Causes and cures of crime

Front matter

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Preface

Amelioration. Finally, the reader is invited to consider the cures of crime, as suggested in the last three chapters of the volume — The Theory of Punishment, Indeterminate Sentence and Parole, and The New Penology.

Throughout the volume, the author has sought to discover and portray the present status of scientific investigation upon the various topics treated, and has quoted freely from the leading authorities, sometimes with approval, sometimes for the purpose of recording a firm dissent, but always with profound respect for the great minds who have preceded him in this field of important research.

The suppression of crime is not at all a legal question. It is rather a problem for physicians and economists. This, it is believed, will be fairly evident to all who peruse these pages. We shall find, too, that the habits of life and thought which make for health of mind and body likewise militate against crime; that physical, social and moral diseases abide in the same diathesis; that there is a physical basis of morals, as well as a spiritual basis of life; and that, in the study of normal and adnormal man, we can no more consider him as an animal without a soul than as a purely mental phenomenon without a physiological basis.

But the volume, perhaps, were best left to speak for itself. At least, it may interest, if it fail to instruct; and if it shall in anywise tend to promote the advancement of learning by stimulating a public interest in the all-important problems herein presented and discussed, the author's task will not have been essayed in vain.

For courtesies extended and valuable assistance rendered the author begs to acknowledge his indebtedness to Col. William Young, Chief of Police, Mr. Samuel Allender, Chief of Detectives, and Mr. J. M. Shea, Bertillon Superintendent, of the St. Louis Police Department; and to Hon. William C. Reynolds, Police Commissioner, and Mr. William C. Gordon, Bertillon Operator, of the Kansas City Police Department. Both the St. Louis and the Kansas City police departments at this time are singularly free from the abuses which have often prevailed in the police departments of many American cities.

Thomas Speed Mosby.

Jefferson City, Missouri, Aiisriist 1. 1913.

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PART I. Etiology

CHAPTER. PAGE.

I. COSMIC FACTORS OP CRIME 1-13

Indications of cosmic influence, 1; Telluric influence upon cretinism, 2; Combes' investigations concerning German school children, 2; Low temperatures involve kinetic energy, 2; Effects upon lower animals, 2; Crimes against person most numerous in warm climates, 3; MacDonald's diagrams, 4; Enrico Ferri's demonstration, 5; Crime in United States, 6; Minimum of murder, suicide and rape in January and December, 6; Effects of Arctic temperature, 7; Effects of heat on dense populations, 8; Nerve-tension and heat, 9; Boerhave's laconic advice, 9; Violence in mountainous regions, 11; Cosmic influence not a controlling factor, 12.

IL SOCIAL FACTORS OF CRIME 14-47

Social conditions alone do not explain crime, 14; Small and Vincent quoted, 15; Dangers of political apathy, 16; Importance of prosecutor's office, 17; Gov. Folk's discovery of "white slavery" in St. Louis, 19; The law's delay, 20; Evils of multiplicity of statutes, 21; Efficacy of the referendum, 23; War as a homicidal insanity, 24; Relative influences of rural and urban life, 27; MacDonald, Aubry and Lombroso upon publication of news of crime, 30;

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CHAPTER. PAGE.

Psychology of the mob, 31; Poverty and wealth, 34; Education and illiteracy, 36; Lack of religion a cause of crime, 37; Divorce, 43; Report of the Chicago Vice Commission, 44; The home as the standard of a nation's life, 47.

III. INDIVIDUAL FACTORS OP CRIME 48-81

Criminality approximates pathology, 48; Atavism and crime, 49; The American Indian, 50; The gambling instinct, 51; Physical characteristics of criminals, 53; Psychical peculiarities, 55; Religion of the criminal, 59 ; Crime and precocity, 59 ; Insanity and crime, 62; Studies of habitual criminals, 65; Hereditary tendencies not always controlling, 68; Autotoxemia and crime, 69; Cranial trauma and its remote results in individual cases, 70; Alcoholism and crime, 73; Use of tobacco among criminals, 79; The drug habit, 80; Sexual promiscuity of criminals, 81; Abnormally high percentage of syphilis in prisons, 81; The criminal's insanitary and unhygienic life, 81.

PART 11.

Prophylaxis.

IV. eugenics ; 82-110

First International Eugenics Congress, 82 ; Galton's definition of the "new science," 82; Hereditary transmission of physical traits, 83; Lamarck's Fourth Law, 83; Mendel's Law, 83; Application of these laws to animal breeding, 84; The study of human heredity, 86; Hereditary transmission of intellectual traits, 88; Diverse views of Ribot and Royse, 88; Views of Prof. Yerkes of Harvard, 89; Schuster's investigations at Oxford, 89; Criminal genealogies by Poellmann, Dugdale, Jorger, McCulloch and Stocker, 90; Genius and Heredity, 96; Importance of research, 99; Need of statistical data, 100; Regulation of marriage, 106.

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Contents

CHAPTER, PAGB.

V. ASEXUALIZATION 111-129

Dr. Gideon Lincecum's advocacy of castration, 111; Rentoul's operation of vasectomy, 111; Warbasse quoted, 112; Operation would not decrease illicit sexual commerce, 112; Laws of various American States authorizing sterilization of criminals and defectives, 113; Model statute recommended for Wisconsin, 116; Opinion of Washington Supreme Court, 118; Operation of vasectomy first performed in Indiana, 123; Constitutionality of vasectomy established, 127; Not so effective as asexualization because of failure to destroy power to spread venereal disease, 128.

VL EDUCATION 130-159

Lieber's view that crime is due to want of fixed occupations, 130; Physical training urged two centuries ago, 130; First trade school in America, 131; Recommendations of Pennsylvania legislature, 131; Views of Dr. G. Stanley Hall, 133; Lack of trade education a cause of crime, 134; Law of Solon, 139; Views of Juvenile Court Judges, 139; Principles of brain development according to Dr. Frank Lydston, 141; American industrial supremacy threatened by inefliciency of labor, 147; Training of youth should be physical, mental and moral, 148; Examples of Egypt, Greece and Rome, 150; Modern spirit of industry, 152; The problem of child-idleness, 153.

VIL SOCIAL AMELIORATION 160-211

Economic justice essential to social and civic betterment, 160; Liberty necessary to good morals, 160; Equality of opportunity, 161; Centralization of power, as seen by Spencer, Ferri and Lombroso, 174; Initiative and referendum, 175; The feminine suffrage, 176; The public defender, 187; Reparation for wrongful prosecution, 189; Right of convict's family to his wages, 190; The Detroit plan, 192; Juvenile Courts, 198; Philanthropic institutions of London and Geneva, 204; Police Reform, 207; Forms of social amelioration, 210.

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PART III. Therapeutics

CHAPTER. PAGE.

VIII. THE THEORY OP PUNISHMENT 212-275

Cruelty of punishments among savages, 212; Compensatory retaliation, 213; Salic and Burgundian laws, 214; Torture, 215; The State's right to punish, 219; The value of punishment, 224; The death penalty, 226; Determining the measure of culpability, 254; The individualization of punishment, 277; The pardoning power, 263; Criminal punishments should be adjusted with a view to the cure

of crime, 275.

IX. INDETERMINATE SENTENCE AND PAROLE. 276-334

World-wide unanimity in favor of indeterminate sentence and parole, 276; Parole system suggested by Herbert Spencer, 276; Recommendation of Eighth Annual Prison Congress of America, 278; Necessity of expert knowledge on part of parole boards, 278; Work of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 280; Laws of United States and various American States on parole system, 281; Statistics of parole officer of California, 331.

X. THE NEW PENOLOGY 335-354

Abolition of the penitentiary, 335; Reformatory system most effective, 336; Evils of spoils system in prisons, 338; Probation for first offenders, 340; Institutions for the criminal insane, 334; Scientific instruments for detecting degeneracy, 336-351; Classification of criminals, 346; "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," 354.

CAUSES AND CURES OF CRIME.

CHAPTER I. Cosmic Factors of Crime

Only in recent years has the cosmic factor been seriously considered among the predisposing causes of crime, and while the data compiled by the assiduous labors of a number of eminent scientists do not fully determine the precise extent of such influence, yet they are sufficient to indicate its existence, and, in some degree, its nature. The mental, moral and physical conditions of man are always affected by conditions of seasons, climate and configuration of the earth's surface, as shown by Lacassagne, Garraud, Bernard and Oettingen, among others. In some of the goitrous districts

I of Europe cretinism is known to have diminished after drainage of the marshes, thus indicating a telluric influence upon this species of degeneracy. Combe^ has observed that children born in summer are taller than those born in winter. Dexter^ says that weather conditions which are physically energizing and exhilarating are accompanied by an unusual number of excesses in deportment, while the opposite meteorological conditions show the reverse effects. Dr. G. Stanley HalP thinks that the effects of climate have been insufficiently studied, and adds that these effects are sometimes difficult to separate from those of work and rest. "Low temperatures," says he, "involve kinetic energy to maintain heat, and larger quantities of food must be provided. Its indirect influence in affecting mode of life, food, etc., must be of itself great, while the earlier age of puberty in most warm climates would suggest earlier completion of growth. No doubt there is an optimum temperature most favorable to the highest human development, and also a limit of variation beyond which retardation is caused. The studies of the effects of temperature upon the growth of lower animal forms are interesting here."

2 Psychology in the School Room.

3 Psychology of Adolescence, vol. 1, p. 33.

MacDonald* takes note of the fact that animals of the same species, or related ones, are fiercer in the torrid than in the less warm regions of America; that lions in the Atlas Mountains are much less formidable than those in the desert; and that cattle have been known during the warm season, and especially at the approach of a storm, to be taken with an attack of fury and rush against persons and trees until the storm bursts and the rains calm them. Dr. Buckle has, in his "History of Civilization," shown with great clearness the influence of the cosmic phenomena upon the races of men. These influences are obviously indicated by the comparatively low types of civilization which are usually found in the more inhospitable portions of the globe. Upon the whole it would seem that no school of criminologists can afford to ignore the important influences which climatic variations exert upon social as well as biological conditions.

The accompanying diagrams and their explanations, illustrating the monthly fluctuations of crime, are from MacDonald. From Diagram A it will be seen that crime is at a minimum in June, there being 6,490 indictable offenses. It is at the maximum in October (8,014), and decreases but

*Man and Abnormal Man.

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Diagram A.— Crimes committed (all indictable offenses).

Diagram B. — Crimes of violence against the person.

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Diagram C— Crimes against property with violence.

Diagram D.— Attempts at suicide.

little in November, December and January. While the fluctuations of crimes against property determine those of crime generally, crimes against the person follow in an opposite course, as Diagram B shows; that is, such crimes are highest in the spring and summer, while reaching their minimum in the winter months. In crimes against property with violence. Diagram C, the maximum is in December and the minimum in June, varying inversely with the length of the day. Diagram D shows the maximum of suicidal attempts in hot weather.

Statistics very clearly show that crimes against the person are proportionately most numerous in warm climates, while in the cooler regions crimes against property are most frequent.^ In the warmer climates of Italy and Spain we find the maximum of murders in Europe, while the cooler climes of England, Scotland and Holland supply the fewest murders in proportion to population. Prof. Enrico Ferri has demonstrated that in France the greatest number of crimes against the person are committed in the summer season, while the maximum of crimes against property is reached in winter. Discussing the influence of thermometric and barometric changes on the quality of

8 Leffingwell : Influence of Seasons Upon Conduct.

human conduct Dr. G. Frank Lydston, In his very interesthig work on "Diseases of Society and Degeneracy" (p. 23) states that hot weather seems to have an effect chiefly in increasing crimes of impulse, and that neuropathic persons, especially, find great difficulty in adjusting themselves to changes of climatic environment. In such persons the mental equilibrium, already unstable, is easily destroyed, and in this respect hot v/eather, making the nerve centers hyperesthetic, acts much in the same way as alcohol. "The tonic effect of cold weather in maintaining the nervous and mental equilibrium of neuropaths, and thus inhibiting crimes of impulse," says Dr. Lydston, "is obvious. The physiologic turmoil in the sexual system ushered in by spring is well known. Poets have sung of it, and rapists have been hanged for it. It bears a relation not only to sexual crimes but to all crimes of impulse, such as murder and suicide." We know that in the United States crimes against the person are unduly high in southern latitudes. It is clearly proven that the maximum of suicides, murders and rapes is always reached in early summer, whereas the minimum is reached in December or January. Therefore it appears that Byron stated a scientific fact, since borne out by statistics, when he said in "The Giaour" that "The cold in clime are cold in blood."

Dr. Rink claims to have discovered certain Eskimo languages which supply no word for "quarrel." Gibbon, In Chapter 6^ of his history, has observed: "The Arctic tribes, alone among the sons of men, are Ignorant of war and unconscious of human blood; a happy Ignorance, If reason and virtue were the guardians of their peace." But their pacific nature is not due to their reason, and their virtue Is rather an effect of the Arctic temperature. Possibly the Laplander should not more be praised for his harmlessness than some of the Italians should be blamed for their extraordinary aptitude in the use of the stiletto. Both are governed, In some measure, by cosmlcal influences, and while the criminal anthropologist may attribute this homicidal or non-homicidal tendency to individual characteristics, we cannot doubt that the individual nature Is somewhat affected by climatic influences acting in conjunction with certain biological conditions. History records the fact that within three generations the Vandals who settled In northern Africa were transformed from a fierce and hardy soldiery into a race of luxuriant weaklings. But, for all that, the Carthagenians under Hannibal were not an effeminate people. It must likewise be borne in mind that the same climate which nurtured Cyrus the Great witnessed the fall of Persia, and that the skies under which the later Roman emperors basked in luxuriant indolence were the same sunny skies which smiled upon the Roman legions when their victorious eagles awed the world.

Climatic conditions may operate through both the social and the individual factors of crime. Thus a man may endure in the mountains or upon the open plains a temperature of 90" or 95° without serious danger to his nervous organism, whereas if confined to the heart of a city of three or four millions the results of the same temperature upon the same nervous and physical organism may become serious. This is partly illustrated by the fact that, although the maximum number of suicides is reached in the summer season, yet the number is greater in the large centers of population than it is in the rural districts. For example, in New York City the suicides are about 150 to the million of population, while in the rural districts the number is less than 100 to the million. It should not be forgotten, however, that in the centers of population other factors aside from those of climate and temperature are operative in a high degree.

It is noticeable that our great "waves of crime"

usually occur in seasons of extraordinary heat and humidity, and that the center of the ''wave" is also the great center of population, where social and individual factors of crime converge with greatest intensity upon the given point. The nerve-tension is always more extreme in the large cities and there, also, are the social vices most numerous. Precipitate upon these conditions a condition of unusual heat, and an epidemic of crimes against the person may be expected to follow.

In the United States the "mad dog season" and the "crime wave" usually occur simultaneously, but dogs do not always go mad if given relief at the proper time, nor will normal men commit crimes of violence in normal circumstances and under normal conditions. When Boerhave died, the great physician left behind him this laconic bit of advice to seekers after health: "Keep your head cool and your feet warm." From the viewpoint of criminal anthropology the temperature of the feet may be regarded as relatively unimportant, to be sure; but, a "cool head" is highly desirable, not only in the figurative sense but in the sense of physical actuality.

The natural relation of heat to crimes of violence is more readily grasped than is the relation of cold to crimes against property. There would seem to be no apparent reason why man should be more dishonest in cold than in hot weather, or in cool than in warm regions, but nevertheless the criminal records seem to indicate this to be the fact.^ This may be due to the fact that the means of livelihood are more readily obtainable in warm weather and in warm climates; and the earning capacity is greatly curtailed, among the majority of men, in the cooler seasons and in the colder regions of the globe. The overwhelming majority of thefts are committed by men of unsettled pursuits and no established occupation; and it is evident that they who, from whatever cause, cannot produce for themselves, will most naturally attempt to take the produce of others; just as the inhabitants of the barren highlands of Scotland for so many centuries lived by theft because there was no other way for them to live, and just as that other northern race, the Vikings, for the same reasons lived by pillage upon their neighbors of the South.

Mountain wilds and Arcadian fastnesses which are supposed to inspire the highest reach of song, are no longer known merely as the harmless and idyllic rendezvous of poets and the haunt of dreams; for they are the haunts of brigandage as

8 Lombroso : Crime, Its Causes and Remedies, pt. 1, ch. 1.

Cosfnic Factors of Crime

well. Lombroso''' noted that during a period of fifty-four years the minimum, 20 per cent, of crimes against the person occurred in the level country; that 33 percentoccurred in the hilly country, and that a maximum occurred in mountainous districts. This he ascribed to the active and hardy nature of mountaineers, and to the facility afforded for ambuscades. But the turbulency of the mountainous districts of Kentucky and Tennessee will not be ascribed solely to the active and hardy nature of the population. I have no doubt that the condition is also partly due to the facilities afforded for escape. For this, among other reasons, outlawry is not indigenous to the open plains and is less difficult to irradicate there than in mountainous regions.

Being unable to accept the doctrine of economic determinism, the author must deny that the human being is conditioned solely by material influences, cosmic or otherwise; although, in the light of the investigations made by scientific minds of the highest order, it would be unwise as well as unsafe to discard those influences from any rational inquiry into the causes of crime. In all such inquiries, however, care should be used to avoid the recognition of isolated and merely coincidental

"^ Crime Politique, ch. 4.

II phenomena as proof of the ultimate fact. Man cannot be said to exist as a cosmic organism alone, unaffected by social Influences or ethnic peculiarities which, In some measure, govern his moral conduct. But, knowing how and when and approximately the extent to which cosmic Influences may be expected to operate In the formation of human character, we may be thereby enabled to more effectively supply the desiderata peculiar to the environment.

Weather, the soil, the climate of a country, as well as Its topography, exert far too great an influence upon Individual and racial character to be Ignored In any successful attempt at social analysis, but they are not the dominating Influence In the development of either Individual or national character. If such Influences were paramount then we should expect to find a persistency of criminal type prevailing with a uniformity affected solely by the variations of cosmlcal phenomena, and this Is a proposition which, manifestly, cannot be apodelctlcally asserted In the present state of scientific investigation. There is one civilization at the site of Babylon and another at Berlin, and human nature in its essential elements has changed but little, if any, since Hammurabi wrote his code; but, although the climate has altered little, the vices and virtues which in those days pervaded the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates were not precisely what they are today. Germany has passed from savagery to civilization of the highest type within the period of authentic history, but there has been no marked change of climate. To the student of history, many similar incidents will readily occur. But such conditions, although they may tend to minimize, do not eliminate the theory of cosmical factors in crime-causation and in racial growth.

CHAPTER 11.

Social Factors of Crime.

The environment of the Individual Is made up of the cosmical and social conditions which surround him. Criminologists have therefore, for convenience in the investigation and treatment of the subject, grouped in three principal categories the causes which operate to induce crime, viz. : the cosmic, social and the individual causes; of which the social causes are by far the most numerous, comprising, as they undoubtedly do, many of the primal inducements which lie back of very many of those factors which appear to dwell within the criminal's own individuality. The French school of criminology teach that most crime arises from diseased social conditioils and that, consequently, the remedy is to be sought in better social conditions. No doubt much of the degeneracy which afflicts civilization does originate In the maladjustments of society; but, as Ferri^ observes, social conditions alone do not explain crime. In their "Introduction to the Study of Society," Small and Vincent observe (p. 270) : "While the truth that has just been stated — namely, that diseased and abnormal Individuals produce pathological social conditions — Is of fundamental significance, another Important truth must not be overlooked. It Is that abnormal social arrangements and functions react upon Individuals, offering opportunities for personal degeneration and unsocial conduct If not actually making them necessary. This reciprocal Interrelation between men and Institutions must be kept In view by all rational reformers. Insistence upon only one-half of this twofold truth Is a source of much confused thought and fruitless effort. As In the case of all social growth there Is constant modification of structure in adjustment to new or changed functions, so pathological conditions are slowly eliminated as a result of Improved individual and collective thought, feeling, and conduct."

The Influences of social conditions upon the life of the individual are so various and complex that an exact analysis of their precise nature and extent is impossible; but, for the purposes of this

1 Grim. Soc. p. 55.

Inquiry, those conditions may be divided Into three general classifications, namely: political, economic and moral.

Most obvious among crime-breeding political conditions Is that state of political apathy or civic stagnation wherein multitudes of the better classes become neglectful of their civic obligations. When right-minded persons cease to exert their Influence In the public life of the community the worst elements of citizenship rapidly gain control, and the public offices are prostituted to the purposes of personal aggrandizement. It Is then that men lose respect for their public officials, and disrespect of the official functions and the laws which they represent Is both an early and an Inevitable result. These conditions, when allowed to remain unchecked, ultimately spread through all ranks of society, until the community Is honey-combed with the corruption that flowers In Its public representatives. Such a state of society not only offers no incentive to honesty, but it places a positive premium upon vice.

Out of such unclean political conditions others flow as from a fountain. Opinions which engender a contempt for the rights of property naturally arise. The spectacle afforded by men grown rich through privileges filched from the

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Social Factors of Crime.

community does not inspire a lofty regard for the paramount sacredness of property rights in general, and those who do not think correctly become easy converts to the doctrine of Rob Roy, that

"They should take who have the power And they should keep who can."

Improper administration of the criminal laws by courts and prosecuting officials is often a cause of crime. There are two classes of prosecuting officers who are more dangerous to society than any of the so-called professional criminals. One class is composed of those who, from corruption or inefficiency, are lax in the performance of their duties. The other class is made up of those who are bent upon "making a record." Such men drive many to lives of crime by the severity of punishment imposed for trivial and first offenses. Many a young man has been ruined and made an enemy to society, when he could have been saved by a little judicious leniency exercised in the right way and at the right time. One notorious criminal told me in his death-cell that this was especially true of his own case, and that he knew it to be true of many of his associates in crime. So earnest was he in this belief that he asked me to remember it as the declaration of a dying man, and to transmit it to others who may be interested in the administration of the criminal laws. A few hours later this man died upon the gallows — guilty of the crime for which he died, but none the less the victim of another's mistake.

Closely allied with the prosecutor's office is the police department. I have been told by more than one criminal of national notoriety and experience that there is, in many great cities of the United States, a limited partnership between certain of the criminal classes and the police departments. Police investigations in a number of cities have at various times corroborated these statements. The whole police department, it is true, is seldom or never so involved, and frequently the heads of the departments have no knowledge of the true relations subsisting between some of their subordinates and the criminal classes. But this relation is not always that of bribe-giver and bribe-taker. It often happens that the officer on the force simply wants to "make good." To do so he must needs procure information with regard to certain criminal operations. There are always criminals who can give a clew to an officer. But they will not do so unless given to understand that in the ordinary course of events they will not be themselves molested. Thus arises a secret understanding between the crook and the police. The

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Social Factors of Crime.

crook must do detective work which he alone can do, as the price of his own immunity. He has no regard for the law, and becomes a worse citizen than before, while the other crook, who is denied similar immunity and protection, feels a kind of double injury and becomes more of an enemy to society than he was before. The police officer, in the course of time, becomes thoroughly demoralized, and in the outcome the state, the officer and the criminal all suffer from this truce with crime. The first case of the so-called "white slavery" to reach the public attention in the United States was due to a connivance of police officers in the city of St. Louis, and subsequent investigations have shown similar conditions to exist elsewhere. The first case was developed in 1902 by Joseph W. Folk, then Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, and afterwards elected Governor of the State of Missouri. Folk at that time discovered houses in St. Louis into which many young girls had been decoyed by promises of employment. In these houses the male patron purchased brass checks of the cashier, and these checks were received by the girls, who in turn delivered them to their employer each morning and received "credit" on the books. These girls never saw any money at all. Occasionally one made her escape, but the police were always promptly notified and she was as promptly returned to her keeper. When the responsibility was properly located this revolting condition was soon destroyed. Abuses of this kind can never exist without police protection.

"The law's delay" is not so great a factor in the encouragement of crime as is commonly supposed. Frequently the delay of trials and the suspension of sentences but contribute to the terrors of the law. It is sometimes true that the longer an indictment is held over the head of an accused person, the more harrowing the ordeal becomes to him, whereas the immediate trial and determination of a case may result in the infliction of a penalty before either the criminal or the public have had time to realize it. But, aside from all this, it conclusively appears that the certainty of the punishment is the only thing about punishment that is of any avail at all. The delay of punishment amounts to little, provided it be certain ; and undue severity, where it fails to provoke popular discontent, is at least certain to confirm any anti-social tendency to which the criminal may have been previously disposed, or else breed new hatred of the laws. As Seneca^ says: "The time that precedes punishment is the severest part of it."