A Plea for the Criminal Part 2

Other anthropometrists notice different proportions.]

If Lombroso's theory, that a man was born a criminal, was to be taken as the rule, Manouvrier declares that it must then be universal, and that men thus born must inevitably commit crime. If it be a rule then it must operate in all cla.s.ses, and since it does not so operate, proof is given that it is not the rule. Manouvrier declares that the man possessed of characteristics the very opposite of Lombroso's criminal, if subjected to the conditions, influences, and temptations, which lead to crime would as likely commit crime as he who possessed all the characteristics which Lombroso describes as typical. Manouvrier regards the social life of a person from childhood as being the most important factor in moulding character. He emphatically denies that there is in the embryo a predisposition to crime. Dr Magnan likewise refuses his a.s.sent to this theory.

It may be rather daring to suggest a theory which would reconcile the differences between these eminent men: but as the facts presented by each side are indisputable, some such reconciliation must exist.

Possibly if we interpret Lombroso's phrase, "inherited tendency towards crime" or "predisposition towards crime" in the same way as we interpret the term ("predisposition towards disease") when speaking of tubercular persons (or, as Mercier speaks of the insane), that is as persons, who in a given favourable environment, are more likely to commit crime than persons without that inherited tendency, we may find these theories to be more in accord with one another. Lombroso insists that there must be an inherited tendency, Manouvrier insists that there must be environment. As in the case of tubercular persons (of tubercular ancestry) these two causes are complementary, may it not be also the case with criminals of criminal ancestry? The INHERITED IMMORAL IDEA seems to be really what Manouvrier rejects. A vicious conception of life which makes the man inevitably, incurably, and irresistibly a criminal, is apparently the interpretation he puts on Lombroso's theory. But from Lombroso's works and speeches, the interpretation does not appear to be at all a necessary one. The transmission of a disordered nervous system with its consequences, as one cause, the "hypnotic influence of circ.u.mstances" as another cause, and these two causes acting sometimes separately and sometimes conjointly, will very possibly account for the phenomena Lombroso observes. A most important factor, and one which cannot be disregarded, compels the acceptance of some such theory. This factor is the success resulting from reformatory effort. It is not only Lombroso and Manouvrier that need to be reconciled, but Lombroso, Manouvrier and Brockway. This latter gentleman is the founder of the famous Elmira Reformatory which has reformed 82 per cent. of 12,000 felons which have been committed to it for treatment.

We come then to this conclusion that heredity plays an important part in the production of the criminal; but that there are other very important factors which are often confused with it and when separated from it reduce the popular estimate of its influence to the scientific one, which is considerably the lesser one. Furthermore, as a consequence of this investigation, the true foundations upon which reformatory science is to be built are clearly indicated.

This statement, that heredity plays an important part in the production of the criminal, needs to be carefully guarded. It means precisely this and nothing more:--That where an hereditary influence (such as above described) making crime easier, has been transmitted, there that influence is an important factor in the production of the criminal. It does NOT mean that this influence is invariably transmitted by the criminal parent, neither does it mean that the majority of criminals are "born" criminals.

The following is an extract from a letter upon this subject which the author has received from Dr. Arthur MacDonald, one of the leading criminologists of to-day:--"There is no proof of any scientific value that criminality is inherited." By criminality we understand "the moral basis of crime."

The famous "Jukes" family that lived in the State of New York, afford one of the most interesting studies in heredity to be found in the annals of criminology. Of this numerous family (some 709 persons of which were clearly traced in five generations) the elder sons took to crime and the younger sons to vagabondage. There was indeed a proportion of honest and industrious persons among them. Of the women 52 per cent.

were prost.i.tutes. That a proportion of honest men among the sons, and a fair number of virtuous women among the daughters is recorded, clearly proves that an hereditary taint is not, in all cases, necessarily transmitted from parent to child. Latency in one generation, with activity in the next, is frequently observed in the transmission of disease; but in the case of crime, as distinguished from vice, this is rarely so.

That the younger sons of the "Jukes" family fell into habits of vagabondage (leaving it to the elder sons to carry on the criminal traditions of the family) is also worthy of notice. It serves to show that whatever the influence of heredity may be, as a factor disposing towards crime, it cannot be an independent and final factor. In families living after a primitive manner of life, as this family did, the elder sons are invariably the companions of their fathers and accompany them on their depredatory raids. The younger sons are left to the milder environment of their mother's society. Thus from a criminal point of view, the environment of the elder sons is more intense than that of the younger sons. The difference in environment accounts for the difference in character formed; the more intense environment accounting for criminals and the milder environment for vagabonds. Sometimes the influence of environment is overcome, and we noticed that among the "Jukes" a proportion of the family was honest and industrious.

Acknowledging the transmission of a physical defect from a criminal ancestry, we must bear in mind that the conditions of the criminal's life are such as are calculated to produce in himself that defect which he transmits. His body becomes weakened, his nervous system disordered, and the physical substratum of his mind diseased. These defects he transmits to his offspring and thus handicaps them in the effort that is required from the individual to adapt himself to the conditions of society.

This is the criminal "taint" or handicap that makes it more likely that the individual should fall into crime than the normal man. Although society regards this hereditary criminal as a monster, it has been made clear that he is really more deserving of compa.s.sion than one not so handicapped. To secure society from his injurious acts, our courts frequently take the illogical and unjust course of imposing a more severe punishment upon him. This is in itself a clear evidence of the demand that exists for penological reform.

=Environment.=--By environment we understand bad homes, bad a.s.sociations, and generally bad conditions.

Of the condition of the 12,000 persons who pa.s.sed through the Elmira Reformatory between the years 1876-1902, only 1.47 per cent. came from good homes and 37.4 per cent. from fair homes. Of the character of the men's a.s.sociations, 56.6 per cent. was positively bad; 41.9 per cent.

was "not good;" .9 per cent. was doubtful, and 1.6 per cent. was good.

It is scarcely necessary from a practical point of view to enquire into the actual amount of crime which results from a bad environment, for it is only too obvious that none but those of the strongest wills and of the highest morality can resist the influence of bad surroundings when these are constant. Our enquiry should rather be directed to ascertain what const.i.tutes a bad environment and what are the causes that produce it. It should also seek to discover by what means its evil influence may be checked and how to eradicate these influences when present. The att.i.tude of our law-courts towards the criminal is practically this:--"You have been reared amidst evil surroundings whose influence you could not resist, you are a criminal, an outcast from society, you must be punished by being locked up in a school of crime in the hope that it may inspire you to live a better life. The sentence of the court is ..." And society endorses this att.i.tude!

The evil influence of bad surroundings is well exemplified by an instance recorded by Viscount D'Haussonville in his work "L'Enfance a Paris":--"Some years ago a band of criminals were brought before the jury of the Seine charged with a terrible crime, the a.s.sa.s.sination of an aged widow, with details of ferocity which the pen refuses to describe.

The president of the court having asked the princ.i.p.al, Maillot, called 'the yellow,' how he had been brought to commit such a crime, he replied:--What do you wish that I should tell you Mr President? Since the age of seven years I have been found only on the streets of Paris. I have never met anyone who was interested in me. When a child, I was abandoned to every vicissitude--and I am lost. I have always been unfortunate. My life has been pa.s.sed in prisons and gaols. That is all.

It is my fate. I have reached--you know where. I will not say that I have committed the crime under circ.u.mstances independent of my own will, but finally--(here the voice of Maillot trembled) I never had a person to advise me. I had in view only robbery. I committed robbery but I ended with murder."

The following description of the manner in which parents may defeat the work of the juvenile reformatory or industrial school was given by Senator Roussel at the Fourth International Prison Congress:--"The pernicious influence of parents relative to minors is manifest in two ways and at two periods of the child's life. First in extreme youth, when he is only a burden, his parents neglect him. He is left without proper care, often without proper food and subjected to all the hazards of the streets; he is forced to be a vagabond and a beggar, and this situation continues until a violation of the law places the little unfortunate in the hands of justice. Later, everything is changed. When by maturity of age and good effects of penitentiary education, the child instead of being a burden can be a source of profit, we see those same parents, who had abandoned him in his infancy, and apparently had forgotten him altogether, go to him and win him back to them by their entreaties, and finally on his discharge regain him by virtue of parental authority. This indiscretion of evil parents ... is the way that the first-fruits of correctional or charitable education are corrupted and that a great many minors who would have become useful members of society, are definitely lost to it."

It may be heresy to criticise our public school system but it is more than an open question whether we are not producing a generation of badly educated people who are not aware of their own ignorance, who see no dignity in labour and who prefer to make their living by speculation rather than by work. The fault largely consists in estimating the efficiency of a school or a teacher solely by the results obtained at examination and making the children work for this end and this end only.

Their memories are taxed to the uttermost but no attempt is made to develop them into reasoning, enquiring and labour loving beings. The difficulty with which children in the sixth and seventh standards follow the simplest arguments is simply amazing. The teachers, moreover, have no opportunity for cultivating the art of pedagogy. Their whole time is taken up preparing matter to pour into the child's mind. The bad salaries that are paid can also have but one result, viz., the depriving the State of the services of the most manly and most n.o.ble teachers and having the work committed to those of the genus prig.

Bad homes, bad schools and playgrounds only once removed from cattle yards, will be, in this country, the most potent factors in producing crime.

=Alcohol.=--The influence of alcohol in the commission of crime is both direct and indirect. We see its direct influence in those crimes which are committed whilst the culprit is either in a state of intoxication or else just recovering from such a state. To detect and trace its indirect influence a much closer study is required. The inconsequent, lazy and thriftless life of the criminal demands some sort of stimulant, and this is found readily at hand in alcohol. Alcohol is not the cause of the crimes of these people but it is closely a.s.sociated with such cause. The man who stabs another in a saloon is not then guilty of his first crime.

Under the influence of intoxication he has lost his power of self-control and he commits a deed for which he may in a sober moment have still a degree of moral abhorrence or be perhaps too much of a coward to perform.

Many criminals, whose crime requires a certain amount of nerve and calculation, as e.g. a.s.sa.s.sinations, murders, robberies, swindlings, etc., will not touch alcohol until their crime has been completed and they have satisfied themselves that they covered up all trace of it.

They then often indulge in a debauch.

In the lower courts, offenders will frequently plead as an extenuation that they were intoxicated at the time when they committed their offence. This is often done in order to escape the full penalty, and such pleas are not to be relied upon in estimating the real influence of alcohol. In the higher courts, for the same reason, criminals often feign insanity, and in not a few of such cases they become their own dupes by actually losing the possession of their senses. Drunkenness and crime go together, although the increase in the consumption of alcohol does not necessarily mean that crime has increased. Neither does the reverse hold good. When crime appears first it is not long before all forms of animal indulgence follow. Sometimes drunkeness appears first, and when the home has been reduced to beggary, crime results.

Under the immediate influence of drink, the crimes most commonly committed are those against morality and the person. In countries where the saloon is an inst.i.tution, it is invariably the home of criminals and the scene of many murders and deeds of blood. In France, e.g. out of 10,000 murders committed, 2,374 occurred in saloons. The indirect influence of alcohol is perhaps more terrible than its direct influence.

There is this sad feature about it also that the greatest sufferers are the victims, not of their own abuse, but of that of others. Many a criminal tells the story, which is easily corroborated, of the days of his childhood when his father came home drunk and the children for very fear had to hide themselves or run out into the streets, often to sleep wherever they could, and perhaps steal to satisfy the pangs of hunger.

Such children are quickly absorbed, the girls into the ranks of prost.i.tution, the boys into those of crime. Many too, by reason of their parents' intemperance, are weaklings and unable to take their stand in the ranks of honest labourers. Unless they are rescued by philanthropic effort they very soon take to crime, and physically and psychically present all the features of the "instinctive criminal."

Of 12,000 criminals at Elmira, in nearly 36 per cent, was a drunken ancestry to be clearly traced.

To state exactly the influence of alcohol as a cause of crime will, from the nature of the case, never be possible; but this much is certain, that EVERY cause finds in it a strengthening contributary of considerable potentiality.

=Imitation.=--One of the princ.i.p.al characteristics of the criminal is his excessive vanity. His great ambition is to gain notoriety and to be talked about by the public. Almost every criminal has his hero in crime whose deed he tries to emulate as nearly as possible; or, better still, to outshine. Thus we find, that when some daring deed has been perpetrated, there are not wanting others who quickly make an attempt to imitate it. A prisoner tried to kill his comrade because a third man, who was standing his trial for murder, was receiving in his estimation too much attention from the public and especially "too many bouquets." A murderer in New Zealand declared that the notorious bushranger Ned Kelly was his ideal of a man. A certain priest, beloved by all, was found murdered. None could account for the crime; afterwards it was discovered to have been the act of a young criminal who performed it merely as an act of bravado. Instances of this sort might be multiplied all tending to show that the vanity of the criminal leads him, as far as his courage will permit, to imitate the most daring deeds in crime. The witnessing of executions and reading the accounts of fict.i.tious and real crimes often leads many into crime. As a deterrent to crime, it was once the custom in England to conduct executions in public. Lombroso records it as being his conviction that such publicity does, by the law of imitation, lead more into crime than it turns from it. This he considers is one of the most powerful arguments in favour of abolishing the death penalty. Out of 167 persons condemned to death in England, 164 had been present at executions. The reading of sensational novels or the descriptive accounts of great crimes has a most alarming effect upon those who are of an impressionable nature. These persons are to themselves the heroes of an imaginary world. They will put on an air of bravado, adopt a "swagger" style of attire, carry sharp knives and pose before their companions as dare-devils. If not sufficiently courageous to perform deeds of daring they will constantly be recounting imaginary ones for which they will claim the authorship; or else they will be for ever threatening to do something of a staggering nature. The more courageous of these frequently become dangerous criminals while the more timid descend into sneak thieves, or the a.s.saulters and violators of the persons of the defenceless. This inflammatory reading matter also exerts an hypnotic influence over some which is almost irresistible. Dr MacDonald ("Criminology" p. 131), gives the instance of a woman who after having read of the dreadful crime of a Parisian mother, came to Dr Esquirol and pleaded with him to admit her into his hospital, declaring that since reading of this crime she was tormented by the devil to kill her youngest child. Reading of the crime and vividly picturing to herself the details of it, had resulted in the woman's mind being laid hold of by a fascinating power which continually prompted her to kill her own child. Her wish was granted and she recovered.

In this case we have another instance of the "hypnotic influence of circ.u.mstances." Firstly, the picture is deeply impressed on the mind; next the moral sensibilities are hardened, and lastly the overt act is committed. Tropmann who murdered a whole family of eight, confessed that his demoralisation was due to the reading of sensational novels. The publication of the details of crimes and the circulation of inflammatory fiction is a most fruitful cause of further crime. One of the most efficient safe-guards against crime and scandal is a sensitive public moral tone. This is undoubtedly hardened by the publicity given to sordid and gruesome details. One fails to see what good purpose can possibly be served. Knowledge is power, but in this case, it is a power for evil. The weak-willed readily obey the law of imitation, the criminal is gratified at seeing the big headlines in the newspapers and impelled to further crime, and some neurotics are positively hypnotised.

Any serious attempt to suppress the increase of crime must take these matters into consideration, and it will unquestionably prove abortive unless a much stricter censorship is exercised over the publication of the gruesome details of crimes and scandals and also over the sale of the type of literature referred to.

Chapter IV.

THE MANNER AND PHILOSOPHY OF PUNISHMENT.

The various punishments which are inflicted upon our law breakers are fines, imprisonment, flogging, and death.

=Fines= produce a very useful means of dealing with persons whose offences show a tendency to crime rather than to actual criminality. In many cases the self-respect of the offender has not been sacrificed, and while under arrest the sense of shame is deeply aroused. The shock from being brought face to face with the law is often sufficient in these persons to check any further tendency towards crime. The imposition of a fine will satisfy the claims of justice and inflict that degree of punishment necessary to fix the idea of abhorrence towards crime in the mind of the offender. In the case of boys charged with petty offences fining is often a most valuable means of punishment. To dismiss with a caution may lead to nothing; to imprison is invariably a most disastrous course to pursue; to flog within a gaol may be too severe but to fine is an excellent method. The parent has to pay the fine, and as the child's offence is generally due to the want of parental control and discipline, the punishment reaches right home and better control for the future generally results. Where parental control is non-existent, and there remains no possibility of creating it, other measures must be taken which will supply a subst.i.tute for the discipline of home life.

In some case of theft, minor a.s.sault, disturbing the peace, and other offences which indicate a momentary and not very serious lapse of self-control, or perhaps a somewhat vague conception of the supremacy of the law, fines serve all the purposes of justice. A four-fold rest.i.tution for all damage done might be taken as a standard to be increased or diminished in exceptional cases. In all these instances the culprit should be made to pay the fine himself even though it should require a fairly lengthy period in which to liquidate it. Section 16 of The New Zealand Criminal Code provides that the Court may exercise its own discretion in imposing a fine upon any person whose offence rendered them liable to a term of imprisonment. There are many cases, however, even of first offenders, in which fining is quite useless.

=Imprisonment.=--So much has been written describing the various prison systems in vogue in different parts of the world that it is unnecessary to do much more than briefly outline them here.

(1). The congregate system. In which the prisoners are a.s.sociated together by day or by night or by both. Were the object to convert the prison into a school of crime, no better system could be devised. The standard of the lowest is the standard which must prevail under the congregate system.

(2). The solitary system. The extreme opposite of the congregate system.

The prisoners are allowed to have practically no communication with anyone whomsoever. In some countries this system is made indescribably cruel. At Santiago in Chili in one part of the prison the inmates are employed upon useful work under most humane conditions, and yet in another part of the very same building a most barbarous system exists.

Mr F. B. Ward (quoted in Penological and Preventive Principles) describes what he saw in 1893:--"In this splendid model inst.i.tution there are noisome, slimy cells, where daylight never enters, in which human beings are literally buried alive. Under the ma.s.sive arches of enormously thick walls, where even in the outside rooms perpetual twilight reigns, are inner cells, two feet wide by six feet long, and dest.i.tute of a single article of furniture. Until recently, those confined in them were walled in, the bricks being cemented in places over the living tomb. Now there is a thick iron door, which is securely nailed up and then fastened all around with huge clamps, exactly as the vaults are closed in Santiago Cemetery, and over all the great red seal of the Government is placed--not to be removed until the man is dead, or his sentence has expired. The tiny grated window is covered by several thicknesses of closely-woven wire netting, making dense darkness inside, so that the prisoners cannot tell night from day. There is no ventilation except through this netting, and no opening whatever to admit outside air into the tomb. Low down in the iron door, close to the ground, is a tiny sliding panel a foot long by a few inches wide arranged like a double drawer, so that food and water may be slipped in on shallow pans and the refuse removed. Twice in every twenty-four hours this panel is operated, and if the food remains untouched a given number of days, it is known to a certainty that the man is dead, and only then can the door be unsealed, unless his time is up. If the food is not touched for two or three days no attention is paid to it, for the prisoner may be shamming; but beyond a certain length of time he cannot live without eating. Not the faintest sound nor glimmer of light penetrates those awful walls. In the same clothes he wears on entering, unwashed, uncombed, without even a blanket or handful of straw to lie upon he languishes in sickness, lives or dies with no means of making his condition known to those outside. He may count the lagging hours, sleep, rave, curse, pray, long for death, dash his brains out, go mad if he likes--n.o.body knows it. He is dead to the world and buried though living. They told us that only one man has ever survived a year's sentence there. Those that survive six months are almost invariably drivelling idiots or raving maniacs."

It was under similar conditions to these that the a.s.sa.s.sin of King Humbert of Italy was incarcerated. Such a system shows a cruel vindictive rage towards the criminal. Terrible as the offender's crime may be, society must deal calmly and not lose self-control or give such an exhibition of its own criminal ferocity.

=The Separate System.=--Under which the prisoners are not allowed to a.s.sociate with each other, but receive frequent visits from gaolers, warders, chaplains, and other persons who are likely to bring beneficial influence to bear upon them. Each man has his own cell, in which he sleeps and works. His exercise is conducted in such a manner as to prevent contact with other prisoners. He is allowed books and given daily instruction. Under this system perhaps the best results are obtained.

=The Silent System.=--A system under which the prisoners a.s.sociate with one another but are forbidden to communicate. This system cannot be strictly enforced, and as it converts trifling matters into serious offences, it makes the prison life a state of petty persecution.

=The Combined System.=--A system which the prisoners are kept apart during the night but work together during the day. This system has been adopted in New Zealand, and in the following description of the value of imprisonment it will be understood that it is to this system that reference is made.

A man is sent to prison because he has proved himself unfit to be at liberty. His attack upon society was evidence of this, and society punishes him by taking away the liberty which he has thus abused. His dread of the prison increases as he comes under the shadow of its grim walls, and, once having pa.s.sed within, a feeling of remorse and desperation seizes him. Its intensity or weakness will depend upon his temperament. He is soon told in the most emphatic manner that he is to regard himself as a felon; that he is to live with felons as a felon and observe the habits of a felon. He is given a uniform coa.r.s.e in texture clumsy and grotesque in appearance and branded over with the broad-arrow and with his prison number. In this garb it is impossible for a man to preserve his sense of self-respect. If he should not be amenable to the prison discipline he may be held up to ridicule by being compelled to wear a parti-coloured uniform. However can a man be expected to reform who is held up to the ridicule of felons? It matters not from which cla.s.s of life he is drawn, what his age is, or the nature of his offence, he is thrown into the company of the worst criminals in the land. If he were a cultured man, or a man who had known no a.s.sociates in his crime, or if his aesthetic taste was considerably developed it matters not; he must do the same work and mix in the same company as the most ignorant and most brutal. To utterly disregard these qualities is to ignore the wide-open channels along which the most powerful reformative influences may be transmitted. If his recovery is to be considered these are most substantial a.s.sets. They are, as it were, "the general health" of the patient suffering from a local lesion. Yet our prison system not only ignores them but patiently sets to work to destroy them, as if their possession were an additional offence on the part of the criminal. Prisoners who try to keep aloof from their a.s.sociates may often be made to suffer very considerably for it. Others, craving for some a.s.sociation, soon fall in with men whom they would have regarded, a few days previously, as impossible companions. The almost entire absence of elevating influences makes it easy for the concentrated power of evil to become irresistible. The gloom of the prison rises, the fear of the law vanishes and the new born tendency to crime becomes a confirmed habit. A man needs either a very strong will indeed, or else to be supported by powerful social traditions to enable him to resist the evil influences of prison life. A few men do resist and maintain their sense of self-respect in spite of all indignities and bad influences. Some sink as under a torture; some sink and are enticed and absorbed into felony. These last will plan their future crimes while they are serving their first sentence. Henceforth the prison is their home.

What purpose is thus served? Why should a man who has lost self-respect be continually reminded of it? If a man is diseased he is not placed amongst filthy conditions and the emblems of sickness and death crowded upon him. His removal from all unhealthy surroundings is the first essential necessary for his recovery, and the same should be observed with the criminal. He should be entirely removed from criminal surroundings and efforts made to eradicate the criminality which has expressed itself. Society has not the right to degrade a man, much less to school him in crime. If he prove absolutely incorrigible (a very difficult matter to ascertain) he should be banished from society for all time either by life-long imprisonment or by death. If not, the carrying out of his punishment must be performed with a very sacred sense of responsibility. All manner of means are taken to relieve and cure the physically sick; much greater surely should be the means employed to heal the morally and socially sick.

Another matter wherein our prison system might be justly criticised is the scale of diet provided for the prisoners. No one asks that they should be given luxuries, but it might at least be recognised even in prison that one man's food is another man's poison, that one fattens where another starves, and that variety is essential to good health. A prisoner who was serving a very long sentence once said to the author, "fancy having the same dinner every day of your life." Let one fancy it, boiled beef every day except Sunday, when roast beef is provided. The same meal every day, the same clothes to wear every day and all day, and the same routine to go through. What wonder is it that in the confirmed criminal many faculties appear to have atrophied. They have obeyed a law of nature. The popular comment is no doubt--"what else do you expect?

They deserve it all, they have brought it upon themselves." We expect that our criminals should at least be treated like the by-products of our mills and factories, i.e. made the most of. Bitter prejudices must give way to the dictates of reason and humanity.

Practically the "combined system" produces no good results. It satisfies neither justice, humanity, nor economy. Neither is it efficient to afford protection to society. It satisfies prejudice and vengeance alone. The only system of imprisonment which is of any value and which the State ought to consider is one which converts the gaol in every essential into a "crime-hospital."