Crime and Its Causes by William Douglas Morrison

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CRIME AND ITS CAUSES

BY

WILLIAM DOUGLAS MORRISON

OF H.M. PRISON, WANDSWORTH

LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.
NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1902

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

"The science of criminology is pursued vigorously among the Italians,
but this is one of the first English books to make the phenomena of
crime the subject of a strictly scientific investigation."--_Daily
Chronicle_.

"The book is an important addition to the Social Science Series.
It throws light upon some of the most complex problems with which
society has to deal, and incidentally affords much interesting
reading."--_Manchester Examiner_.

"This is a work which, considering its limits and modest pretensions,
it is difficult to over praise. It is a calm and thoughtful study by a
writer in whom the deliberate determination to look on things as they
are has not extinguished a reasoned faith in the possibility of their
amelioration. The work is conceived throughout in a genuinely
philosophical spirit."--_International Journal of Ethics_.

"A thoughtful and thought suggesting book--well worthy of consideration
by penologists, whether specialists or amateurs."--_Annals of the
American Academy_.

"Mr. Morrison's book is especially valuable, because, without attempting
to enforce this or that conclusion, it furnishes the authentic _data_
on which all sound conclusions must be based."--_Times_.

"Cramful of suggestive facts and solid arguments on the great questions
how criminals are made, and how crime is best to be dealt with. Many
cherished superstitions and fallacies are exploded in Mr. Morrison's
pages."--_Star_.

First Edition, _February 1891_.

Second Edition, _February 1902_.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I. THE STATISTICS OF CRIME

II. CLIMATE AND CRIME

III. THE SEASONS AND CRIME

IV. DESTITUTION AND CRIME

V. POVERTY AND CRIME

VI. SEX, AGE, AND CRIME

VII. THE CRIMINAL IN BODY AND MIND

VIII. THE PUNISHMENT OF CRIME

APPENDICES

PREFACE.

This volume, as its title indicates, is occupied with an examination
of some of the principal causes of crime, and is designed as an
introduction to the study of criminal questions in general. In spite
of all the attention these questions have hitherto received and are
now receiving, crime still remains one of the most perplexing and
obstinate of social problems. It is much more formidable than
pauperism, and almost as costly. A social system which has to try
hundreds of thousands of offenders annually before the criminal courts
is in a very imperfect condition; the causes which lead to this state
of things deserve careful consideration from all who take an interest
in social welfare.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to show that crime is a more
complicated phenomenon than is generally supposed. When society will
be able to stamp it out is a question it would be extremely hard to
answer. If it ever does so, it will not be the work of one generation
but of many, and it will not be effected by the application of any
single specific.

Punishment alone will never succeed in putting an end to crime.
Punishment will and does hold crime to a certain extent in check, but
it will never transform the delinquent population into honest
citizens, for the simple reason that it can only strike at the
full-fledged criminal and not at the causes which have made him so.
Economic prosperity, however widely diffused, will not extinguish
crime. Many people imagine that all the evils afflicting society
spring from want, but this is only partially true. A small number of
crimes are probably due to sheer lack of food, but it has to be borne
in mind that crime would still remain an evil of enormous magnitude
even if there were no such calamities as destitution and distress. As
a matter of fact easy circumstances have less influence on conduct
than is generally believed; prosperity generates criminal inclinations
as well as adversity, and on the whole the rich are just as much
addicted to crime as the poor. The progress of civilisation will not
destroy crime. Many savage tribes living under the most primitive
forms of social life present a far more edifying spectacle of respect
for person and property than the most cultivated classes in Europe and
America. All that civilisation has hitherto done is to change the form
in which crime is perpetrated; in substance it remains the same.
Primary Schools will not accomplish much in eliminating crime. The
merely intellectual training received in these institutions has little
salutary influence upon conduct. Nothing can be mope deplorable than
that sectarian bickerings, respecting infinitesimal points in the
sanctions of morality, should result in the children of England
receiving hardly any moral instruction whatever. Conduct, as the late
Mr. Matthew Arnold has so often told us, is three fourths of life.
What are we to think of an educational system which officially ignores
this; what have we to hope in the way of improvement from a people
which consents to its being ignored?

But even a course of systematic instruction in the principles of
conduct, no matter by what sanctions these principles are inculcated,
will not avail much unless they are to some extent practised in the
home. And this will never be the case so long as women are demoralised
by the hard conditions of industrial life, and unfitted for the duties
of motherhood before beginning to undertake them.

In addition to this, no State will ever get rid of the criminal
problem unless its population is composed of healthy and vigorous
citizens. Very often crime is but the offspring of degeneracy and
disease. A diseased and degenerate population, no matter how
favourably circumstanced in other respects, will always produce a
plentiful crop of criminals. Stunted and decrepit faculties, whether
physical or mental, either vitiate the character, or unfit the
combatant for the battle of life. In both cases the result is in
general the same, namely, a career of crime.

As to the best method of dealing with the actual criminal, the first
thing to be done is to know what sort of a person you are dealing
with. He must be carefully studied at first hand. At present too much
attention is bestowed on theoretical discussions respecting the
various kinds of crime and punishment, while hardly any account is
taken of the persons who commit the crime and require the punishment.
Yet this is the most important point of all; the other is trivial in
comparison with it. If crime is to be dealt with in a rational manner
and not on mere _a priori_ grounds, our minds must be enlightened on
such questions as the following: What is the Criminal? What are the
chief causes which have made him such? How are these causes to be got
rid of or neutralised? What is the effect of this or that kind of
punishment? These are the momentous problems; in comparison with
these, all fine-spun definitions respecting the difference between one
crime and another are mere dust in the balance. There can be little
doubt that a neglect of those considerations on the part of many
magistrates and judges, is at the root of the capricious sentences so
often passed upon criminals. The effects of this neglect result in the
passing of sentences of too great severity on first offenders and the
young; and of too much leniency on hardened and habitual criminals.
Leniency, says Grotius, should be exercised with discernment,
otherwise it is not a virtue, but a weakness and a scandal.

When imprisonment has to be resorted to, it must be made a genuine
punishment if it is to exercise any effect as a deterrent. The moment
a prison is made a comfortable place to live in, it becomes useless as
a safeguard against the criminal classes. This is a fundamental
principle. But punishment, although an essential part of imprisonment,
is not its only purpose. Imprisonment should also be a preparation for
liberty. If a convicted man is as unfit for social life at the
expiration of his sentence as he was at the commencement of it, the
prison has only accomplished half its work; it has satisfied the
feeling of public vengeance, but it has failed to transform the
offender into a useful citizen. How to prepare the offender for
liberty is, I admit, a task of supreme difficulty; in some oases,
probably, an impossible task. For work of this character what is
wanted above all is an enlightened staff. Mere machines are useless;
men unacquainted with civil life and its conditions are useless. It is
from civil life the prisoner is taken; it is to civil life he has to
return, and unless he is under the care of men who have an intimate
knowledge of civil life, he will not have the same prospect of being
fitted into it when he has once more to face the world.

In the preparation of this volume I have carefully examined the most
recent ideas of English and Continental writers (especially the
Italians) on the subject of crime. The opinions it contains are based
on an experience of fourteen years in Orders most of which have been
spent in prison work. In revising the proofs I have received valuable
assistance from Mr. J. Morrison.

W.D.M.

CRIME AND ITS CAUSES

CHAPTER I.

THE STATISTICS OF CRIME.

It is only within the present century, and in some countries it is
only within the present generation, that the possibility has arisen of
conducting the study of criminal problems on anything approaching an
exact and scientific basis. Before the introduction of a system of
criminal statistics--a step taken by most peoples within the memory of
men still living--it was impossible for civilised communities to
ascertain with absolute accuracy whether crime was increasing or
decreasing, or what transformation it was passing through in
consequence of the social, political, and economic changes constantly
taking place in all highly organised societies. It was also equally
impossible to appreciate the effect of punishment for good or evil on
the criminal population. Justice had little or no data to go upon;
prisoners were sentenced in batches to the gallows, to transportation,
to the hulks, or to the county gaol, but no inquiry was made as to the
result of these punishments on the criminal classes or on the progress
of crime. It was deemed sufficient to catch and punish the offender;
the more offences seemed to increase--there was no sure method of
knowing whether they did increase or not--the more severe the
punishment became. Justice worked in the dark, and was surrounded by
the terrors of darkness. What followed is easy to imagine; the
criminal law of England reached a pitch of unparalleled barbarity, and
within living memory laws were on the statute book by which a man
might be hanged for stealing property above the value of a shilling.

Had a fairly accurate system of criminal statistics existed, it is
very likely that the data contained in them would have reassured the
nation and tempered the severity of the law.

Of Criminal Statistics it may be said in the first place, that they
act as an annual register for tabulating the amount of danger to which
society is exposed by the nefarious operations of lawless persons. By
these statistics we are informed of the number of crimes committed
during the course of the year so far as they are reported to the
police. We are informed of the number of persons brought to trial for
the perpetration of these crimes; of the nature of the offences with
which incriminated persons are charged, and of the length of sentence
imposed on those who are sent to prison. The age, the degree of
instruction, and the occupations of prisoners are also tabulated. A
record is also kept of the number of times a man has been committed to
prison, and of the manner in which he has conducted himself while in
confinement.

One important point must be mentioned on which criminal statistics are
almost entirely silent. The great sources of crime are the personal,
the social, and the economic conditions of the individuals who commit
it. Criminal statistics, to be exhaustive, ought to include not only
the amount of crime and the degrees of punishment awarded to
offenders; these statistics should also, as far as practicable, take
cognisance of the sources from which crime undoubtedly springs. In
this respect, our information, so far as it comes to us through
ordinary channels, is lamentably deficient. It is confined to data
respecting the age, sex, and occupation of the offender. These data
are very interesting, and very useful, as affording a glimpse of the
sources from which the dark river of delinquency takes its rise. But
they are too meagre and fragmentary. They require to be completed by
the personal and social history of the criminal. Crime is not
necessarily a disease, but it resembles disease in this respect, that
it will be impossible to wipe it out till an accurate diagnosis has
been made of the causes which produce it. To punish crime is all very
well; but punishment is not an absolute remedy; its deterrent action
is limited, and other methods besides punishment must be adopted if
society wishes to gain the mastery over the criminal population. What
those methods should be can only be ascertained after the most
searching preliminary inquiries into the main factors of crime. It
ought, therefore, to be a weighty part of the business of criminal
statistics to offer as full information as possible, not only
respecting crimes and punishments, but much more respecting criminals.
Every criminal has a life history; that history is very frequently the
explanation of his sinister career; it ought, therefore, to be
tabulated, so that it may be seen how far his descent and his
surroundings have contributed to make him what he is. In the case of
children sent to Reformatory Schools, the previous history of the
child is always tabulated. Enquiries are made and registered
respecting the parents of the child; what country they belong to, what
sort of character they bear, whether they are honest and sober,
whether they have ever been in prison, what wages they earn, and
whether the child is legitimate or not. A similar method to the one
adopted with Reformatory children ought to be instituted, with
suitable modifications, in European prisons and convict
establishments. It is, at the present time, being advocated by almost
all the most eminent criminal authorities,[1] and more than one scheme
has been drawn up to show the scope of its operation.

[1] See Appendix I.

In addition to the service which a complete personal and family record
of convicted prisoners would render as to the causes of crime, such a
record would be of immense advantage to the judges. At the present
time a judge is only made acquainted with the previous convictions of
a prisoner; he knows nothing more about him except through the
evidence which is sometimes adduced as to character. An accurate
record of the prisoner's past would enable the judge to see at once
with what sort of offender he was dealing, and might, perhaps, help to
put a stop to the unequal and capricious sentences which, not
infrequently, disgrace the name of justice.[2]

[2] In his interesting work, "Die Beziehungen zwischen
Geistesstoerung und Verbrechen," Dr. Sander shows that out of a
hundred insane persons brought up for trial, the judges only
discovered the mental state of from twenty-six to twenty-eight
per cent. of them.

Passing from this point, we shall now inquire into the possibility of
establishing some system of International Statistics, whereby the
volume of crime in one country may be compared with the volume of
crime in another. At the present time it is extremely difficult to
institute any such comparison, and it is questionable if it can ever
be properly done. In no two countries is the criminal law the same,
and an act which is perfectly harmless when committed in one part of
Europe, is considered in another as a contravention of the law. Each
country has also a nomenclature of crime and methods of criminal
procedure peculiar to itself. In each country the police are organised
on a different principle, and act in the execution of their duty on a
different code of rules. In all cases, for instance, of mendicancy,
drunkenness, brawling, and disorder, the initiative rests practically
with the police, and it depends almost entirely on the instructions
issued to the police whether such offences shall figure largely or not
in the statistics of crime. A proof of this fact may be seen in the
Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, for the year
1888. In the year 1886, the number of persons convicted in the
Metropolis of "Annoying male persons for the purpose of prostitution"
was 3,233; in 1888, the number was only 1,475. This enormous decrease
in the course of two years is not due to a diminution of the offence,
but to a change in the attitude of the police. Again, in the year
1887, the Metropolitan police arrested 4,556 persons under the
provisions of the Vagrant and Poor Law Acts; but in the year 1888, the
number arrested by the same body under the same acts amounted to
7,052. It is perfectly obvious that this vast increase of apprehensions
was not owing to a corresponding increase in the number of rogues,
beggars, and vagrants; it was principally owing to the increased
stringency with which the Metropolitan police carried out the
provisions of the Vagrant and Poor Law Acts. An absolute proof of the
correctness of this statement is the fact that throughout the whole of
England there was a decrease in the number of persons proceeded
against in accordance with these acts. These examples will suffice to
show what an immense power the police have in regulating the volume of
certain classes of offences. In some countries they are called upon to
exercise this power in the direction of stringency; in other countries
it is exercised in the direction of leniency; and in the same country
its exercise, as we have just seen, varies according to the views of
whoever, for the time being, happens to have a voice in controlling
the action of the police. In these circumstances it is obviously
impossible to draw any accurate comparison between the lighter kinds
of offences in one country and the same class of offences in another.

In the case of the more serious offences against person and property,
the initiative of putting the law in motion rests chiefly with the
injured individual. The action of the individual in this respect
depends to a large extent on the customs of the country. In some
countries the injured person, instead of putting the law in motion
against an offender, takes the matter in his own hands, and
administers the wild justice of revenge. Great differences of opinion
also exist among different nations as to the gravity of certain
offences. Among some peoples there is a far greater reluctance than
there is among others to appeal to the law. Murder is perhaps the only
crime on which there exists a fair consensus of opinion among
civilised communities; and even with regard to this offence it is
impossible to overcome all the judicial and statistical difficulties
which stand in the way of an international comparison.

In spite, however, of the fact that the amount of crime committed in
civilised countries cannot be subjected to exact comparison, there are
various points on which the international statistics of crime are able
to render valuable service. It is important, for instance, to see in
what relation crime in different communities stands to age, sex,
climate, temperature, race, education, religion, occupation, home and
social surroundings. If we find, for example, an abnormal development
of crime taking place in a given country at a certain period of life,
or in certain social circumstances, and if we do not discover the same
abnormal development taking place in other countries at a similar
period of life, or in a similar social stratum, we ought at once to
come to the conclusion that there is some extraordinary cause at work
peculiar to the country which is producing an unusually high total of
crime. If, on the other hand, we find that certain kinds of crime are
increasing or decreasing in all countries at the same time, we may be
perfectly sure that the increase or decrease is brought about by the
same set of causes. And whether those causes are war, political
movements, commercial prosperity, or depression, the community which
first escapes from them will also be the first to show it in the
annual statistics of crime. In these and many other ways international
statistics are of the greatest utility.

From what has already been said as to the immense difficulty of
comparing the criminal statistics of various countries, it follows as
a matter of course that the figures contained in them cannot be used
as a means of ascertaining the position which belongs to each nation
respectively in the scale of morality. Nor is the moral progress of a
nation to be measured solely by an apparent decay of crime. On the
contrary, an increase in the amount of crime may be the direct result
of a moral advance in the average sentiments of the community. The
passing of the Elementary Education Act of 1870 and of the Criminal
Law Amendment Act of 1885 have added considerably to the number of
persons brought before the criminal courts and eventually committed to
prison. But an increase of the prison population due to these causes
is no proof that the country is deteriorating morally. It will be
regarded by many persons as a proof that the country has improved, for
it is now demanding a higher standard of conduct from the ordinary
citizen than it demanded twenty years ago.[3]

[3] Before the passing of the Elementary Education Act, no one
was tried for not sending his child to school; it was not a legal
offence; in 1888-9 no less than 80,519 persons were tried under
this Act, in England and Wales.

On the other hand, a decrease in the official statistics of crime may
be a proof that the moral sentiments of a nation are degenerating. It
may be a proof that the laws are ceasing to be an effective protection
to the citizen, and that society is falling a victim to the forces of
anarchy and crime. It is, therefore, impossible by looking only at the
bare figures contained in criminal statistics, to say whether a
community is growing better or worse. Before any conclusions can be
formed on these matters, either one way or the other, we must go
behind the figures, and look at them in the light of the social,
political and industrial developments taking place in the society to
which these figures refer.

In this connection, it may not be amiss to point out that the present
tendency of legislation is bound to produce more crime. All law is by
its nature coercive, but so long as the coercion is confined within a
limited area, or can only come into operation at rare intervals, it
produces comparatively little effect on the whole volume of crime.
When, however, a law is passed affecting every member of the community
every day of his life, such a law is certain to increase the
population of our gaols. A marked characteristic of the present time
is that legislative assemblies are becoming more and more inclined to
pass such laws; so long as this is the case it is vain to hope for a
decrease in the annual amount of crime. Whether these new coercive
laws are beneficial or the reverse is a matter which it does not at
this moment concern me to discuss; what I am anxious to point out is,
that the more they are multiplied, the greater will be the number of
persons annually committed to prison. In initiating legislation of a
far-reaching coercive character, politicians should remember far more
than they do at present that the effect of these Acts of Parliament
will be to fill the gaols, and to put the prison taint upon a greater
number of the population. This is a responsibility which no body of
men ought lightly to incur, and in considering the advantages to be
derived from some new legislative enactment, an equal amount of
consideration should be bestowed upon the fact that the new enactment
will also be the means of providing a fresh recruiting ground for the
permanent army of crime.

A man, for instance, goes to prison for contravening some municipal
bye-law; he comes out of it the friend and associate of habitual
criminals; and the ultimate result of the bye-law is to transform a
comparatively harmless member of society into a dangerous thief or
house-breaker. One person of this character is a greater menace to
society than a hundred offenders against municipal regulations, and
the present system of law-making undoubtedly helps to multiply this
class of men. One of the leading principles of all wise legislation
should be to keep the population out of gaol; but the direct result of
many recent enactments, both in this country and abroad, is to drive
them into it; and it may be taken as an axiom that the more the
functions of Government are extended, the greater will be the amount
of crime.

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