Gina Lombroso

“ In conclusion, the born criminal possesses certain physical and mental characteristics, which mark him out as a special type, materially and morally diverse from the bulk of mankind.
Like the little cage-bred bird which instinctively crouches and trembles at the sight of the hawk, although ignorant of its ferocity, an honest man feels instinctive repugnance at the sight of a miscreant and thus signalises the abnormality of the criminal type. ”

“ If imprisonment does not serve to intimidate instinctive criminals, still less is it a means of rehabilitation. In virtue of what law, should any man, even if he be normal, become reformed after a varying period of detention in a gloomy cell, where he is isolated from the better elements of society and deprived of every elevating influence—art, science, and high ideals; where he loses regular habits of work, the disciplining struggle with circumstances, and the sense of responsibility natural to free citizens and is tainted by constant contact with the worst types of humanity? ”

“ Revolution is the historical expression of evolution and has always great and sublime ends in view. It is the struggle against an institution or a system which hinders the progress of a nation, never against any temporary oppression, no matter how unbearable it may be. The French revolution was not a struggle against an individual king or even a dynasty, but against the institutions of monarchy and feudalism ”

“ Love is the spiritual sun of mankind. A ray shed by a human heart may spread far and wide, traversing unknown regions and sojourning with unknown races; and if powerless to revive some timid flower that has been numbed by the chilly night, it may still be stored up in the songs of a people, like the sunlight in green plants, to be retransformed at some future time into light and warmth. ”

“ A revolution is therefore a slow, constant effort towards progress, preceded by propaganda. In some instances, it may last for years; in others, for centuries, until an entire nation, from the humblest citizen to the most wealthy patrician, is convinced of the necessity of the proposed change, and the habitual misoneism of the masses overcome, the existing order of things being defended by only a few, whose personal interests are bound up in the old system. The ultimate triumph is inevitable, even when the leaders of the movement perish and the first risings are suffocated in blood ”

“ They are consumed by a passion for altruism and self-immolation, and experience a strange delight in martyrdom for their ideals. These men sweep the masses along with them and lead to victory with their propaganda, their inspired songs, and thrilling accents. Tyrtæus was not the only poet who led soldiers to war: every insurrection has had its own songs, in which the love of a whole people is crystallised.
Lunatics, unbalanced individuals, and saints are the promoters of progress and revolutions. ”

“ Many criminals, indeed, allege repentance, but generally from hypocritical motives; either because they hope to gain some advantage by working on the feelings of philanthropists, or with a view to escaping, or, at any rate, improving their condition while in prison. Thus Lacenaire, when convicted for the first time, wrote in a moving strain to his friend Vigouroux in order to get money and help from him, "Repentance is the only course left open to me. You may well feel pleased at having turned a man from a path of crime for which he was not intended by nature." ”

“ Violence is more primitive than trickery and must always precede it, exactly as a more barbarous state in which property is gained or maintained by force, at the point of the sword, precedes a state in which ownership is regulated by means of contracts; and crime always adapts itself to the prevailing customs. ”

“ I began dimly to realise that the a priori studies on crime in the abstract, hitherto pursued by jurists, especially in Italy, with singular acumen, should be superseded by the direct analytical study of the criminal, compared with normal individuals and the insane.
I, therefore, began to study criminals in the Italian prisons, and, amongst others, I made the acquaintance of the famous brigand Vilella. This man possessed such extraordinary agility, that he had been known to scale steep mountain heights bearing a sheep on his shoulders. ”

“ CHAPTER II THE PREVENTION OF CRIME The curability of crime is an entirely novel idea, due to the Modern Penal School. As long as, in the eyes of the world, the criminal was a normal individual, who voluntarily and consciously violated the laws, there could be no thought of a cure, but rather of a punishment sufficiently severe to prevent his recidivation and to inspire others with a salutary fear of offending the law. ”

“ The magnitude of a crime does not imply greater criminality on the part of its author, but rather that he is a man of brilliant endowments, whose culture and talents multiply his opportunities and means for evil. ”

“ Those who have never come into contact with mentally deranged persons may deem it absurd to mention genius and insanity in the same breath, and still more absurd to seek to demonstrate the existence of flashes of inspiration in insane persons. In the minds of most people, the word lunatic has from earliest childhood conjured up the vision of an incoherent, stupid, or demented being, with wildly streaming hair, raging in paroxysms of maniacal fury, or sunk in imbecile apathy; not, certainly, a sharp-witted individual capable of reasoning logically. ”

“ Capital punishment, according to the opinion of my father, should only be applied in extreme cases, but the fear of it, suspended like a sword of Damocles above their heads, would serve as a check to the murderous proclivities displayed by some criminals when they are condemned to perpetual imprisonment.
We have, it is true, no right to take the lives of others but if we refuse to recognise the legitimacy of self-defence, exile and imprisonment are equally unjustifiable. ”

“ Psychology. Here, as in all physical characteristics, criminals of passion are scarcely distinguishable from their fellow-men, except that we find in an excessive degree those qualities we consider peculiar to good and holy persons—love, honour, noble ambitions, patriotism. In fact, the motive of the crime is always adequate, frequently noble, and sometimes sublime. Love prompts certain natures to kill those who insult their beloved ones or are the cause of their dishonour and, in some cases, even the object of their affection who proves unfaithful. ”

“ Maternity stimulates her intelligence and sharpens her senses, explains and exalts those characteristics which have hitherto constituted her inferiority until they become signs of superiority when considered from the point of view of the reproduction of the species.
A lessened sensibility enables woman to bear with greater ease the pains inherent to childbirth; her refractoriness to all kinds of variation—also that of a degenerate nature—serves to correct morbid heredity and to bring back the race, which owes its continuation to her, to its normal state. ”

“ War, the original, perpetual and exclusive occupation of our ancestors, is eminently [Pg 215] suited to the tendencies of criminals. All the characteristics of the criminal, impulsiveness, cynicism, physical and moral insensibility, and invulnerability are valuable qualities in the soldier in times of war, especially when waged against savage and barbarous nations, when cunning and ability have to be employed against primitive races who laugh at the rules and ethics of civilised warfare. ”

“ Not one of the conclusions drawn from the history and examination of woman can justify the tyranny of which she has been and is still a victim, from the laws of savage peoples, which forbade her to eat meat and the flesh of the cocoanut, to those modern restrictions, which shut her out from the advantages of higher education and prevent her from exercising certain professions for which she is qualified. ”

“ Every progress in nature is the result of a struggle between the tendency to immobility, manifested by misoneism, or the hatred of novelty, and a foreign force which seeks to conquer this tendency.
As in nature, misoneism dominates every human community. It is most invincible in children and neuropathic and insane individuals, very powerful among barbarous peoples, and more or less disguised among civilised nations. But the world progresses: every day new conditions and new interests arise to combat the law of inertia and render impossible the realisation of the much-desired invariability ”

“ I was told that special reformatories have been established at Boston for the detention of those who prefer prison to vigilance.
Perhaps this aversion of adult offenders in America to the probation system is due to the fact that the probation officer is vested with powers almost exceeding those of any magistrate. If he thinks fit, he may extend the period of supervision almost indefinitely or convert it into imprisonment. Moreover, the feeling that every movement and action, however innocent, is being watched is very galling to a grown-up person. ”

“ In imitation of this principle, criminal anthropologists seek to devise a means of making offenders serviceable to civilisation by carefully analysing their tendencies and psychology, and fitting them into some suitable groove in the social scheme, where they may be useful to themselves and to others. Side by side with depraved instincts, criminals frequently possess invaluable gifts: an abnormal degree of intelligence, great audacity, and love of innovation. ”

“ CHAPTER IV CRIMINALOIDS We have seen how, owing to disease, alcoholism and epilepsy, physically and psychically degenerate individuals make their appearance in a community of normal persons. But a large proportion of the crimes committed cannot be attributed to lunatics, epileptics, or the morally insane, nor do all criminals show that aggregate of atavistic and morbid characters,—the cruelty and bestial insensibility of the savage, the impulsiveness of the epileptic, the licentiousness, delusions, and impetuosity of the madman,—which we find united in the born criminal. ”

“ We have therefore an epilepsy sui generis, a variety of epilepsy which may be called criminal.
Thus the primitive idea of crime has become organic and complete. The criminal is only a diseased person, an epileptic, in whom the cerebral malady, begun in some cases during prenatal existence, [Pg 73] or later, in consequence of some infection or cerebral poisoning, produces, together with certain signs of physical degeneration in the skull, face, teeth, and brain, a return to the early brutal egotism natural to primitive races, which manifests itself in homicide, theft, and other crimes. ”

“ Later on, the study of innumerable offenders led them to the conclusion that all law-breakers cannot be classed in a single species, for their ranks include very diversified types, who differ not only in their bent towards a particular form of crime, but also in the degree of tenacity and intensity displayed by them in their perverse propensities, so that, in reality, they form a graduated scale leading from the born criminal to the normal individual. ”

“ By political crime we understand every action which attacks the laws, the historical, economical, political and social traditions of a nation or, in fact, any part of the existing social fabric, and which comes into collision with the law of inertia. ”

“ As the fundamental nature of the criminal has not changed, his actions are still of the same character; and violence and cunning are mingled or alternate in modern crime. But though the individual remains unchanged, he is subordinated to a more powerful factor than himself—modern progress. It is true that many modern crimes are facilitated by modern contrivances ”

“ Like the pear which falls in autumn when the process of ripening has caused the gradual reabsorption of the juices in the stalk, revolution triumphs and the ancient system perishes when an entire people is persuaded of the necessity for a change. ”

“ These unfortunate beings frequently show perfect mental clearness before the crime and even in the act of striking the fatal blow; yet their action is purely instinctive and not prompted by passion or any other cause. Although such individuals appear to reason, can it be said that they are in full possession of their mental faculties? If they are, how shall we explain the wholesale destruction of those they hold most dear? A husband kills the wife to whom he is sincerely attached; a father, the son he loves most; or a mother, the infant at her breast. ”

“ We have still to consider born criminals, epileptics, and the morally insane, whose crimes spring from inherited perverse instincts. These unfortunate beings cannot be consigned to ordinary prisons, since, owing to their state of mental alienation, they do not possess even the modesty of the vicious—hypocrisy—and they never fail to pervert those criminaloids with whom they come in contact. Malcontents by nature, they distrust everybody and everything, and as they see an enemy in every warder and official, they are the centres of constant mutinies. ”

“ In all cases where opportunity plays an important part, the crime must necessarily be committed by individuals exposed to special temptations: cashiers who handle other people's money, which they may be tempted to spend with the illusory idea of being able later to replace what they have taken, officials and public men, who possess a certain amount of power and an apparent impunity, and bankers who are entrusted with wealth belonging to others, of which in that capacity they are accustomed to make use. ”

“ CHAPTER I THE BORN CRIMINAL A criminal is a man who violates the laws decreed by the State to regulate the relations between its citizens, but the voluminous codes which in past times set forth these laws treat only of crime, never of the criminal. ”

“ Amongst barbarous peoples, on whom prison makes but slight impression, or in primitive communities that do not possess criminal asylums, [Pg 209] penitentiaries, and other means of social defence and redemption, the death penalty has always been considered the most certain and at the same time the most economical means of common protection. But criminal anthropologists realise that the desire to abolish this penalty, which so often finds expression in civilised countries, arises from a noble sentiment and one they have no wish to destroy. ”