Chapter II: The Data of Criminal Statistics (1)

FOR moral and social facts, unlike physical and biological facts, experiment is very difficult, and frequently even impossible; observation in this domain brings the greatest aid to scientific research. And statistics are amongst the most efficacious instruments of such observation.

It is natural, therefore, that criminal sociology, after studying the individual aspect of the natural genesis of crime, should have recourse to criminal statistics for the study of the social aspect. Statistical information in the words of Krohne, ``is the first condition of success in opposing the armies of crime, for it discharges the same function as the Intelligence department in war.''

From statistics, in fact, the modern idea of the close relation between offences and the conditions of social life, in some of its aspects, and above all in certain particular forms, has most directly sprung.

The science of criminal statistics is to criminal sociology what histology is to biology, for it exhibits, in the conditions of the individual elements of the collective organism, the factors of crime as a<p 51> <p 52>social phenomenon. And that not only for scientific inductions, but also for practical and legislative purposes; for, as Lord Brougham said at the London Statistical Congress in 1860, ``criminal statistics are for the legislator what the chart and the compass are for the navigator.''

The experimental school, accepting the fundamental and incontestible idea, apart from its numerical and optimistic exaggerations, that the statistics of crime must be considered in regard to the growth and activity of the population, has opened up an entirely new channel of fruitful observations, in the classification and study of the natural factors of crime.

In my ``Studies of Crime in France'' (1881) I arranged in three natural orders the whole series of causes leading to crime, which had previously been indicated in a fragmentary and incomplete manner.[12]

[12] Bentham, in his ``Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,'' enumerates the following circumstances as necessary to be considered in legislation:--temperament, health, strength, physical imperfections, culture, intellectual faculties, strength of mind, dispositions, ideas of honour and religion, feelings of sympathy and antipathy, insanity, economic conditions, sex, age, social status, education, profession, climate, race, government, religious profession.

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

From the consideration that human actions, whether honest or dishonest, social or anti-social, are always the outcome of a man's physio-psychical organism, and of the physical and social atmosphere which surrounds him, I have drawn attention to <p 53>the _anthropological_ or individual factors of crime, the _physical_ factors, and the _social_ factors.

The anthropological factors, inherent in the individual criminal, are the first condition of crime; and they may be divided into three sub-classes, according as we regard the criminal organically physically, or socially.

_The organic constitution of the criminal_ comprises all anomalies of the skull, the brain, the vital organs, the sensibility, and the reflex activity, and all the bodily characteristics taken together, such as the physiognomy, tattooing, and so on.

_The mental constitution of the criminal_ comprises anomalies of intelligence and feeling, especially of the moral sense, and the specialities of criminal writing and slang.

_The personal characteristics of the criminal_ comprise his purely biological conditions, such as race, age, sex; bio-social conditions, such as civil status, profession, domicile, social rank, instruction, education, which have hitherto been regarded as almost the exclusive concern of criminal statistics.

_The physical factors_ of crime are climate, the nature of the soil, the relative length of day and night, the seasons, the average temperature, meteoric conditions, agricultural pursuits.

_The social factors_ comprise the density of population; public opinion, manners and religion; family circumstances; the system of education; industrial pursuits; alcoholism; economic and political conditions; public administration, justice and police; and in general, legislative, civil and penal institutions. <p 54>We have here a host of latent causes, commingling and combining in all parts of the social organism, which generally escape the notice both of theorists and of practical men, of criminologists and of legislators.

This classification of the natural factors of crime, which has indeed been accepted by almost all criminal anthropologists and sociologists, seems to me more precise and complete than any other which has been proposed.

In respect of this classification of the natural factors of crime, it is necessary to make two final observations as to the practical results which may be obtained in the struggle for just laws and against the transgression of them.

In the first place, owing to ``the discovery of the unexpected relation amongst the various forces of nature, which had previously been thought to be independent,'' we must lay stress on this positive deduction, that we cannot find an adequate reason either for a single crime or for the aggregate criminality of a nation if we do not take into account each and all of the different natural factors, which we may isolate in the exigencies of our studies, but which always act together in an indissoluble union.

No crime, whoever commits it, and in whatever circumstances, can be explained except as the outcome of individual free-will, or as the natural effect of natural causes. Since the former of these explanations has no scientific value, it is impossible to give a scientific explanation of a crime (or indeed of any <p 55>other action of man or brute) unless it is considered as the product of a particular organic and psychical constitution, acting in a particular physical and social environment.

Therefore it is far from being exact to assert that the positive criminal school reduces crime to a purely and exclusively anthropological phenomenon. As a matter of fact, this school has always from the beginning maintained that crime is the effect of anthropological, physical, and social conditions, which evolve it by their simultaneous and inseparable operation. And if inquiries into biological conditions have been more abundant and more conspicuous by their novelty, this in no way contradicts the fundamental conclusion of criminal sociology.

That being stated, we have still to examine the relative value of these three classes of conditions in the natural evolution of crime.

It seems to me that this question is generally stated inaccurately, and also that it cannot be answered absolutely, and in a word.

It is generally stated inaccurately; because they who think, for instance, that crime is nothing else than a purely and exclusively social phenomenon in the evolution of which the organic and psychical anomalies of the criminal have had no part, ignore more or less consciously the universal correlation of natural forces, and forget that, in regard to any phenomenon whatsoever, it is impossible to set an absolute limit to the network of its causes, immediate and remote, direct and indirect.

To put this question in an arbitrary sense would <p 56>be like asking if a mammal is the product of its lungs, or its heart, or its stomach, or of vegetable constituents, or of the atmosphere; whereas each of these conditions, internal and external, is necessary to the life of the animal.

In fact, if crime were the exclusive product of the social environment, how could one explain the familiar fact that in the same social environment, and in identical circumstances of poverty, abandonment, lack of education, sixty per cent. do not commit crimes, and, of the other forty, five prefer suicide, five go mad, five simply become beggars or tramps not dangerous to society, whilst the remaining twenty-five actually commit crimes? And amongst the latter, whilst some go no further than theft without violence, why do others commit theft with violence, and even kill their victim outright, before he offers resistance, or threatens them, or calls for help, and this with no other object than gain?

The secondary differences of social condition, which may be observed even amongst the members of a single family, rotting in one of the slums of our great towns, or amongst those who are surrounded by the temptations of money or power, or the like, are clearly not enough in themselves to explain the vast differences in the actions which grow out of them, varying from honesty under the greatest discouragement to suicide and murder.

The question, therefore, must be asked in a relative sense altogether, and we must inquire which of the three kinds of natural causes of crime has a <p 57>greater or less influence in determining each particular crime at any given moment in the individual and social life.

No clear answer of general application can be given to this question, for the relative influence of the anthropological, physical, and social conditions varies with the psychological and social characteristics of each offence against the law.

For instance, if we consider the three great classes of crimes against the person, against property, and against personal purity, it is evident that each class of determining causes, but especially the biological and social conditions, have a distinctly different influence in evolving homicide, theft, or indecent assaults. And so it is in every category of crimes.

The undeniable influence of social conditions, and still more of economic conditions, in leading up to the commission of theft, is far inferior in the genesis of homicides and indecent assaults. And similarly, in each category of crimes, the influence of the determining conditions varies greatly according to the special forms of crime.

Certain casual homicides are plainly the result of social conditions (gambling, drink, public opinion, &c.) in a much higher degree than homicides which for the most part spring from brutality, from the moral insensibility of individuals, or from their psycho-pathological conditions, corresponding to abnormal organic conditions.

In like manner, certain indecent assaults, incests, &c., are largely the outcome of social environment, which, condemning a number of persons to live in <p 58>hovels without air or light, with a promiscuity of sex between parents and children such as obtains amongst the brutes, effaces or deadens all normal sense of modesty. On the other hand, there are cases of rape and the like which are mostly due to the biological condition of the individual, either in manifest forms of sexual disease or, less manifest though none the less actual, of biological anomaly.

For thefts, again, whilst occasional simple thefts are largely the effect of social and economical conditions, this influence becomes feebler in comparison with impulses due to the personal constitution, organic and psychical, as, for instance, in the case of thefts with violence, and especially of murder for the purpose of robbery, which scoundrels of the ``swell-mob'' so frequently commit in cold blood.

The same observation applies to the conditions of physical environment. For instance, if the regular increase of crimes against property in winter (and, as I showed for the first time from French statistics, in years when the cold is greatest) is only an indirect result, through the social and economic influences of temperature, the increase of crimes of passion and indecent assaults during the months and years when the temperature is highest is only a direct effect of temperature, even for such as, by their biological conditions, offer the feeblest resistance to these influences.

Meanwhile, a last objection has been raised against the conclusions which I have maintained for many years past.

It has been said that, even if we admit that for <p 59>certain crimes and criminals the greatest influence must be recognised as due to the physical and psychical conditions of the individual, extending from slightly manifested anomalies of an anthropological character to the most accentuated pathological condition, this does not exclude the possibility of a crime being due to social conditions. In fact, it is said the anomalies of the individual are in their turn only an effect of a debasing social environment, which condemns its victims to organic and psychical degeneration.

This objection is sound enough if it be taken in a relative sense, but groundless if it be insisted on absolutely.

It must be considered, in the first place, that the distinctions of cause and effect are only relative, for every effect has its cause, and _vice vers<a^>_; so that if wretchedness, material and moral, is a cause of degeneration, degeneration itself, like biological anomaly, is a cause of wretchedness. And in this sense the question would be simply metaphysical, like the famous Byzantine discussions as to whether there was originally an egg before a hen or a hen before an egg.

And, in fact, when it was said, in regard to criminal geography, that the extent and quality of crime in such and such a province, instead of being the effect of biological conditions (race, &c.) and physical conditions (climate, soil, &c.), were but the effect of social and economic conditions (of rural and industrial pursuits, and the like), I was able to make a very simple reply. For, apart even from statistical proofs, if the <p 60>social conditions of such and such a province, which have an unquestionable influence, are really the absolute and exclusive cause of crime, we may still ask whether these social conditions of the province are not themselves the effect of the ethnical qualities of energy, intelligence, and so forth, in its inhabitants, and of the more or less favourable conditions of the climate and the soil.

But it may also be observed, more precisely, that even apart from strongly marked and conspicuous pathological conditions, which meanwhile assert themselves amongst the biological factors of crime, there is a very great number of these cases in which it cannot actually be said that the bio-psychical anomalies of the criminal are the effect of a physically and morally poisonous environment.

In every family in which there are several children, we find (in spite of identical surroundings and conditions of a favourable kind, and suitable methods of training and education), individuals who differ intellectually from the cradle; we also find in the degree or in the kind of their talent, the same individuals also differ from their cradle in physical and moral constitution. And though the phenomenon may only be manifest in the less numerous cases of types which are markedly normal or abnormal, it is none the less true also in the more numerous cases of ordinary types.

In this connection I may observe that physical and social conditions have a greater or a less influence in proportion as the physical and psychical constitution of the individual is more or less sound and vigorous. <p 61>

The practical conclusion, therefore, of these general observations on the natural genesis of crime is this: Every crime is the result of individual physical and social conditions; and, since these conditions have a more or less dominant influence for various forms of crime, the most certain and profitable mode of defence which society can employ against criminality is of a twofold character, and both modes ought to be employed and brought into action simultaneously--in the first place, the amelioration of the social conditions, as a natural preventive of crime, in the nature of a substitute for punishment; and, secondly, measures of perpetual or temporary elimination of criminals, according as the influence of biological conditions in the evolution of crime is all but absolute, or more or less great, and more or less curable.

As a matter of fact, when we follow the periodic variations of crime, with its measured growth and decrease, we cannot fail to conclude that these constant and constantly occurring variations depend upon a corresponding variation of anthropological and physical factors. For, whilst criminal statistics are far from showing the regularity which Quetelet claimed with much exaggeration, the proportional figures in regard to the bearings of age, sex, calling, &c., upon criminality exhibit very insignificant variations from year to year. And as for the physical factors, if marked variations are explicable at some given period, it is nevertheless evident that neither climate, nor the nature of the soil, nor atmospheric conditions, nor the seasons, nor the temperature of different years could have undergone in the last half-<p 62>century such constant and repeated variations as to correspond to those waves of criminality which we shall presently exhibit in almost every nation of Europe.

Thus it is to the social factors that we must chiefly attribute the periodic variations of criminality. For even the variations which can be detected in certain anthropological factors, like the influences of age and sex upon crime, and the more or less marked outbreak of anti-social and pathological tendencies, depend in their turn upon social factors, such as the protection accorded to abandoned infants, the participation of women in non-domestic, commercial and industrial life, preventive and repressive measures, and the like. And again, since the social factors have special import in occasional crime, and crime by acquired habit, and since these are the most numerous sections of crime as a whole, it is clear that the periodic movement of crime must be attributed in the main to the social factors. So true is this, that, as we shall presently see, the gravest crimes, especially against persons, precisely because they mostly indicate congenital criminality, follow a more steady and regular movement than these slighter but far more frequent offences against property, public order, and persons, of a more occasional character, and that, as microbes of the world of crime, they are the more direct outcome of social environment.

It is therefore another point in favour of the experimental school that it has insisted on this sociological aspect of the problem of criminality, by showing <p 63>legislators, outside the limits of their punitive remedies, as easy as they are illusory, how they might, as far as circumstances will permit, apply a genuine social remedy to crime.

After these preliminary observations, it is time that we should take a closer view of the general statistics of the movement of crime in Europe, so far as they may be followed in official figures.

Whilst we have no intention of offering a body of comparative statistics, but only of giving a simple indication of the periodic movement of crime, these data, which do not render it easy to compare one country with another, though they are intimately related so far as each particular country is concerned, suffice to exhibit a few facts of some considerable importance.

The most conspicuous general phenomenon in the countries here included is _the steadiness of the gravest forms of crime side by side with the continuous increase of slighter offences_, especially in the countries which show a long series of figures, such as France, England, and Belgium. This proceeds mainly from the progressive accumulation of offences against special enactments, which are constantly being added to the original basis of the penal code; but it is also a symptom of an actual transformation in the criminal activity of the century, from whence, through the gradual substitution of crimes against property in the great towns for crimes against the person in earlier centuries, we have a wider extension together with a lower degree of intensity. <p 64>

Another characteristic common to the countries under observation is that, whilst the graver crimes against property show a somewhat marked diminution, crimes against persons, on the other hand, show more steadiness, either of regularity, as in France and Belgium, or of increase, as in England, and still more in Germany. But this phenomenon in the case of crimes against the person is in actual correspondence with criminal activity arising from an increase of population. On the other hand--apart from the transformation of crimes of violence into crimes of craft and fraud, due to the increase of movable property--the decrease of offences against property is no more than the manifest effect of an artificial change of judicial procedure, summary proceedings taking the place of trial by jury.

An alternation, which is not invalidated by exceptions here and there, has been observed in the criminality of different countries, in the periodic movement of crimes and offences against property and those against the person, of such a kind that years of increase in the former usually answer to a diminution in the latter, and _vice vers<a^>_. The principal factors in the annual increase of theft, such as scarcity and extremes of weather, cause a corresponding diminution of violent assaults and bodily harm, of homicides and indecent assaults, and _vice vers<a^>_. On the other hand, offences against property, which are very numerous, contribute most of all to the total of annual crime; so that the maximum of 1880 in Italy, as well as in France, Belgium and Austria, is especially due to the great severity of the <p 65>winter of 1879-80, which in Italy coincided with an agricultural crisis, attested by the very high price of corn. Whereas from 1881 to 1885 there were very mild winters, with more abundant harvests, and from 1886 a greater extreme of cold and a more acute economic crisis.

The general tendency of these periodic oscillations of crime in Italy, as in other European countries, is nevertheless far more towards increase than towards decrease. This is also shown by the proportional triennial averages of crimes and offences placed on record, and of persons condemned to imprisonment.

In the movement of crime in each country it is necessary to distinguish special oscillations, more or less prolonged, of increase or decrease, from its general and permanent tendency. The latter is determined by the fundamental conditions of each nation, physical and social, apart from the purely artificial section of transgressions brought into existence by new laws. The special oscillations, on the other hand, are determined by the annual variations in this or that factor of the more numerous offences; that is to say, by abundance or scantiness of the harvests, by the annual variations of temperature, by industrial and political crises, and the like.

The oblivion of this marked distinction, coupled with the prejudices of the scientific schools, and even of political parties, leads to some curious disagreements, and to lively discussions on the results of criminal statistics. For on one side the champions of the classical school plainly see that the persistent <p 66>increase of crimes and offences amounts to a proof of that breakdown of penal systems, practical and theoretical, which have hitherto been applied--as was admitted by Holtzendorff. And on the other hand, the increase of crimes is denied or affirmed for the purpose of supporting or attacking some particular ministry. For, in parliaments more than elsewhere, there is always a deep-seated and vivacious prejudice, a kind of social artificiality, which causes men to think that the condition of States, moral and economic, is fundamentally determined far more by the action of this or that government than by natural factors, which are mainly superior to and outside of governments and politicians.

And this is why in Italy there has been much discussion of late, in scientific publications, at the sittings of the Central Commission of Judicial Statistics, and even in Parliament, as to whether crime was increasing or decreasing.

Beltrani-Scalia and Lombroso almost simultaneously called attention to the growth of Italian crime, and they were succeeded by various adherents of the positive school, such as Ferri, Garofalo, Pavia, Pugliese, Guidi, Bournet, Barzilai, and Rossi, who produced evidence that the general tendency of crime in Italy was to increase, and that the diminutions observed after 1880 were mere transitory oscillations; and after 1886 they were justified by facts.

On the other hand, official returns of criminal statistics, and a majority of the members of the Central Commission, when pursuing an inquiry suggested by myself into Italian crime since 1873 <p 67>--for previously to this date there are no criminal statistics in Italy except for 1853 and 1869-70--came to the conclusion that there was a tendency towards a diminution of crime. But their decision was formed from an entirely partial standpoint, which they had taken up in the exigency of polemical discussion. They compared, in fact, the years just concluded, 1881-5, with 1880, and thus it naturally followed that after a maximum they had a relative decrease. And it was only this ingenious comparison which gave an appearance of actual proof to their optimistic assertions; for when a fever is at forty degrees, the fall of even half a degree is very important. They paid special attention to the so-called high criminality, which is tried by the Assize courts, and is actually decreasing, though by the purely artificial effect of more and more effective measures of correction. But I have always maintained, and I have the support of M. Oettingen, that we cannot separate crimes and offences tried by the Assizes from those tried by the Tribunals, for there is only a difference of degree between them, as is clear in regard to theft, assaults and wounding, forgery and the like.

It is a curious fact that similar illusions have existed in all countries through the same causes and prejudices which have been mentioned above. In France, for instance, we often find that the keepers of the seals, reporting on volumes of the excellent and valuable series of criminal statistics since the year 1826, occasionally remark on these oscillatory diminutions, and make a point of treating them as <p 68>signs of a constant and general tendency, which succeeding years have always contradicted.

In France also, the same controversy has been kept up since 1840, with the same polemical artifices as were employed more recently in Italy, on the question whether crime has increased or decreased. Dufau, B<e'>ranger, Berrzat de St. Prix, and Legoyt affirmed that it had diminished since 1826, against the true opinion of de Metz, Dupin, Chassan, Mesuard, and Fayet, the last of whom quotes the others in one of his essays on criminal statistics, now undeservedly forgotten, though they abound in striking and profound observation.

But, as for France in those days, so for Italy to-day, the statistics of succeeding years quickly proved that what official optimism and national self-complacency spoke of as pessimism on our part was but a conscientious inference from lamentable facts, established in every country by the influence of civilisation on crime, which I have described in preceding pages.

After these general statements we ought logically to watch the periodic movement of each leading category of crimes and offences in each division of the country; for not all crimes, nor all districts, pursue the same course from year to year. But as this inquiry is impossible in the present work, we may pass on to the general figures for other European countries.

FRANCE.
1826-8. 1895-7.
Police Contraventions ... ... ... 100 391 |
Offences ... ... ... ... ... ... 100 397 |
Crimes against the person ... ... 100 98 |in 61 years
'' property ... ... ... 100 41 |
<p 69>
BELGIUM.
1850-2. 1883-5.
Tried by the Correctional Tribunals,
for crimes against the person soO log t in 36 years
'' property ... IOO 162)
1840-2. 1883-5.
Tried by the Tribunals for ``Offences'' loo 260l
Tried at Assizes, crimes against the person loo 65 W in 46 years

'' '' property loo 2I )

ENGLAND.
1857-9. 1884-6.
Tried summarily, for offences ... Ioo 176 in 30 years.
1835-7. 1884-6.

Criminal cases, against the person Ioo 143 }

'' against property, and for Win 55 years.

circulation of false money ... too 55 )

IRELAND.
1864-6. 1886-8.
Tried summarily ... ... ... Ioo 95 )
Crimes against the person ... .. Ioo 57 1 in 25 years.
'' property, and false money loo 52}

PRUSSIA.
1854-6. 1376-8.
Contraventions and ``vols de bois'' --. IOO l34 ~ in 25 years.
Crimes and offences ... ... 100 134

GERMANY.
1882-4. 1885-7.
Crimes and offences against public order 100 110
'' '' the person 100 116 in 6 years.
'' '' property 100 95

AUSTRIA.
1867-9. 1884-6.
Prisoners condemned for crimes --. 100 122 1 in 20 years.
'' '' offences ... 100 495

SPAIN.
1883-4. 1886-7.
Tried for crimes and offences -- 100 3 t in 5 years.
'' contraventions ...... 100 113)

The most constant general fact shown by these data is in all cases the very remarkable increase of slighter delinquencies, side by side with constancy or <p 70>slight diminution in crimes against the person, and a large diminution in crime against property. This is seen in France, England, Belgium, whilst there is an increase both of crimes and offences in Austria.

Behind the general fact, however, we must distinguish between the actual and the apparent.

On the one hand, the decrease of more serious crime against property is simply due to prisoners electing to be sentenced by the inferior court, which is at the discretion of the Tribunals in France, but legally established in Belgium, by the laws of 1838 and 1848, and in England by the Acts of 1856 and 1878--an election of the slighter but more certain punishment of the magistrates in preference to going before a jury. Indeed, crimes against the person, in which there is less power of election, do not exhibit so marked a decrease; and accordingly we see that in Belgium the increase of ``correctionalised'' crimes is due far more to crimes against property (62 per cent in 36 years) than to those against the person (9 per cent.).

On the other hand, the growth of slighter delinquency is partly the effect of special enactments, which are constantly creating new infractions, offences or contraventions. For France may be mentioned the law of 1832 on eluding supervision, that of 1844 on the game laws, that of 1857 on the false description of goods for sale, of 1845 on railway offences, of 1849 on the expulsion of refugees, of 1873 on drunkenness, and of 1874 on requisition of horses. I dealt with the statistical results of these laws, and with the influence of the increasing number of police <p 71>agents, in my ``Studies on Criminality in France'' (Rome, 1881); and I will here add only a single observation. If it is true, as M. Joly says, that other laws, passed since 1826, have extinguished a few offences, or at least have diminished their frequency under less severe regulations, yet it is also true that the new infractions created in the past half-century show far higher numbers than those of the infractions which have been extinguished or rendered less easy. So that amongst the 297 per cent. of increase on the offences tried in France between 1826 and 1887, the element due to legal creation of new infractions must not be ignored.

It cannot, however, be denied that for certain more frequent offences we have a real and very noteworthy increase, apart from any legislative or statistical cause of disturbance.

The same observation may be made in regard to England. There also the increase of 76 per cent, during thirty years of offences tried summarily is due in part to new infractions, created by special legislation, and especially by the Education Act of 1873, under which there were more than forty thousand infractions in 1878, and more than sixty-five thousand in 1886.

In regard to this delinquency in England (wherein are included, over and above real offences, certain infractions corresponding to the police contraventions of the Italian, French, Belgian and Austrian codes) it is to be observed that the increase of 76 per cent. in thirty years is due rather to contraventions than to offences. And this would establish a remarkable <p 72>difference between the variations of delinquency in England and in France.

If we analyse the record of infractions tried summarily in England, we find that contraventions of the law in respect of drunkenness account for most of this increase (from 82,196 in 1861 to 183,221 in 1885 and 165,139 in 1886). On the other hand, offences against the person (assaults) and against property (stealing, larceny, malicious offences) have not shown so large an increase.

In fact, if we compare the variations in assaults and thefts in France and England, we have the following figures:--

ENGLAND.
1861-3. 1879-81.
Prisoners tried summarily for assaults ... ... 100 102
Ditto for stealing, larceny, and malicious
offences ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 100 110

FRANCE. Cases tried by the Tribunals: For assault and wounding ... ... ... ... ... 100 134 For simple theft ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 100 116

So that in England not only the total delinquency, but more especially the commoner offences against the person and against property show a slighter increase than that which has been established for the same period in France. Whilst we do not overlook the greater increase of crimes against the person in England (coinciding, of course, with the doubling of the population in fifty-five years), this fact seems to me to prove the salutary influence of English organisations against certain social factors which lead up to delinquency (such as the care of <p 73>foundlings, the guardianship of the poor, and so forth), notwithstanding the great development of economic activity, which is assuredly in no way inferior to that of France. The figures strengthen my conclusions as to the social factors of crime, and refute the optimistic theory of Poletti.

But the actual participation of each country in the general increase of crime in Europe is determined by other causes, outside of the artificial influences of different codes of law. And the most general and constant of these causes, in all the various physical and social environments, is the annual increase of population, which, by adding to the density of the inhabitants of each country, multiplies their material and legal relations to one another, and, consequently, the objective and subjective constituents of crime.

Taking the official Italian figures, which are also relied on by M. Levasseur, we find, for the periods corresponding to the variations of criminality, the following rates of increase in the population of the different countries. Ireland shows a decrease, owing to emigration.

Increase. Italy 22,104,789 in 1863--30,947,306 in 1889 40 per cent. '' 27,165,553 in 1873--30,565,188 in 1888 12 '' France 31,858,937 in 1826--38,218,903 in 1887 20 per cent. Belgium 4,072,619 in 1840-- 5,583,278 in 1885 44 '' Prussia 21,046,984 in 1852--26,614,428 in 1878 26 '' Germany 45,717,000 in 1882--47,540,000 in 1887 4 '' England 13,896,797 in 1831--27,870,586 in 1886 101 '' '' 20,066,224 in 1861--27,870,586 in 1886 39 '' Austria 20,217,531 in 1869--23,070,688 in 1886 14 '' Ireland 5,798,967 in 1861-- 4,777,545 in 1888 dec. 17 ''

It must, however, be observed, with regard to this increase of the population, firstly that it tells as a factor <p 74>of criminality only in so far as it is not neutralised, wholly or in part, by other influences, mainly social, which prevent crime or render it less grave. Secondly, it is not right merely to compare the proportional rates of increase in the population with those of crime, as was done for instance by M. Bodio, who said that in Italy, from 1873 to 1883, ``since the population had increased by 7.5 per cent., crime might have increased during the same time by 7.5 per cent., without its being fair to say that it had actually increased.'' In point of fact, as M. Rossi remarked, since in Italy, and almost all the European States, the growth of the population is due to the excess of births over deaths (for emigration is more numerous than immigration), it is evident that, when we confine our attention to short periods, the addition to the population, consisting of children under ten or twelve years, does not increase crime in an appreciable degree. The deaths, on the other hand, must be subtracted from all stages of human life, but especially from the number of those who can and do commit crimes and offences.

Now, as we cannot in this place go into detail, I must confine myself to the statement of a few characteristic facts, as illustrated by European crime. Thus we perceive the influence of the great famine of 1846-7 on crimes against property in France and Belgium; the rapid oscillations of crime in Ireland, indicating the unstable political and social conditions of the country; and the parallel movements of crime in, France and Prussia. We see, indeed, a constant diminution of crime for the period between 1860 and <p 75>1870, followed (after the statistical disturbance of the terrible year 1870-1) by a period of serious and continued increase of crime, resulting from social and economic conditions, as shown especially by the increase of vagrancy and theft since 1875.

All these general facts go to prove the close and intimate connection between crime and the aggregate of its various constituents. So that, without pursuing more detailed inquiries into certain social factors of crime, which are capable of statistical enumeration, such as the increase in the number of the police, the abundance or scarcity of corn and wine, the spread of drunkenness, family circumstances, increase of personal possessions, the facility or otherwise of the settlement of disputes, commercial and industrial crises, the rate of wages, the variation from year to year of the general conditions of existence, and so forth, coincident with the development of education, encouragements to thrift and the organisation of charity, we must now proceed to draw from these statistical data the most important conclusions of criminal sociology.

<p 76> I.

Criminal statistics show that crime increases in the aggregate, with more or less notable oscillations from year to year, rising or falling in successive waves. Thus it is evident that the level of criminality in any one year is determined by the different conditions of the physical and social environment, combined with the hereditary tendencies and occasional impulses of the individual, in obedience to a law which I have called, in analogy with chemical phenomena, _the law of criminal saturation_.

Just as in a given volume of water, at a given temperature, we find a solution of a fixed quantity of any chemical substance, not an atom more or less, so in a given social environment, in certain defined physical conditions of the individual, we find the commission of a fixed number of crimes.

Our ignorance of many physical and psychical laws and of innumerable conditions of fact, will prevent us from obtaining a precise view of this level of criminality. But none the less is it the necessary and inevitable result of a given physical and social environment. Statistics show us, indeed, that the variations of this environment are always attended by consequential and proportional variations of crime. In France, for instance (and the observation will be found to apply to every country which possesses an extended series of criminal statistics), the number of crimes against the person varies but little in sixty-two years. The same thing holds good for England and Belgium, because their special environment is also less variable, <p 77>by reason that hereditary dispositions and human passions cannot vary profoundly or frequently, except under the influence of exceptional disturbances of the weather, or of social conditions. In fact, the more serious variations in respect of crimes against the person in France have taken place either during political revolutions, or in years of excessive heat, or of exceptional abundance of meat, grain, and wine. This is illustrated by the exceptional increase of crime from 1849 to 1852. Minor offences against the person, on the contrary, which are more occasional, assaults and wounding, for example, vary in the main, as to their annual oscillations, with the abundance of the wine harvest, whilst in their oscillations from month to month they display a characteristic increase during the vintage periods, from June to December, notwithstanding the constant diminution of other offences and crimes against the person.

On the other hand, crimes against property, and still more offences against property, show wide oscillations on account of the variability of the special environment, which is almost always in a condition of unstable equilibrium, as in periods of scarcity, and of commercial, financial and industrial crises, and so forth, whilst they are subject also to the influence of the physical environment. Crimes and offences against property display extraordinary increases in the severest winter seasons, and diminutions in milder winters.

And this correspondence between the more general, powerful, and variable physical and social factors of <p 78>crime, as well as its more characteristic manifestations such as thefts, wounding, and indecent assaults, is so constant and so direct that, when I was studying the annual movement of criminality in France, and perceived some extraordinary oscillation in the crimes and offences, I foresaw that in the annals of the year I should find mention of an agricultural or political crisis, or an exceptional winter or summer in the records of the weather. So that with a single column of a table of criminal statistics I was able to reconstruct the historical condition of a country in its more salient features. In this way psychological experiment again confirmed the truth of the law of criminal saturation.

Not only so, but it may be added that as, in chemistry, over and above the normal saturation we find that an increased temperature of the liquid envelopes an exceptional super-saturation, so in criminal sociology, in addition to the ordinary saturation we are sometimes aware of an excess of criminal saturation, due to the exceptional conditions of the social environment.

Indeed it is to be observed not only that the main and typical criminality has a sort of reflex criminality depending upon it, but also that an increase of more serious or more frequent crimes induces a crop of resistance to and assaults upon the guardians of public order, together with false witness, insults, avoidance of supervision, absconding, and the like. Certain crimes and offences also have their complementary offences, which from being consequences become in their turn the causes of new offences. Thus concealment and <p 79>purchase of stolen goods increase simultaneously with theft; homicide and wounding lead to the illegal carrying of arms; adultery and abusive language to duels, and so forth.

Beyond this there are sundry kinds of excessive criminal saturations which are exceptional, and therefore transitory. Ireland and Russia present us with conspicuous examples in their political and social crimes; and similarly America, during election contests. So in France before and after December 2 1851, the harbouring of criminals, which in no other quadrennial period from 1826 to 1887 exceeds a record of fifty, rises in 1850-53 as high as 239. So during the famine of 1847, theft of grain rises in France to forty-two in a single year, whilst for half a century it barely reaches a total of seventy-five. It is notorious, again, that in years of dear provisions, or severe winters, a large number of thefts and petty offences are committed for the sole object of securing maintenance within the prison walls. And in this connection I have observed in France that other offences against property decrease during a famine, by an analogous psychological motive, thus presenting a sort of statistical paradox. Thus, for example, I have found that as oidium and phylloxera are more effective than severe punishments in diminishing the number of assaults and cases of unlawful wounding, so famine succeeds better than the strongest bars, or dogs kept loose in the prison yards, in preventing the escape of prisoners, who at such times are detained by the advantage of being supported at the public expense.

For a parallel reason in 1847, a famine year, whilst <p 80>all crimes and offences against property increased in an extraordinary fashion, only the crimes of theft and breach of confidence by household servants showed a characteristic decrease, because such persons were deterred by the fear of being dismissed by their employers during the time of distress. The figures are as follows:--

FRANCE (Assizes). 1844. 1845. 1846. 1847. Crimes against property ... 3,767 3,396 3,581 4,235 Breach of confidence by household servants ... ... 136 128 168 104 Thefts by the same ... ... 1,001 874 924 896

M. Chaussinand adds, by way of confirmation of my statement that during economic crises, such as famine and high prices of grain, the number of cases of escape from justice also decreases, _*for_ ``thieves and tramps prefer arrest, in order to escape from the misery which afflicts them outside the prison walls.''

Two fundamental conclusions of criminal sociology may be drawn from this law of criminal saturation.

The first is that it is incorrect to assert a mechanical regularity of crime, which from Quetelet's time has been much exaggerated. There has been a too literal insistance on his famous declaration that ``the budget of crime is an annual taxation paid with more preciseness than any other''; and that it is possible to calculate beforehand how many homicides, poisoners, and forgers we shall have, because ``crimes are generated every year in the same number, with the same punishments, in the same proportions.'' And one constantly meets with this echo of the statisticians, that ``from year to year crimes against the person vary at the <p 81>most by one in twenty-five, and those against property by one in fifty''; or, again, that there is ``a law of limitation in crime, which does not vary by more than one in ten.''

This opinion, originated by Quetelet and other statisticians after an inquiry confined to the more serious crimes, and to a very short succession of years, has already been refuted, in part by Maury and Rhenisch, and more plainly by Aberdare, Mayr, Messedaglia and Minzloff.

In fact, if the level of criminality is of necessity determined by the physical and social environment, how could it remain constant in spite of the continual variations, sometimes very considerable, of this same environment? That which does remain fixed is the proportion between a given environment and the number of crimes: and this is precisely the law of criminal saturation. But the statistics of criminality will never be constant to one rule from year to year. There will be a dynamical but not a statical regularity.

Thus the element of fixity in criminal sociology consists in asserting, not the fatality or predestination of human actions, including crimes, but only their necessary dependence upon their natural causes, and therewith the possibility of modifying effects by modifying the activity of these causes. And, indeed, even Quetelet himself recognised this when he said, ``If we change the social order we shall see an immediate change in the facts which have been so constantly reproduced. Statisticians will then have to consider whether the changes have been useful or injurious. These studies therefore show how <p 82>important is the mission of the legislator, and how responsible he is in his own sphere for all the phenomena of the social order.''

The second consequence of the law of criminal saturation, one of great theoretical importance, is that the penalties hitherto regarded, save for a few platonic declarations, as the best remedies for crime, are less effectual than they are supposed to be. For crimes and offences increase and diminish by a combination of other causes, which are far from being identical with the punishments lightly written out by legislators and awarded by judges.

History affords us various impressive examples.

The Roman Empire, when society had fallen into extreme corruption, recalling many symptoms of our own epoch, vainly promulgated laws which visited celibacy, adultery, and incest--``venus prodigiosa''--with ``the vengeance of the sword and punishments of the utmost severity.'' Dio Cassius (``Hist. Rom.,'' lxxvi. 16) says that in the city of Rome alone, after the law of Septimus Severus, there were three thousand charges of adultery. But the stringent laws against these crimes continued to the days of Justinian, which shows that the crimes had not been checked; and, as Gibbon says (``Decline and Fall,'' ch. 44), the Scatinian law against ``venus nefanda'' had fallen into abeyance through lapse of time and the multitude of offenders. Yet we see in our own days, as in France, that there are some who would oppose celibacy with no other remedy than a law passed for the purpose.

Since medi<ae>val times the increasing gentleness of <p 83>manners has caused a diminution of crimes of blood, once so numerous that there was need of sundry ``truces'' and ``peaces,'' notwithstanding the harsh penalties of previous centuries. And Du Boys called Cettes simple because, after giving a table of shocking punishments in the Germany of his day (the fifteenth century), he marvelled that all these pains and torments had not prevented the increase of crimes.

Imperial Rome deluded herself with the idea that she could stamp out Christianity with punishments and tortures, which, however, only seemed to fan the flame. In the same way Catholic Europe hoped to extinguish Protestantism by means of vindictive persecution, and only produced the opposite effect, as always happens. If the Reformed faith does not strike root in Italy, France, and Spain, that must be explained by psychological reasons proper to those nations, independently of the stake and of massacres, for it did not strike root even when religious belief was liberated from its fetters. This does not prevent all governments in every land from continuing to believe that, in order to arrest the spread of certain political or social doctrines, there is nothing better than to pass exceptional penal laws, forgetting that, with ideas and prejudices just as with steam, compression increases the expansive force.

Popular education has swept away the so-called crimes of magic and witchcraft, though they had withstood the most savage punishments of antiquity and medi<ae>val times.

Blasphemy, in spite of the slitting of the nose, <p 84>tongue, and lips, enacted by the penal laws, and continued in France from Louis XI. to Louis XV., was very common in the middle ages, being (like witchcraft, trances, and self-immurement) a pathological or abnormal manifestation of religious emotion, which in those times had an extraordinary development. And the habit of blasphemy diminished under the psychological and social evolution of our own days, precisely when it ceased to be punished. Or, rather, it continued to this day, as in Tuscany, where the Tuscan penal code (Art. 136), which survived until December 31, 1889, still punished it with five years' imprisonment. The illusion as to the efficacy of punishment is so deeply rooted that a proposal was made in the Senate, in 1875, to include this penalty in the new Italian penal code. And at Murcia, in Spain, trials for blasphemy have lately been re-established.

Mittermaier observed that, if in England and Scotland there were far fewer cases of false witness, perjury, and resistance to authority than in Ireland and on the Continent, this must be due in great measure to national character, which is one of the hereditary elements of normal as well as of abnormal and criminal life.

Thus even apart from statistics we can satisfy ourselves that crimes and punishments belong to two different spheres; but when statistics support the teaching of history, no doubt can remain as to the very slight (I had almost said the absence of any) deterrent effect of punishments upon crime.

We may indeed derive a telling proof from statis<p 85>tical records, by referring to the progress of repression in France, over a period of sixty years, as I have already done in my ``Studies'' previously quoted.

When we speak of the repression of crime, we must first of all distinguish between that which is due to the general character of penal legislation, more or less severe, and that which is secured by the administration by the judges of the law as it is. Now, so far as legislation is concerned, the growth of crime in France certainly cannot be attributed to the relaxation of punishment. The legislative reforms which have taken place, especially in 1832 and 1863, on the general revision of the penal code, modified punishments to some extent, but with the definite purpose and result, as shown by the same official records of criminal statistics, of strengthening the repressive power of the law by providing for the application of less aggravated punishments. The repugnance of juries and judges against excessive punishments, and their preference for acquittal, is, indeed, a psychological law. Moreover, it is well known that if there is in Europe a penal code less mild than any of the rest, it is that of France, which is the oldest of those now in force, and still retains much of the military rigour of its origin. And it must be added that for certain crimes, as for rapes and indecent assaults, which are nevertheless constantly increasing in France, the punishments have been increased by several successive enactments. The same is true of extortion by threats of exposure, which occurs more and more frequently, as M. Joly also observes, in spite of the severe punishments of the law of 1863. <p 86>

The question, therefore, is reduced to judicial repression, the progress whereof must be observed in the past half-century, for it has evidently the greatest influence upon crime. Laws, in fact, have no real operation if they are not applied more or less rigorously; for in the social strata which contribute most to criminality the laws are known only by their practical application, which is also the only truly defensive function, carrying with it a special preventive of the repetition of the crime by the person condemned.