Crime: Its Cause and Treatment Part 4

Many writers have cla.s.sified the crimes that the boy commits. It is scarcely worth the while. He learns to steal or becomes a burglar largely for the love of adventure; he robs because it is exciting and may bring large returns. In his excursions to pilfer property he may kill, and then for the first time the State discovers that there is such a boy and sets in action the machinery to take his life. The city quite probably has given him a casual notice by arresting him a number of times and sending him to a juvenile prison, but it has rarely extended a hand to help him. Any man or woman who has fairly normal faculties, and can reason from cause to effect, knows that the crimes of children are really the crimes of the State and society which by neglect and active partic.i.p.ation have made him what he is. When it is remembered that the man is the child grown up, it is equally easy to understand the adult prisoner.

X

HOMICIDE

Crimes against persons are not always as easy to cla.s.sify and understand as crimes against property. These acts are so numerous and come from so many different emotions and motives, that often the cause is obscure and the explanation not easy to find. Still here, as everywhere in Nature, nothing can happen without a cause, and even where limited knowledge does its best and cannot find causes, our recognition of the connection between cause and effect and the all-inclusiveness of law can leave no doubt that complete knowledge would bring complete understanding.

It is always to be borne in mind in considering this cla.s.s of crimes that the motive power of life is not reason but instinct. If men lived by reason the race would not survive. The primal things that preserve the race, the hunger for food, drink, s.e.x, are instinctive and not only are not awakened or satisfied by reason, but oftentimes in violation of it. Nature, first of all, sees to the preservation of the species, and acts in a broad way that life may not perish. Nature knows nothing about right and wrong in the sense in which man uses these words. All of our moral conceptions are purely of social origin and hence not instinctive in human life, and are forever giving way to the instincts on which Nature depends. The preservation of life has called for the emotions of hate, fear and love, among the other emotions that move men. The animal fears danger and runs away, and thus life is preserved. The weaker animal is almost entirely dependent for life upon his fear. He is sometimes afraid when there is no danger, but without fear he would be destroyed. Sometimes the animal hates and kills and thus preserves himself. The love of offspring is the cause of the care bestowed upon it which preserves its life. The herd instinct in animal species develops packs and clans and tribes and states. Man is the heir to all the past, and the instincts and emotions of the primitive animal are strong in his being. These may have been strengthened or diluted as the ages have come and gone, but the same instincts furnish the motive power for all his acts. Man fears and hates, and runs or kills and saves his life. He loves, and preserves his offspring.

Man sees an object. Instinctively he may fear it or he may hate it. He may run from it or destroy it. He gathers impressions through his senses. The nerves carry them to the brain. He comes to fear certain persons and things, to hate certain other persons or things, and to love still others. If the hatred is strong enough or the danger great enough or the desire sufficient, he may kill. Whether he plans the method or deliberates upon the act can make no difference. He is prompted by the instinct, and the reflection simply means the consideration of reasons for and against, or the reaching of inhibitions. If he acts, it is one of the primal emotions that causes the act. He is the "machine" through which certain emotions find their path and do their work. Infinite are the causes and circ.u.mstances that give rise to an emotion strong enough to take human life.

Killings which result from a sudden pa.s.sion are easily understood. Everyone has been overwhelmed by rage, where reason and judgment and all acquired restraints are entirely submerged. The primitive man with his primitive emotion rea.s.serts himself. It is mainly accident or the lack of some particular circ.u.mstance that prevents a murder. Of course some people are overwhelmed more easily than others. Some natures are less stable, some nervous systems less perfect, and the built up barriers are weaker. The whole result of stimuli is determined by the strength of the feeling acting upon the machine. Such a person is not ordinarily dangerous to the community. The act itself would generally a.s.sure that it could never happen again. Some killings, however, are more deliberate. They are preceded by a settled hatred which preys upon the mind and fights against the preventive influences that training and habit have formed. Under a certain combination of circ.u.mstances these restrictions are swept aside and the emotions have their way.

There are, of course, certain broad cla.s.sifications of homicides. A considerable number, perhaps more than any other, come through the commission of robbery, burglary and larceny. In the midst of the act the offender is caught, and kills in an effort to escape. These murders fall under the heading of property crimes; the cause is the same, and the rules governing them are the same. The second group, with respect to numbers, grows from the relations of men and women. Wives kill husbands and husbands kill wives; sweethearts kill each other. Jealousy and revenge are commonly mixed with s.e.x life and s.e.x a.s.sociation. Many socialists have argued that under an equal distribution of property, where women were freed from fear of want, these crimes would disappear. But this argument does not take human nature into account. Jealousy is inevitably a.s.sociated with s.e.x relations. The close contact of men and women over long periods of time inevitably causes friction and misunderstanding. These conditions often grow chronic, and in marriage are aggravated by the necessity of close a.s.sociation regardless of the real feelings that may exist. Certain claims are made by husbands and by wives, which are probably inherent in the relationship; sometimes they flow from habit and custom, but, from whatever cause, such claims are so exacting that either the husband or wife finds them hard to meet.

Because of the fact that the feelings of men and women for each other are deeper and more fundamental than those of any other relation, they are more subject to misfortune and tragedy. The hatreds born from the deepest affection are most beyond control. Then the desire of possession is overwhelming. It would be strange if more killings did not result from the relations of men and women than from any other cause. It is easy to understand why this is true. It is likewise easy to understand how laws, reason and judgment are powerless to prevent. Juries seem to understand this when women kill husbands and lovers, but a long-established code of chivalry and a cultivated att.i.tude toward women, which is partly right and partly wrong, make it impossible to see that men are just as helpless under strong feelings as women. No doubt a public opinion that would favor divorces on a greater number of grounds and make them easily obtainable would prevent large numbers of such killings, but the cause can not be altogether removed.

The law has long singled out killing as the greatest crime, doubtless because man prizes life first of all. Of course every effort should be made to protect life. Still, in measuring the character of the offender, in determining his possibilities as a useful citizen, homicide is probably one of the lesser crimes. Many times it implies no moral turpitude, even with those who believe in moral turpitude. It may imply very little lack of physical stability. Homicide practically never becomes an occupation. Most killings are accidental in the sense that they are casual and dependent on circ.u.mstances, and there is as a rule much less danger of repet.i.tion than there is of the original commission of a homicide by one of a defective nervous system who has never before committed an unlawful act. A large number of men convicted of murder are used as "trusties" in our penal inst.i.tutions, even when their imprisonment is for a long term, or for life. This shows from the experience of prison officials that this cla.s.s of offenders is, as a rule, of a better fibre than almost any other cla.s.s.

Doubtless no sort of treatment will ever entirely get rid of homicide. Brains and nervous systems are so made, that inhibitions are unable to protect in all cases. Nations and men readily engage in killing, either from sport or because of a real or fancied wrong. Mob psychology shows how whole communities are turned into ravenous beasts, hunting for their prey. The world war, and all wars, show cases of mob psychology that have led large ma.s.ses of men to take an active part in killing. The pursuit of those charged with crime shows that all people like the chase when the emotions are thoroughly aroused. Under certain impulses, communities gloat over hangings and commend judges and juries because they have the courage to hang, when, in fact, they were too cowardly not to hang and when their reason did not approve the verdict and judgment. Men who do not kill often wish others might die and are pleased and happy when they do die. We approve of death when it is the right one who dies. Whether all persons are murderers or not may depend upon a definition of murder. But, beyond doubt, all persons are potential murderers, needing only time and circ.u.mstances, and a sufficiently overwhelming emotion that will triumph over the weak restraints that education and habit have built up, to control the powerful surging instincts and feelings that Nature has laid at the foundation of life.

XI

s.e.x CRIMES

Most of the inmates of prisons convicted of s.e.x crimes are the poor and wretched and the plainly defective. Nature, in her determination to preserve the species, has planted s.e.x hunger very deep in the const.i.tution of man. The fact that it is necessary for the preservation of life, and that Nature is always eliminating those whose s.e.x hunger is not strong enough to preserve the race, has overweighted man and perhaps all animal life with this hunger. At least it has endowed many men with instincts too powerful for the conventions and the laws that hedge him about.

Rape is almost always the crime of the poor, the hardworking, the uneducated and the abnormal. In the man of this type s.e.x hunger is strong; he has little money, generally no family; he is poorly fed and clothed and possesses few if any attractions. He may be a sailor away from women and their society for months, or in some other remote occupation making his means of gratifying this hunger just as impossible. There is no opportunity for him except the one he adopts. It is a question of gratifying this deep and primal instinct as against the weakness of his mentality and the few barriers that a meagre education and picked-up habits can furnish; and when the instinct overbalances he is lost.

Incest, which is peculiarly the crime of the weak, the wretched and the poor, has a somewhat different origin. Westermarck in his "History of Human Marriage" shows that in the early tribe there was no inhibition against the marriage of blood relations; that the restriction then was against the members of the tribe that used one tent; these might or might not be blood relations. The traditions and folk-ways against the marriage of close relations grew from the familiarity that came from the living together of brother and sister, for instance, in one home. This feeling gradually worked itself into custom and habit and from that into folk-ways and laws. Sometimes we read accounts of the marriage of a man and woman who found, after years had gone by, that they were brother and sister who had been separated in infancy and grew up without knowledge of their relation to each other. Whether Nature forbids the marriage of relatives by preventing offspring or by producing imperfect offspring is a doubtful question. Certain communities in Europe have lived together so long that all are related and still they seem to thrive. Considering the general custom and feeling on the subject, however, the man and woman who know that they are closely related and who marry are different and weaker than the others; and this may show in their offspring. Although the subnormal may have no such feeling, they are judged by the traditions and customs of the normal and on that judgment are sent to prison.

Many s.e.x crimes are charged to children in the adolescent age; children who have no knowledge of s.e.x and its development and are helpless in the strength of their newly-discovered feelings. This cla.s.s of offenders is almost always the inferior and the poor who are moved by strong instincts which they have not the natural feeling, the strength, the education, nor the desire to withstand.

While most crimes against persons are not directly due to economic causes, still the indirect effect of property is generally present in these crimes as well as others. The fact that the poor and defective are generally the subjects of prosecution and conviction in these offences shows how closely economic conditions are related to all crimes.

Other criminal statutes are of more modern date, and as a rule involve not much more than adultery, except in regard to the age of the girl offender, which is generally placed below eighteen. Still the s.e.x age of neither boys nor girls can be fixed by a calendar. It depends really upon development, which is not the same with all people or in all environments. Many girls of sixteen are more mature and have more experience of life than others of twenty. Most laws provide that below sixteen one cannot give consent and that a s.e.xual act is then rape. It is doubtful if there should be any intermediate age between sixteen and eighteen, where an act is not rape but still a minor offence.

XII

ROBBERY AND BURGLARY

Robbery and burglary are generally counted as crimes of violence, but they should be properly cla.s.sed under property crimes. Every motive that leads to getting property in illegal ways applies to these crimes. There is added to the regular causes of property crimes the element of danger and adventure which makes a strong appeal to boys and men. I am inclined to think that few mature men have committed one of these crimes, unless they began criminal careers as boys. Such crimes especially appeal to the activity and love of adventure which inhere in every boy. They are committed for the most part by youths who have had almost no chance to get the needed sport and physical experience incident to boyhood. The foot-ball, base-ball, polo or golf player very seldom becomes a robber or a burglar. Almost no rich man or rich man's son becomes a robber or a burglar. Those who fall under this lure are mainly the denizens of the streets, the railroad yards, the vacant lots, the casual workers who are stimulated by a variety of conditions to get property unlawfully. Added to this are almost invariably a defective heredity, vicious environment, little education, and a total want of direction in the building up of habits and inhibitions.

The robber or burglar who kills in the commission of crime is more dangerous and harder to cure than the one who kills from pa.s.sion or malice. There is always the element of an occupation, for getting property, and generally a love of adventure that is difficult to overcome, except by a substantial change of social relations which makes acquiring property easier for the cla.s.s from which all these criminals develop. The murder that comes from pa.s.sion and feeling implies situations and circ.u.mstances that are rarely strong enough to overcome the restrictions against killing.

XIII

MAN AS A PREDATORY ANIMAL

Not less than eighty per cent of all crimes are property crimes, and it seems probable that, of the rest, most arise from the same motives. If we look at civilization as the result of that seesaw trend of the race from "Naturalism to Artificialism," we may get a flexible view of life that will be in accordance with the facts, and will help us to get rid of the arbitrary division of man's history into the three periods termed Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization. However desirable this division may be for historic purposes in general, it is only confusing in an effort to study the nature of man.

In the life and origin of the race, the fact is always evidenced that the Ego through its growth and persistence is always drawing to itself from the current of environment all things which it feels desirable to its life and growth. This must be a necessary condition of survival. In the long journey from amoeba to man, any circ.u.mstance causing a complete halt for even a brief period meant extinction, while even a persistent interference produced a weakened organism, if not an arrest of development.

This then is the origin of the "Master Instinct," hunger. When we consider the various emotions growing from the force of this vital urge, as developed by adaptation to an ever-changing environment, we are able to realize fully why it bulks so large in moulding and shaping the destiny of the race.

All psychologists are agreed in cla.s.sing under the nutritive instinct such activities as acquisition, storing and h.o.a.rding. During a period variously estimated as a quarter of a million to two million years, man and his animal antecedents responded to the hunger instinct, in the manner and by the same methods as did the various jungle animals. He secured his prey by capture, or killed it wherever found, the one condition being his power to get and to hold. Later tribal organization arose, and food and shelter were held in common. But since the folk-ways commended raiding and looting between alien tribes, here was presented an alluring chance to secure both booty and glory to men trained in the "get and hold" process of acquiring. For thousands of years life itself depended upon this unerring exercise.

It was during the period outlined that man developed his big brain (cerebrum) involving the central nervous system. Furthermore, it was developed by, and trained to, these particular reactions. The far-reaching control of the mind must be remembered, as upon this through his racial heritage must be based his conflicting impulses. These must be reckoned with in our conclusions with regard to present-day behavior, economic or otherwise.

During the last thirty years, psychological laboratories, aided by physiology, through oft-repeated experiments conducted with newly-invented weighing and measuring instruments of marvelous accuracy, have put us in possession of an array of facts unknown to students of earlier periods, who sought the "why and the how" of man's erratic actions as a social animal. It is constantly being demonstrated that under given conditions, moved by appropriate stimuli, the human animal inevitably and surely reacts the same as does inorganic matter. If we understand "intelligence" to be the "capacity to respond to new conditions," we can measurably see and at least partly understand the constant inter-play of heredity and environment. Between these there is no antagonism. The sum of life experiences consists solely in the adjustments required to enable the sentient organism-man or beast-to live.

How readily a "throw-back" to earlier and cruder life may be brought about under favorable conditions, is shown by the methods and virulence of combat during the vicious ma.s.sacre in the war just ended. Can the conclusion be evaded that individually and collectively we constantly teeter on the brink of a precipice? If we fall it spells crime or misfortune, or both.

Wherever civilization exists on the private property basis as its main bulwark, we find crime as an inseparable result. Man, by virtue of his organic nature, is a predatory animal. This does not mean that he is a vicious animal. It simply means that man, in common with the eagle and the wolf, acts in accordance with the all-impelling urge and fundamental instincts of his organic structure. In any conflict between newer and n.o.bler sentiments and the emotions which function through the primeval instincts, he is shackled to the bed-rock master instincts in such manner that they usually win. This is conclusively shown by the history of the race.

If this is true, we should expect to find the master hunger specially active through the many chances presented for exploitation after the fall of feudalism-beginning, let us a.s.sume, with the invention of power machinery-the "Age of Steam". It is apparent that from that time to our own day, man's acquisitive tendency has so expanded, that if we were capable of an unbiased opinion it might be said to be a form of megalomania gripping the entire white race, where highly-developed commerce and industry are found in their most vigorous forms.

If our theory is correct, we should expect to find the most energetic and enterprising nations showing a greater ratio of property crimes than the invalid and feeble nations. This would more certainly be true where political const.i.tutions by letter and spirit encourage and promote individual development, mental and industrial. When this condition exists with abundant natural resources, such as often may be found in what we term a new country, it furnishes the chance for the most vigorous functioning of whatsoever may be the dominant qualities inherent in the tendencies and aspirations of a people. The United States of America, among the nations, meets these conditions, and we find here the highest ratio of property crimes per capita. This holds as to all such crimes, both minor and major, which are far in excess of those of any other nation, as shown by statistics.

It seems clear that this explanation shows the main reason for the seemingly abnormal number of property crimes in the United States.

Man's infinitely long past developed the hunger instinct, which made him take directly and simply where he could and as he could. This is always urging him to supply his wants in the simplest way, regardless of the later restrictions that modern civilization has placed around the getting of property. With the weaker intellectually and physically, these instincts are all-controlling. The superficial and absurd theories that his excesses are due to the lack of the certainty of punishment take no account of the life experience, and the inherent structure of man.

Especially in our large cities with their great opportunities for the creation and acc.u.mulation of wealth, the "l.u.s.t of power" is shown by the nerve-racking efforts to obtain wealth by the most reckless methods. The emotion drives us to spend extravagantly and conspicuously, that we may inspire the envy of our neighbors by our money and power.