected and abandoned children [he said], are of ordinary character and disposition, but inclined to changeableness and indifference. Brief, but frequent exhortations, good advice, small rewards, and encouragements to persevere are very efficacious, but above all the teacher must show perfect trust in his charges, while being careful never to relax his vigilance. The greatest solicitude should, however, be reserved for the unruly characters, who generally form about one fifth of the whole number. The teacher should make a special effort to become thoroughly acquainted with their dispositions and past life and to convince them that he is their friend. They should be encouraged to chatter freely, while the conversation of the master should be brief and abound in examples, maxims, and anecdotes. Above all, while showing perfect confidence in his pupils, he should never lose sight of them.

"Occasional treats of a wholesome and attractive nature, picnics and walks, will keep the boys happy and contented. Lasciviousness is the only vice that need be feared; any lad persisting in immoral practices should be expelled.

"Harsh punishments should never be resorted to. The repressive system may check unruliness, but can never influence for good. It involves little trouble on the part of those who make use of it and may be efficacious in the army, which is composed of responsible adults, but it has a harmful effect on the young, who err more from thoughtlessness than from evil disposition. Far more suitable in their case is the preventive system, which consists in making them thoroughly acquainted with the regulations they have to obey and in watching over them. In this way they are always conscious of the vigilance of the Head-master or his assistants, who are ready to guide and advise them in every difficulty and to anticipate their wants. The pupils should never be left to their own devices, yet they should have complete freedom to run, jump, and enjoy themselves in their own noisy fashion. Gymnastics, vocal and instrumental music, and plenty of outdoor exercise are the most efficacious means of maintaining discipline and improving the boys, bodily and mentally."

Only children over seven were admitted to the Institutes founded by Don Bosco. Dr. Barnardo, on the other hand, who rescued thousands of orphans and destitute children in London and was able to witness a decided decrease in the criminality of that capital, concentrated his beneficent efforts on destitute children from their earliest years, with the idea of removing them as soon as possible from the bad environment in which they were born. He was, moreover, desirous that they should share with more fortunate children the boon of happy childhood, and resolved that up to the age of seven they should be brought up without educational or other restraints, save the affection of those appointed to watch over them during the first years, so that they might imbibe sufficient love and joy for the rest of their lives. Such is the rule followed in the buildings set apart for the infants, Bird Castle, Tiny House, and Jersey House, which are perfect nests of happy birds.

In spite of the seeming impossibility of obtaining individual education in a school, thanks to a system devised by Dr. Barnardo, the older children actually enjoy this advantage. New-comers are placed in a special department until facts relative to their past life are ascertained and an idea formed of their individuality. The results of these preliminary inquiries determine in which school the boy shall be placed and what trade he shall follow. Moreover, any boy desiring to change his occupation is encouraged to do so. Every year a re-distribution is made according to the aptitudes shown by the lads in study and manual work and their physical and intellectual development, special care being taken that the younger children should not be put with those who have arrived at a more advanced stage of physical and mental evolution. Free development of the various individual aptitudes is thus secured, while avoiding that common defect of schools, the turning out of numerous lads all made after one regulation pattern.

Having come to the conclusion that life in an institute, in spite of all these precautions, is unsuited to girls, Dr. Barnardo founded a village at a short distance from London with cottage homes for children of both sexes. Each cottage contains from fifteen to twenty children and forms a family, the domestic duties of the homes being discharged by the girls.

Dr. Barnardo realised, however, that the placing of children in private families is the best means of effecting their salvation, and he made great efforts in private and public to induce benevolent persons to adopt his protégés. Finally, he organised a regular emigration of lads to Canada, where a special agent provides them with situations on farms or in factories.

America certainly does not lag behind Europe in the number and excellence of its organisations for rescuing the little derelicts of its cities. In every town of the United States visited by me, I had the pleasure of inspecting such institutions, all of which are kept with extraordinary care, and in some cases, with elegance. Amongst others, I may mention the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society in New York City and the George Junior Republic at Freeville, near Ithaca, both of which seemed to me the most original of their kind.

The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is an orphanage for the Jews, managed with rare insight and intelligence by Mr. Lewisohn. The Institute being founded for orphans only, there is no limit as to age or condition. Infants and young people, diseased and healthy, intelligent and mentally deficient, normal and abnormal, good and bad, are all welcome. In order to prevent the overcrowding of the institution and to provide homes for as many children as possible, a committee has been organised for the purpose of finding homes in private families for all children under six years of age and for those who are sickly and delicate. A certain proportion are adopted, and others are boarded out, but the sum paid for their keep is always less than it would cost to place them in a school; and there is, moreover, always a chance of their being adopted later. At the age of six, all healthy and robust children enter the Institute, which becomes their home, providing them with board, lodging, clothing, moral and religious instruction, and training in some kind of work, but in order that they shall mix with other children, they are educated at the public schools, and the consequent saving in money and space enables the Institute to receive a larger number of children than it otherwise could.

Instead of the uniform customary in such institutions which serves to accentuate in a humiliating way the contrast between the inmates and more fortunate children who possess parents and homes, the clothing worn by the orphans of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is varied in colour and style. Girls skilled in the use of their needle alter their dresses to suit their individual tastes, and are allowed to sew, either gratis or for payment, for the boys and other girls of the Institute, who are unable or unwilling to make these alterations themselves. When school-tasks are finished, boys and girls of over twelve are allowed to engage in light occupations—needlework, writing, etc., supplied by the Institute to enable them to earn a little pocket-money and learn to spend it properly.

When the boys and girls have passed all the standards of the elementary schools, they enter trade schools, where they remain until they are proficient in some craft which will enable them to earn a living. Those who show decided intellectual or business aptitudes are sent to colleges or commercial schools.

The children are encouraged to take an interest in social and political life by the foundation of a miniature republic, or rather two separate republics, one for the boys and the other for the girls, each with its president, a boy or a girl according to the case. In reality, however, they are under the management of a lady, who devises various amusements for the children, reading, games, etc., teaches them music and drawing, and helps the little President to organise entertainments to which outsiders, relatives, and schoolfellows are invited.

The George Junior Republic (America) is a very different institution, having been founded for unruly and turbulent boys, who are beyond their parents' control. It is a species of Reformatory, not a Home for Waifs.

Mr. George, the founder of the Republic, a man of original and intelligent cast of mind, if I may judge of his individuality from hearsay, decided on its establishment after many attempts of a similar nature. Being anxiously concerned for the future of so many unruly youths who, left to their own devices during the summer vacations, degenerate into rowdies, he invited about a hundred of these lads to spend the summer months on his estate at Freeville, near Ithaca, and tried to influence them for good. The attempt did not meet with much success at first. Mr. George soon realised that however easy it is to exercise a beneficial influence on one or two boys by adopting gentle methods, it is extremely difficult to manage hundreds in this way. He had, however, observed how fair and rigidly honest boys generally are in their games and how ready they are to condemn any meanness, and he conceived the idea of making his charges look after each other. Thus each one would feel himself a responsible judge of his companions' actions.

At the end of the summer holidays in 1895, when the time came for the boys to return home, five remained behind at Freeville in a cottage standing on three acres of land; the next year the number of lads remaining was doubled or trebled. A miniature Republic was founded, of which the lads were the citizens, and in this capacity, were obliged to make laws and to insist on their being respected. The Republic proved to be a great success, the temporary colony became a permanent one capable of reforming wild, unruly boys, who if allowed to wander about in the streets and to mix with older and more vicious lads, would possibly have been ruined. A recent census of the Republic showed that it possessed 150 citizens, 82 boys and 68 girls, three hundred acres of land, twenty-four buildings, a chapel, prison, school, and court of justice.

In order that the colonists should not completely lose touch with the outside world, but should in some measure be prepared for the social exigencies of their future lives, the colony is organised like a miniature town. The children, boys and girls, are divided into so many families, each consisting of ten or twelve members presided over by two adults, who take the place of parents and look after the household. The greater part of the population is engaged in agriculture, in cultivating the land belonging to the Republic, but a certain proportion adopt the arts and crafts necessary to every community: joinery, book-binding, printing, shoemaking, or shop-keeping. The colony coins its own money and possesses a bank run by the boys themselves, where the colonists can deposit their savings. All labour and produce are paid for separately. The colony has its own laws sanctioned by its Parliament, its Tribunal, the members of which, chosen from amongst the citizens, are charged with enforcing the laws. The Parliament, composed without distinction of sex, of boys and girls, decrees the holidays, organises the games and entertainments, and establishes the public expenditure, revenue, and taxes, etc. (see Figs. 19 and ).

The results of this system appear to be excellent; most of the ex-colonists have turned out well, and in view of this fact, republics on similar lines are being organised in various parts of the United States. This Republic admits only children over twelve, who remain in the colony about three years.

Preventive Institutions for Destitute Adults

Besides institutions for the careful training of the young, methods for preventing crime also include all attempts to help young or adult persons at any crisis in their lives when they are friendless and out of work, for it is precisely then that they are most exposed to temptation.

People's hotels, shelters for emigrants or strangers, reading-rooms, inexpensive but wholesome entertainments, evening classes for instruction in manual work, labour bureaus, organisations for assisting emigrants, etc., are the most efficacious institutions of this kind. And in this connection, I must refer to the work done by the Salvation Army, which from what I was able to observe in America, seems to me the best organised of all existing benevolent associations, since by means of a thousand arms it reaches every form of poverty and misery and seeks to make all its institutions self-supporting. It fights drunkenness by lectures, recreation rooms, and temperance hotels; it fights poverty by investigating each individual case of destitution, visiting poor families, dispensing sympathy and help, providing shelter for the night at a minimum price and industrial homes for those who are out of work. Sometimes the rooms are turned into recreation halls for drunkards or industrial schools for the girls of poor mothers who are obliged to go out to work, or temporary hospitals for some urgent case which, owing to bureaucratic formalities, the hospitals are unable to attend to immediately, or rooms with moving pictures for friendly gatherings on holidays, thus grafting one benevolent work on to another so as to obtain the best results at the smallest cost.

That interesting book Where the Shadows Lengthen gives an account of the different institutions founded by the Salvation Army in the United States. There are sixty-five Industrial Homes, where unemployed of all classes can apply for work. In these Homes refuse and worn-out articles collected from individual homes of their respective towns are disinfected and transformed into useful articles, which are sold at low prices to the neighbouring poor, thus benefiting purchasers, work-people, and society in general. During one year these Homes gave employment to 8696 men, distributed 1,318,044 meals (work-people who are temporarily employed in these Homes have a right only to board and lodging), and gave a night's shelter to 463,550 persons.

In addition, the Army has seventy-seven Hotels where the working-classes find a night's lodging at a low price (just sufficient to cover the maintenance of the Shelter), and 7990 Accommodations which in one year supplied a night's rest to 2,114,037 persons. It has, besides, three colonies with 420 inhabitants, two boarding-houses for servants and shop-girls out of employment, where for a few pence they may have a bed, cook their own meals, wash and mend their clothes, and are assisted to find work.

The Salvation Army has also 22 Rescue Homes, where young girls condemned by the Juvenile Court and generally more neglected than vicious, are reformed with a little care and affection, and 3599 Accommodations to which during one year 1701 girls were admitted.

To ensure careful supervision of all the poor quarters, the Salvation Army has divided them into twenty slums, in each of which they have established their Headquarters and send out their soldiers to investigate and assist cases of poverty and misery of every kind. Each slum Headquarters is provided with halls for meetings, rooms for the officials, a Kindergarten, and Dormitories which also serve as shelters or hospitals for urgent cases. In one year 26,290 families were visited by the Army and 38,290 received assistance. Employment, temporary and permanent, was found for 66,621 persons.

All poor of whatever condition, nationality, or religion, whether honest or criminal, on applying to the nearest of these Headquarters may be sure of finding sympathy and help.

Five Homes have been founded by the Army for waifs and children whose mothers are obliged to go out to work, and 225 Accommodations where children may find a temporary or permanent home.

A special squad of soldiers has recently undertaken work amongst prisoners with great success. In two months they visited 43 prisons, wrote 1732 letters to prisoners, and distributed 10,000 pamphlets. 19,882 prisoners attended meetings held in the prisons, 194 articles of clothing were distributed, 128 persons provided with work on their release and 300 with sleeping accommodation.

In South America the Army has founded similar institutions, which embrace others, such as hospitals, etc., suited to the needs of each place.

Other benevolent organisations which seem to me admirable, are the Sisterhoods founded twenty years ago by the Rabbi Gottheil. These Sisterhoods, as may be assumed from the name, are entirely directed by women. They consist of premises, sometimes annexed to the synagogue; at others, situated independently, which form a species of Headquarters for the philanthropical work done in the surrounding districts. The Sisterhood is open day and night to all the poor who are in need of help of any kind. There is a resident Directress, under whose orders a number of ladies take turns in helping applicants. The Sisterhoods were founded on the principle that human beings are capable of doing the maximum amount of good to others when they follow their own particular tendencies and try to utilise their individual talents in satisfying the intellectual, moral, or recreative needs of the poor. Some of the ladies devote themselves to simple legal questions, tracing an absent husband or wife, registering births, taking unruly children to the Juvenile Courts, or looking after them, etc. Others take charge of medical matters, arrange for the admission of children or adults to the hospitals, etc.; others organise entertainments, teach singing, drawing, needlework, and cooking classes. The premises are used in turn by working-girls learning sewing, or others rehearsing some play or opera chorus. Almost all the Sisterhoods possess a permanent Kindergarten for the children of women who are obliged to work outside their homes, and an employment bureau. All the ladies, except the Directress, give their services gratis. For all help given by the Sisterhood, except in the case of the very poor, a small fee is demanded, and this enables the Sisterhood to pay its way without depending much on donations and subscriptions from private persons, and to spread and increase its work without difficulty.

"The Educational Alliance" of New York, founded to give assistance to Jewish emigrants arriving at that city from all parts of the world, is another institution deserving of mention. This "Alliance" has a large building in the Jewish quarter near the docks, where emigrants can obtain instruction in gymnastics, cookery, domestic economy, English, needlework, etc. There are also recreation rooms, baths, a library, and rooms where school children can prepare their lessons. Men and women are assisted in obtaining employment and receive medical and legal aid. There is also a species of tribunal for settling petty disputes in cases where the parties interested object to applying to the ordinary courts. It was crowded when I saw it, and I was not surprised to learn that it is of great service to the emigrants. For public holidays, the Alliance organises concerts, excursions, and lectures, and during the summer vacations it opens a number of boarding-houses in the country.

All these benevolent institutions, schools, rescue homes, orphanages, and shelters, organised with so much care for the prevention of crime and adopted in America by all communities of whatever religion, regardless of cost, have given excellent results. Bosco and Rice (Les Homicides aux Etats-Unis) and my father (Crimes, Ancient and Modern) have demonstrated statistically that in States like Massachusetts, where there is no great influx of immigration nor a large coloured population, the diminution in the number of crimes has been very rapid, the percentage of homicides being about equal to those of England, that is, lower than the majority of European States.

It must be confessed in honour to the people of the United States, that they are very ready to admit their own short-comings and constantly regret the large proportion of crimes in their country. But when they reflect that the constant stream of immigration contains many lawless elements, that the different laws in force in the different States make evasions of justice in many cases easy, that the construction of houses with the fire-escape communicating directly with the public thoroughfare provides an easy means of ingress and egress, and that an enormous proportion of the dense population of their cities is composed of people from all parts of the world, accustomed to varying moral codes, they may realise with pride that the percentage of crime in the United States is certainly lower than it would be in any Continental State under similar conditions.

Chapter III

Methods for the Cure and Repression of Crime

Preventive methods, the careful training of children, and assistance rendered to adults in critical moments of their lives, may diminish crime, but cannot suppress it entirely. Such methods should be supplemented by institutions which undertake to cure criminals, while protecting society from their attacks, and by others for the segregation of incurable offenders, who should be rendered as useful as possible in order to minimise in every way the injury they inflict on the community.

Although unjustly accused of desiring to revolutionise penal jurisprudence, criminal anthropologists realised from the very beginning that laws cannot be changed before there is a corresponding change in public opinion, and that even equitable modifications in the laws, if too sudden, are always fraught with dangerous consequences. Therefore, instead of a radical change in the penal code, their aim was to effect a few slight alterations in the graduation of penalties, in accordance with age, sex, and the degree of depravity manifested by culprits in their offences. They also counselled certain modifications in the application of the laws, the reformation according to modern ideas, of prisons, asylums, penal colonies, and all institutions for the punishment and redemption of offenders, and an extensive application of those penalties devised in past ages as substitutes for imprisonment, which have the advantage of corrupting the culprit less, and costing the community very little.

Juvenile Offenders. Young people, and, above all, children, should be dealt with separately by special legislative methods.

With the exception of England, where quite recently a children's court has been opened at Westminster, special tribunals for the young are unknown in Europe. However, in modern times, the penal codes of nearly every European State make marked allowance for the age of offenders, and where there is no differentiation in the laws, the magistrate uses his own discretion and refuses in many cases to convict juvenile offenders, even when they are guilty of serious offences.

These instinctive methods of dealing with the young have many drawbacks:

1. Without special courts, children guilty of simple acts of insubordination or petty offences (thefts of fruit or riding in trams and trains without paying the fare) which cannot be separated by a hard and fast line from ordinary childish pranks, come into contact with criminal types in court or in prison, and this is greatly detrimental to them morally. If naturally inclined to dishonesty, they run the risk of developing into occasional criminals and of losing all sense of shame: or if really honest, contact with bad characters cannot fail to shock and perturb them, even though their stay in prison be only a short one.

2. The magistrate has no legal powers to supervise juvenile offenders, nor when their actions show grave depravity, to segregate and cure them to prevent their developing into criminals. It has already been shown that born criminals begin their career at a very early age. In one case cited in a previous chapter, a morally insane child of twelve killed one of his companions for a trifling motive—a dispute about an egg; in another, a child of ten caused the arrest of his father by a false accusation; he had previously attempted to strangle a little brother. Children of this type, notwithstanding their tender age, are a social danger, and the moral disease from which they suffer should be taken in hand at once. In any case they should be carefully segregated until a cure appears to be effected.

Minors require a special code, which takes into consideration the fact that certain offences are incidental to childhood and that children who have committed these offences may still develop into honest men. It should also contain provisions for dealing with born criminals, epileptics, and the morally insane at an early age, by segregation in special reformatories where they cannot corrupt juvenile offenders of a non-criminal type, and where a thorough-going attempt to cure them may be made.

An excellent reform of this character has been effected in many of the United States of America with the adoption of the probation system and juvenile courts which protect children from the corruption of prison life and contact with habitual offenders. The juvenile court, this tribunal exclusively instituted for minors, has been brought to great perfection in many of the United States. In some, special buildings have been erected for the hearing of cases against children, by which means all contact with adult criminals is avoided: in others, where this is not practicable, a part of the ordinary court is set aside for them with a separate entrance.

Nor are juvenile offenders judged according to the common law; their offences are tried by special magistrates, who deal with them in a paternal, rather than in a strictly judicial spirit, and the penalties are slight, varied, and suited to children. The magistrates are assisted by officers, who obtain information from teachers, parents, and neighbours as to the character, conduct, faults, and good qualities of the culprit, and with these indications the magistrate is able to essay the correction, not of the particular offence which has brought the child within his jurisdiction, but his general organic defects. The punishments do not include imprisonment, and are drawn from practical experience and common-sense, not from any article of the penal code.

I was present at the hearing of a case against a lad, who was accused of having travelled on a subway without paying. He was sentenced to copy out the by-laws twenty times, to learn them by heart and repeat them a month later at the same court. In the case of more serious offences, children may be sent to some public or private reformatory, according to the circumstances of the parents. However, none of these punishments are infamous, and parents themselves, when unable to control their children, have recourse to the juvenile court.

It is supplemented in a very efficacious manner by the probation system, the organisation of a number of men and women who undertake the supervision of children when the court decides that they require it. These protectors use every means at their disposal to prevent their charges falling into bad ways and assist them in every possible way to correct their defects.

This system has proved to be so efficacious, and at the same time so devoid of any drawbacks, that its unconditional adoption by all the States of Europe and America would be of great social advantage.

Institutions for Female Offenders

The weighty reasons which call for separate courts and reformatories for juvenile offenders are equally valid in the case of female law-breakers, for whom special tribunals and legislation should be provided.

The percentage of criminality among women is considerably lower than that of men, and in nearly all cases offenders belong to the category of criminaloids.

My father's work The Female Offender demonstrates that prostitution is the true equivalent of criminality. When we except this class of unfortunates, there remain only hysterical and occasional offenders, guilty generally of petty larceny (particularly of a domestic nature) or of harbouring criminals and acting as more or less passive accomplices; and criminals from passion, who commit infanticide or kill faithless husbands and lovers. In all these cases, imprisonment should not be resorted to; in fact, the greater number might be dealt with by a magisterial reprimand or the granting of conditional liberty. In view also, of the important part played by dress, ornaments, etc., in the feminine world, penalties inflicted on vanity—the cutting off of the hair, the obligation to wear a certain costume, etc., might with advantage be substituted for imprisonment.

The milder nature of feminine criminality, the usefulness of women in the home, and the serious injury inflicted on the family and society in general by the segregation of the wife and mother (if only for a short period), are reasons for advocating the institution of special tribunals for dealing with the offences of women and special legislation which would take into consideration their position in the family and the fact that they are rarely a violent social danger.

At present, in Europe at least, no such differential treatment exists. The reduction of penalties is left entirely to the discretion and humanity of judges, who in many cases, it is true, are instinctively disposed to be more indulgent towards women and to take these conditions into account. But it would be a far more satisfactory state of things if legislation paid due regard to such circumstances, just as in Italy in enrolling recruits for compulsory military service, allowance is made for social and family relations, the only sons of widowed mothers, men of delicate constitution, etc., being exempted.

In spite of the low percentage and, generally speaking, trifling importance of the crimes committed by women, there are a small number of female delinquents, some of whom show an extraordinary degree of depravity, as though all the perversity lacking in the others were concentrated in these few. They are true born criminals, epileptics, and morally insane subjects.

These serious anti-social elements, murderers, poisoners, and swindlers, might be secluded in a small reformatory with compulsory labour and silence as additional penalties. Separate cells, however, are not necessary. All reformatories for women should be provided with a nursery where children born in prison could be nursed by their mothers, thereby diminishing the social injury which must result from the imprisonment of any mother, and fostering the growth of the sublime and sacred maternal sentiment, which is unfortunately so often lacking in criminals.

The Reformatory Prison for Women at South Framingham, near Boston, under the management of Mrs. Morton, is an excellent example of an institution conducted on the lines laid down by criminologists. The Reformatory is situated at about an hour's journey by rail from Boston, in the midst of fields which are cultivated by a part of the convict population. No high walls surround the building and separate it from the outer world, nor is it watched by guards. A broad avenue leads to the entrance, where, in answer to my ring, I was welcomed by neat white-clad attendants and shown into a charming room looking out upon a lovely garden. I passed through corridors, unmolested by the sound of keys grating in locks, from this room to the dining-rooms, dormitories, recreation and work rooms.

As soon as prisoners enter the Reformatory, they are carefully examined by an intelligent and pleasant woman physician, who is in charge of the infirmary where the anthropological examination takes place. When the prisoner has been declared able-bodied, she is placed in one of the work-rooms to learn and follow the trade indicated by the medical officer as the best adapted to her constitution and aptitude. At night, she is conducted to a second-class cell situated in a large, well-lighted corridor. The cell is furnished with a table, bed, chair, pegs to hang clothes on, a calendar, a picture, and a book or two.

Work is compulsory and done by the piece, and when each prisoner has finished her allotted task, she is at liberty to work for herself or to read books supplied from the library. If unskilled, she receives instruction in some manual work, and the payment for her labour is put aside and handed over to her on her release, with the small outfit she has prepared and sewed during detention.

Women with children under a year, or those who give birth to a child in the Reformatory, are allowed to have their little ones with them during the night and part of the day. When they go to work every morning, the babies are left in the nursery, which adjoins the infirmary, and is under the direct supervision of the doctor. The nursery, a large, well-lighted room, spotlessly clean and bright with flowers, is a veritable paradise for the little ones.

At noon, the prisoner is permitted to fetch her baby, feed, and keep it near her during dinner-hour. At two o'clock she resumes work until five, when she again takes charge of her baby till next morning. A cradle is placed in her cell for the infant, and she is provided with a small bath.

A series of trifling rewards encourage moral improvement. Those who show good conduct during the first two months are transferred to the first class with its accompanying privileges, a better and more spacious cell, a smart collar, the right to correspond with friends and to receive visitors more frequently, to have an hour's recreation in company with other good-conduct prisoners and to receive relatives in a pretty sitting-room instead of in the common visitors' room.

The final reward for uninterrupted improvement and untiring industry on the part of the prisoner is her ultimate release, which since the sentence is unlimited, may take place as soon as the Directress considers her competent to earn an honest living. But released prisoners are not left to their own devices with the risk of speedily succumbing to temptation. A commission of ladies interested in the Reformatory (one of whom, Mrs. Russell, was my guide on the occasion of my visit there) are consulted before the release of each prisoner and undertake to furnish her with suitable employment, and to guide and watch over her during the first few months so that she may be sure of advice and assistance in any difficulties.

Institutions for Minor Offenders

Punishments should vary according to the type of criminal, distinction being made between criminals of passion, criminaloids, and born criminals.

Criminals of Passion. The true criminal of passion suffers more from remorse than from any penalty the law can inflict. Additional punishments should be: exile of the offender from his native town or from that in which the person offended resides; indemnity for the injury caused, in money, or in compulsory labour if the offender is not possessed of sufficient means. Recourse should never be had to imprisonment, which has an injurious effect even upon the better types of law-breakers; and criminals from passion do not constitute a menace to society. On the contrary, they are not infrequently superior to average humanity and are only prompted to crime by an exaggerated altruism which with care might be turned into good channels.

This applies equally to political offenders, for whom exile is the oldest, most dreaded, and most efficacious punishment, and the disuse into which it has fallen does not appear to be justified, since it admits of graduation, is temporary, and an adequate check on any attempt at insurrection.

Criminaloids. Repeated short terms of detention in prison should be avoided and other penalties substituted for petty offences against police regulations, cheating the Customs, etc., when committed by criminaloids who are not recidivists and have no accomplices. A short term of imprisonment, which brings this type of offender into contact with habitual criminals, not only does not serve as a deterrent, but generally has an injurious effect, because it tends to lessen respect for the law, and, in the case of recidivists, to rob punishment of all its terrors; and because criminaloids, when once branded with the infamy of prison and corrupted by association with worse types, are liable to commit more serious crimes.

For all minor offences, fines are more efficacious than imprisonment and, in the case of the poor, should be replaced by compulsory labour at the discretion of the magistrate. Binding over under a guarantee to make good the injury done, corporal punishment, confinement to the house, judicial reprimands and cautions are applicable to offenders of this type, as is also the system of remitting first offences used in France with great success by Magnaud. Under this system, the offender is sentenced to an adequate penalty, which, however, is only inflicted in the case of recidivation.

An efficacious, and at the same time, more serious method of dealing with criminaloids, is by means of the probation system and indeterminate sentence. The offender is sentenced to the maximum penalty applicable to his particular offence, but it may be diminished after a certain time if he shows signs of improvement. During this interval he is on probation, that is, under supervision, much in the same way as juvenile offenders.

The probation system is extensively and successfully adopted in America, either singly or in conjunction with other penalties, as shown above.

The Probation System

This is an ideal manner of dealing with offenders of a less serious type, minors and criminaloids, who have fallen into bad ways, since, instead of punishing them, it seeks to encourage in them habits of integrity and to check the growth of vices by means of a benevolent but strict supervision. The offender is placed under the guidance of a respectable person, who tries in every way to smooth the path of reform by providing his charge with employment if he has none, or putting him in the way of learning some trade if he is unskilled, by isolating him from bad company, by rewarding any improvement, and reporting progress to the central office, which has to decide whether the period of probation is sufficient, or, in cases where it has not been efficacious, to have recourse to sterner measures.

The only drawback to this system is the difficulty of applying it, because it is not always possible to find in every town a number of persons of high moral standing, who are able and willing to exercise vigilance over offenders. However, to the honour of the United States it must be said that in many States this supervision is organised in a truly admirable manner. At Boston I visited the Probation Office organised and managed by Miss Mary Dewson, which undertakes the supervision of girls and is a model worthy of imitation from the general arrangement down to the smallest details.

The relations between the officers and their charges are in most cases very cordial. The little girls write most affectionate letters, in which they narrate their joys and sorrows, express penitence for their shortcomings and ask advice and help as of guardian spirits. The officers in their turn show themselves to be affectionate protectors and are scrupulous in the fulfilment of their duties towards the central office. Upwards of one hundred lockers were opened at my request, and I was able to examine the documents relating to each of the children with their antecedents, improvement, or the reverse, methodically entered up to a few days previous to my visit.

The splendid results obtained everywhere by this system are leading to its gradual adoption in nearly all the States of the Union and in many parts of Australia and England, in dealing with young people, adults, and all first offenders convicted of petty infractions of the law, drunkenness, disturbance of the peace, and disorderly conduct, and also for prisoners released on ticket-of-leave. The probationer is obliged to report himself every fortnight, or at any time the probation officer may desire. The officer is empowered to supervise the conduct of the probationer at home and in his place of employment, and to threaten him with legal proceedings should his conduct be unsatisfactory.

The supervision of adults, as may be supposed, is a far more delicate and complicated matter than that of children, and however discreetly the officer proceeds in order to keep the matter hidden from neighbours and employers, the position is such a humiliating one for adults that many prefer imprisonment to supervision. I was told that special reformatories have been established at Boston for the detention of those who prefer prison to vigilance.

Perhaps this aversion of adult offenders in America to the probation system is due to the fact that the probation officer is vested with powers almost exceeding those of any magistrate. If he thinks fit, he may extend the period of supervision almost indefinitely or convert it into imprisonment. Moreover, the feeling that every movement and action, however innocent, is being watched is very galling to a grown-up person. However, these drawbacks could no doubt be remedied.

In England, supervision is replaced by a pledge of good behaviour guaranteed by the culprit or a surety, who is induced to exercise vigilance by the knowledge that he will lose the sum deposited in the case of recidivation. The magistrate is obliged by English law to fix the period of probation, which cannot be extended without another sentence. In France, Belgium, and Australia, the probation system appears to have given good results.

Corporal Punishment. Although repugnant to civilised ideas, the various forms of corporal punishment, fasting, cold shower-bath, or even the rod, are very suitable substitutes for imprisonment in the case of children guilty of petty offences, because not only are these punishments inexpensive and have the advantage of creating a deeper and more immediate impression, but they do not corrupt minor offenders nor do they interrupt their regular occupations, whether work or study. Fines should always be inflicted for slight infractions of the law and in all cases of petty larceny, frauds, and forgeries committed by minors. The fines should be proportioned to the means of the individual and the gravity of the offence, and replaced by compulsory labour in the case of those who refuse to pay.

Indemnity. The obligation to make adequate compensation for the injury caused would be an ideal punishment, but is extremely difficult to put into practice. The magistrate, however, should do his utmost to make suitable use of this penalty, and the victim should be legally entitled to receive a part of the proceeds from work done by the culprit during detention.

Reformatories

Minors convicted for the first time of such serious offences that supervision becomes an insufficient guarantee against recidivation, should be relegated to reformatories or other institutions which undertake to punish offences and to segregate and correct offenders.

For the truly magnificent scale on which such reclaiming institutions are conducted in North and South America, both continents merit special mention.

The oldest and most celebrated of these reformatories, that founded at Elmira by Brockway, owed its inspiration to my father's book Criminal Man and is the first reformatory that has been instituted on similar principles.

The convicts admitted to Elmira are young men between the ages of sixteen and thirty, convicted for the first time of any offence, except those of the most serious kind. The Administrative Council is invested with unlimited powers for determining the period of detention and may release prisoners long before the expiration of their sentence.

Each newcomer has a bath, dons the uniform of the Institute, is photographed, registered, medically examined, and finally shut up in a cell to meditate upon his offence. During this time the superintendent obtains all the available information concerning his character, environment, and the probable causes that have led to his crime, and this information serves as a basis for the cure. According to the aptitude and culture of the prisoner, he is placed in a technical or industrial class, where he learns some trade which will enable him to become honestly self-supporting on his release. He is immediately acquainted with his duties and rights and the conditions under which he may regain his liberty.

Education in the Reformatory consists of instruction in general knowledge and special training in some trade. Moral and intellectual progress is stimulated by the publication of a weekly review, The Summary, which gives a report on political matters and the news of the Reformatory.

The convicts are divided into three categories: good, middling, and bad. The transference from the second to the first class entails certain privileges, especially those respecting communication with the outer world, the right to receive visitors, to have books, and to eat at a common table instead of partaking of a solitary meal in a cell. Those who obtain the highest marks for good conduct are at liberty to walk about the grounds and are entrusted with confidential missions, such as the supervision of the other convicts. Bad conduct marks cause prisoners to be transferred from a higher to the lowest division, where they are obliged to perform the rudest labour.

First-class convicts are purposely exposed to temptations of various kinds, and when they have passed through this ordeal triumphantly, they obtain a conditional release. This cannot take place, however, until the prisoner is provided with regular employment of some kind, procured by his own exertions, through friends, or by the director of the Reformatory.

For six months after his release he is obliged to give an account of himself regularly in the manner prescribed by the Director; after one year absolute liberty is regained.

In order to reduce the working expenses of the Reformatory as much as possible, all posts, even that of superintendent or teacher in the technical schools, are filled by the convicts.

Penitentiaries

Although born criminals, habitual criminals, and recidivists should be carefully isolated from minor offenders, they nevertheless require institutes conducted on nearly similar principles. A prison, which is to punish, but at the same time to correct and redeem, demands strict discipline: in fact, milder punishments have very little effect and their constant repetition is harmful, although any exaggeration of brute force is more injurious than useful. Harshness may cow criminals, but does not improve them: on the contrary, it only serves to irritate them or to convert them into hypocrites. Even the adult offender should be looked upon in the light of a child or a moral invalid, who must be cured by a mixture of gentleness and severity, but gentleness should predominate, since criminals are naturally prone to vindictiveness and are apt to regard even slight punishments as unjust tortures. Even a too rigid adherence to the rule of silence may have a detrimental effect on the character of the prisoners. An old convict once said to Despine: "When you winked at slight offences against the rules, we used to talk more, but there was no harm in what we said. Now we talk less, but when we do, we blaspheme and plot evil."

In Danish prisons under rigorous discipline, infractions of prison regulations amounted to 30%; more recently under milder rule such infractions only amount to 6%.

In order to strengthen the sense of justice which, as we have said, is little developed in criminals, if indeed it is not altogether suffocated by ignoble passions, it is often advisable to appeal to their vanity and self-esteem to aid in maintaining discipline and increasing industry, by constituting them judges of each other's conduct. Obermayer used to divide the convicts into small groups and ask them to elect their own superintendents and teachers, thus establishing a spirit of good-comradeship and rendering possible a system of detailed and individual instruction, the sole kind that is really efficacious. The 385 convicts at Detroit showed the highest percentage of efficiency, because they were divided into 21 classes with 28 teachers, all of whom, with the exception of one, were prisoners. It was noticed that the worst convicts were the best teachers (Pears, Prisons and Reform, 1872), which proves that even the most perverse elements may often be utilised for the improvement of others.

Equally good was Despine's method of letting a certain time elapse before inflicting punishment, so that it should not be attributed to mere anger on his part. As soon as the infraction was noted, the prisoner was left to reflect on his conduct, and an hour later the teacher and Director came to show him the penalty prescribed by the regulations. Sometimes it was found efficacious to administer a rebuke and punishment to the whole group to which the offender belonged. Obermayer considered this method to be advantageous.

Work should be the motive force, aim, and recreation of every institute of this kind, in order to stimulate flagging energies, to accustom prisoners to useful pursuits after release, to reinforce prison discipline and to compensate the State for the expense incurred. This latter object should, however, always be subordinated to the others, and lucrative trades must occasionally be avoided. Occupations which might pave the way for other crimes: lockmaking, brasswork, engraving, photography, and calligraphy should not be adopted, but choice made, instead, of those agricultural employments which show the lowest mortality and are much in demand. The manufacture of articles in straw, esparto, and string, printing, tailoring, the making of pottery, and building are all suitable trades, but those which require dangerous tools—shoemaking, cabinet-making, and carpentering—should be resorted to last of all. The rush baskets made by the convicts at Noto (Sicily) obtained several medals.

The tasks allotted to prisoners should always be proportioned to their strength and tastes. Unskilled or physically weaker individuals who conscientiously do their best, should be rewarded in some way, if not pecuniarily, at least by a reduction of their sentences. In this way work becomes profitable and a spirit of comradeship and friendly emulation develops among the prisoners.

Institutes For Habitual Criminals

To protect society against the repeated misdeeds of these offenders and those of born criminals, segregation is essential. However, the institutions set apart to receive these classes should still regard the redemption of the inmates as their chief aim, and only when all attempts have proved futile should they be replaced by almost perpetual isolation in a penal colony.

The Penitenciario Nacional of Buenos Ayres is a splendid instance of an institute founded for the redemption of adult offenders as well as for the punishment of their offences. The inmates of this penitentiary comprise offenders of all types—criminaloids, habitual and born criminals—belonging to the Province of Buenos Ayres. It was established a few years after the Reformatory at Elmira, the fundamental principles of which it has imitated with certain wise modifications to suit diverse circumstances.

Externally, it has nothing in common with the gloomy European prisons. It is a large, white edifice with a broad flight of steps leading to the street and is devoid of all signs of force, soldiers, sentry-boxes, etc.

After passing through a wide vestibule, I reached a large, shady court-yard with low walls almost hidden beneath a wealth of flowers and foliage. A corridor opening on to the court-yard was flanked on each side by a row of open, white cells, each well lighted by a fair-sized window during the day, and by electricity at night. Each cell is furnished with book-shelves, a table with paper, pen and inkstand, and a chair. All the corridors, which are gay with plants, converge towards a central glass-room, whence the sub-inspector surveys all the radiating corridors under his jurisdiction. Each corridor ends in a workshop, where printing, lithography, shoemaking, metal and steel work are carried on, and between the corridors are garden plots in which fruit, vegetables, and flowers are cultivated. The workshops are reckoned among the best the Republic contains. The printing-office turns out many weekly papers, illustrated magazines, and scientific and literary reviews. Footgear of the finest and most elegant quality is manufactured in the shoe-factory, and the foundry and workshop produce lathes, boilers, industrial and agricultural machines and implements. All the cooking in the Penitentiary is done by steam, and the plant is installed in a large building erected by the prisoners themselves.

Work in the Penitentiary is compulsory. On arrival, each convict receives instruction in some handicraft, chosen by himself or one of the foremen. Of course swindlers and forgers are not admitted to trades like lithography, for reasons easy to understand.

The convicts receive regular wages which vary according to their abilities and are about equal to the standard wages in each particular trade. All earnings are put aside and handed to the convict on his release when he is also provided with suitable employment.

Work is finished at five o'clock in the evening and after a substantial supper the prisoners are divided into nine classes, six elementary and three secondary, according to their culture and intelligence. If illiterate, they are taught reading and writing and later, arithmetic, geography, history, languages, and drawing,—this latter being adapted to the particular trade of each individual. When school is finished, prisoners are allowed to go to the library to return the books they have read and take others for the night.

Instead of a weekly newspaper like that published at Elmira, intellectual development is stimulated by means of lectures delivered each week by the prisoners or their teachers and attended by the Director, Vice-Director, and all the convicts.

In addition to the care lavished by the Director, Señor Ballvé, on the work and education of his charges, he spares no pains to encourage moral progress by rewarding good conduct. As each convict enters the Penitentiary, his name, trial, sentence, and antecedents are entered in a book with his photograph and particulars of his physical and psychic individuality, and these data are supplemented by remarks on his conduct and good actions, if any, so that on his release a clear idea is obtained of the moral progress he has made while in prison.

Penal Colonies

When after unsparing efforts for the redemption of a criminal, repeated convictions prove him to be a hopeless recidivist, the community should decline to allow him to perfect his anti-social abilities at their expense in prisons or at large, and should segregate him permanently, unless, indeed, there is any hope of reform, or circumstances render him harmless. Perpetual confinement in a prison, even of an improved type is, however, both cruel and expensive, but an excellent substitute may be found in the Penal Colony. Here the chief object should be, not to educate, elevate, or redeem the criminal, but to render him as useful as possible, so that he does not prove too great a burden on the community.

Penal colonies should be situated on islands or in remote territories, that is, completely isolated from populous districts. The agricultural colony at Meseplas founded by the Belgian Government is a model worthy of imitation.

In this colony the convict population is divided into four categories:

1. Turbulent and dangerous individuals, who exercise an injurious influence over the other inmates of reformatories and prisons;

2. Recidivists, ticket-of-leave men, escaped and mutinous convicts;

3. Persons of bad reputation, who have hitherto avoided conviction;

4. The better types, who have been convicted three or four times only and although not depraved, lack moral stamina and are constantly yielding to temptation when at large.

All the common necessities of life are supplied by the colonists themselves, beginning with the dwellings which are erected as they are required and according to the resources available. In this way, extensive building operations are carried out at a very slight cost to the State. Cattle and crops are raised on the land, which is cultivated by a number of the convicts, while others manufacture articles which find a ready market in the vicinity and for which they possess suitable tools.

Any convict refusing to work is imprisoned on bread and water. All work is paid for in special coin current only in the colony itself, but which, on the release of the owner, is exchanged for the coin of the country.

The "Open Door," an institution on similar lines, was founded by Professor Cabred for the insane of the Province of Buenos Ayres, and judging from what I was able to observe during my short visit, it fulfils its purpose admirably. It consists of a large village populated by some ten or twelve thousand lunatics. With the exception of the price of the land and the cost of erecting the first buildings, this colony does not cost the community anything; on the contrary, the colonists are able to make large profits.

The ultimate plan of the village with streets and edifices has already been mapped out, and the patients are continually occupied in erecting new buildings, etc. There is a brick-kiln, a carpenter shop, and a smithy, which produce all the materials used in building and furnishing the dwellings. Only the less dangerous patients are employed in these operations: those of weaker mind make brushes and wicker articles.

The colony is situated in the midst of a vast stretch of land in the Province of Buenos Ayres, on which fruit and vegetables are grown by a number of the patients. Others are occupied in raising fowls and pigs, which supply the colony with eggs and meat and yield a large profit when sold outside.

Professor Cabred wisely prefers agriculture of this kind to the raising of large crops of wheat or maize, because it simplifies the task of supervision necessary in any colony, and gives the colonists, whose toil is compulsory, a continual and regular occupation of an almost unvarying character. (This applies equally to the case of a penal colony.) Workmen, foremen, engineers, builders, mechanics, gardeners,—all are patients, with the exception of the Director, the doctor, and about a hundred mounted warders, who pass rapidly from one part to another and are able to intervene in suicidal or homicidal outbreaks.

A colony on these lines would be suitable for the large mass of habitual criminals, who, although unable to resist the temptations of ordinary life, are capable of useful work under supervision, and under such conditions may prove beneficial to themselves and to the community.

Institutions for Born Criminals and the Morally Insane

Asylums for Criminal Insane. We have still to consider born criminals, epileptics, and the morally insane, whose crimes spring from inherited perverse instincts. These unfortunate beings cannot be consigned to ordinary prisons, since, owing to their state of mental alienation, they do not possess even the modesty of the vicious—hypocrisy—and they never fail to pervert those criminaloids with whom they come in contact. Malcontents by nature, they distrust everybody and everything, and as they see an enemy in every warder and official, they are the centres of constant mutinies.

To confine them in common asylums would be still more injurious, for they preach sodomy, flight, and revolt and incite the others to robbery, and their indecent and savage ways, as well as the terrible reputation which often precedes them, make them objects of terror and repulsion to the quieter patients and their relatives, who dread to see their kin in such company.

Ordinary asylums are equally unsuited to those victims of mental derangement who, although devoid of the depraved instincts of the morally insane and generally of blameless career up to the moment in which they are led to commit a crime by some isolated evil impulse, have a bad influence on the other inmates. Unlike other lunatics, they do not shrink from the company of others, whom they torment with their violence and contaminate with that spirit of restlessness and discontent which distinguished them even before they became insane or criminals. Firm in the belief that they are always being ill treated and insulted, they instil these ideas into their companions and suggest thoughts of flight and revolt, which would never occur to ordinary lunatics, absorbed as they are by their own world of fancies. The condition of the inmates is thereby aggravated, and it becomes impossible to accord them that large measure of freedom advocated by all modern alienists.

To leave these madmen at large would be more dangerous still. Beneath an appearance of perfect calm and mental lucidity are hidden morbid impulses, which may give terrible results at some unexpected moment.

All these offenders—insane criminals and the morally insane whose irresistible tendencies are detrimental to the community—should be confined in special institutes to be cured, or at any rate segregated for life. No infamy would attach to their names, because their irresponsibility would be clearly recognised, and society would be secure from their attacks.

England was the first country to provide asylums for the criminal insane. In 1840 a portion of Bedlam was set aside for this purpose. Fisherton House, a special private asylum of this kind, was opened in 1844, and later others were instituted at Dundrum (Ireland) in 1850, at Broadmoor in 1863, and at Perth (Scotland) in 1858, to receive criminals who commit crimes in a state of insanity, or become insane during their trial, and all prisoners whose state of lunacy or imbecility renders them unable to conform to the discipline of a prison. Of course sanguinary and violent scenes often occur in these asylums, where the pernicious influence this type of lunatic exercises over his surroundings in ordinary asylums or prisons is multiplied and intensified a hundred-fold. Conspiracies, almost unknown in common asylums, and the murder of warders or officials are very common. Despairing of release and conscious of their irresponsibility, these wretched beings attack the warders, destroy the walls which confine them, murder and wound others and themselves; but at any rate the injury is limited to a small circle, and both harmless lunatics and common criminals are not contaminated. Moreover, even in criminal asylums, long experience with these strange pathological types and the adoption of subdivisions like those recently introduced into Broadmoor by Orange have done much towards improving the general condition and eliminating many drawbacks. According to this classification insane criminals are divided into two classes, unconvicted and convicted, the former class being subdivided into untried and tried. Untried offenders, those who are considered to have been insane before committing the crime, are sent to a common county asylum, where are also confined persons convicted of minor offences and declared insane (the percentage of cures in this class is considerable) and others suspected of shamming insanity. In this way, the better elements are eliminated and the inmates of the criminal insane asylum reduced to the worst and most dangerous types only.

Capital Punishment

When, notwithstanding prisons, deportation, and criminal asylums, individuals of ineradicable anti-social instincts make repeated attempts on the lives of others, whether honest men or their own companions in evil-doing, the only remedy is the application of the extreme penalty—death.

Amongst barbarous peoples, on whom prison makes but slight impression, or in primitive communities that do not possess criminal asylums, penitentiaries, and other means of social defence and redemption, the death penalty has always been considered the most certain and at the same time the most economical means of common protection. But criminal anthropologists realise that the desire to abolish this penalty, which so often finds expression in civilised countries, arises from a noble sentiment and one they have no wish to destroy.

Capital punishment, according to the opinion of my father, should only be applied in extreme cases, but the fear of it, suspended like a sword of Damocles above their heads, would serve as a check to the murderous proclivities displayed by some criminals when they are condemned to perpetual imprisonment.

We have, it is true, no right to take the lives of others but if we refuse to recognise the legitimacy of self-defence, exile and imprisonment are equally unjustifiable.

When we realise that there exist beings, born criminals, who are organised for evil, who reproduce the instincts common to the wildest savages and even those of ferocious carnivora, and are destined by nature to injure others, our resentment becomes softened; but notwithstanding our sense of pity, we feel justified in demanding their extermination when they prove to be dangerous and absolutely irredeemable.

Penalties Proposed by the Modern School

The following tables, compiled by Senator Garofalo, a celebrated jurist of the Modern School and inserted in Criminal Man, vol. iii, show the distribution of penalties systematically arranged.

I. Born Criminals who are utterly devoid of the sentiment of pity.

Offender Crime Penalty

Murderers exhibiting moral insensibility and instinctive cruelty, convicted of Murder for lucre or some other egotistical object

Murder without provocation on the part of the victim

Murder with ferocious execution Prison, penal colony, criminal insane asylum, or capital punishment if recidivists.

II. Violent and Impulsive Criminals, Criminaloids, and those guilty through insufficiency of pity, of decency, of inhibitory power, and through prejudiced notions of honor.

Offender Crime Penalty

Adults convicted of Cruelty, assault and battery, rape,
kidnapping Criminal insane asylum for epileptics, or
Indefinite seclusion for a period equal to
one of the natural divisions of a man's life,
with period of supervision.

Minors convicted of Murder, cruelty and other offences against
the person without provocation

Offences against decency Special reformatories, criminal insane asylum
if there are congenital tendencies.

Penal colony and deportation in cases of recidivation.

Adults convicted of Homicide provoked by injury or genuine
grievances Exile from native place and from the town in which
the victim's family live.

Adults convicted of Homicide in self-defence

Homicide to avenge some wrong or
personal dishonour Exile, segregation for an indefinite period in some
remote town or settlement.

Adults convicted of Assault in quarrels, or ill-treatment when
intoxicated, blows, insults, or slander Compensation for injury caused, fines, reprimand,
security, conditional liberty.

Adults convicted of Mutiny and revolt Reprimand, security, imprisonment for a definite period.

III. Criminals Devoid of a Sense of Honesty

Offender Crime Penalty

Adults (habitual offenders)
convicted of Theft, fraud, arson, forgery, blackmail Criminal lunatic asylums (if insane or epileptic),
deportation (for sane offenders).

Adults (occasional offenders)
convicted of Theft, fraud, arson, forgery, blackmail Reformatories, conditional liberty,
exclusion from particular profession.

Adults convicted of Peculation, concussion Loss of office, exclusion from all public offices,
fines, compensation for damage done.

Adults convicted of Arson, malicious damage to property Compensation, or as a substitute, imprisonment.
Criminal lunatic asylums (if insane).
Penal colonies (for recidivists).

Adults convicted of Fraudulent bankruptcy Compensation for damage caused, exclusion from
business and public offices.

Adults convicted of Counterfeiting, forging cheques,
public title-deeds, etc. Reformatories, fines, compensation for damage,
exclusion from office.

Adults convicted of Bigamy, substitution or suppression
of child Seclusion for an indefinite period.

Minors convicted of Theft, fraud, and picking pockets Magisterial reprimand, probation, reformatory,
or agricultural colony.

IV. Offenders Lacking in Industry

Offender Penalty

Beggars, vagabonds, loafers Agricultural colony for country offenders,
workshop for city offenders.

V. Offenders Deficient in Misoneism (Hatred of Change)

Offender Penalty

Political, social, and religious rebels Temporary exile.

Symbiosis

The punishment of offenders and the protection of society from the insane are the two chief objects of criminal jurisprudence, but criminal anthropologists aim at something higher, the utilisation of anti-social elements, thus redeeming them completely and justifying their existence in the eyes of mankind and in the scheme of nature.

We find, in fact, in nature numerous instances of a partnership for mutual benefit between animals and plants of very diverse species and tendencies. Lichens are a living symbiosis of algæ and fungi: the pagurus allows the actiniæ to settle on his dwelling, where they attract his prey and in return are housed and conveyed from place to place.

In imitation of this principle, criminal anthropologists seek to devise a means of making offenders serviceable to civilisation by carefully analysing their tendencies and psychology, and fitting them into some suitable groove in the social scheme, where they may be useful to themselves and to others. Side by side with depraved instincts, criminals frequently possess invaluable gifts: an abnormal degree of intelligence, great audacity, and love of innovation. The wonderful galleries and fortifications cut out in the rocks at Gibraltar and Malta by English convicts and the complete transformation of parts of Sardinia have led criminologists to the conclusion that the ancient penalty of enforced labour was more logical, useful, and advantageous both for the culprit and the community than all modern punishments. The Mormons of America and the religious sects persecuted in Russia by an omnipotent bureaucracy, have by their energy transformed uninhabitable regions into lands of extraordinary fertility. Still greater results might be obtained, if the abnormal tendencies of certain individuals were turned into useful channels, instead of being pent up until they manifest themselves in anti-social acts, and this beneficent and lofty task should devolve on teachers and protectors of such of the young as show physical and psychic anomalies at an early age.

The colonisation of wild regions and all professions (motoring, cycling, acrobatic and circus feats) which demand audacity, activity, love of adventure, and intense efforts followed by long periods of repose are eminently suited to criminals. There are cases on record in which young men have actually become thieves and even murderers in order to gain sufficient means to become comedians or professional cyclists, and there is every reason to suppose that these crimes would never have been committed had the youths been able to obtain the required sums honestly. On the other hand, men of bad character, ready to develop into criminals, often undergo a complete transformation when they find some outlet for their intelligence and aptitudes, in becoming pioneers in virgin regions or soldiers. War, the original, perpetual and exclusive occupation of our ancestors, is eminently suited to the tendencies of criminals. All the characteristics of the criminal, impulsiveness, cynicism, physical and moral insensibility, and invulnerability are valuable qualities in the soldier in times of war, especially when waged against savage and barbarous nations, when cunning and ability have to be employed against primitive races who laugh at the rules and ethics of civilised warfare.

Amongst brigands, we find a few badly-armed individuals performing marvels of valour, and the leaders, although ignorant men, manifesting an intelligence and tactical skill that puts trained armies to shame. Could not the tendencies of criminals be used for the good of their country? The qualities developed in primitive races by constant warfare against the forces of nature are characteristic also of criminals. Let those whom nature has destined to reproduce impulsive and brutal instincts in a civil and industrial age be permitted to employ them in defending civilisation with true primitive valour against external and internal enemies, against barbarous peoples who would restrict its boundaries, or reactionary elements who seek to hinder its progress.

The Great Redeemer, who in pardoning the adulteress, said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," and the Prophet who foretold the day when the wolf and the lamb should dwell together and the lion should eat straw like the ox and should "not hurt nor destroy," divined perhaps this noble aim. If criminal anthropology is destined to lead mankind to this goal, it may well be pardoned all the harsh measures it has seen fit to suggest in order to realise the supreme end—social safety.