Criminal anthropology

“ On the other hand it is clear that sundry questions which have a direct bearing upon criminal anthropology—as, for instance, in regard to some particular biological characteristic, or to its evolutionary significance—have no immediate obligation or value for criminal sociology, which employs only the fundamental and most indubitable data of criminal anthropology. ”

“ The Modern School is therefore founded on a new science, Criminal Anthropology, which may be defined as the Natural History of the Criminal, because it embraces his organic and psychic constitution and social life, just as anthropology does in the case of normal human beings and the different races.
If we examine a number of criminals, we shall find that they exhibit numerous anomalies in the face, skeleton, and various psychic and sensitive functions, so that they strongly resemble primitive races. ”

“ The atavistic origin of crime is certainly one of the most important discoveries of criminal anthropology, but it is important only theoretically, since it merely explains the phenomenon. Anthropologists soon realised how necessary it was to supplement this discovery by that of the origin, or causes which call forth in certain individuals these atavistic or criminal instincts, for it is the immediate causes that constitute the practical nucleus of the problem and it is their removal that renders possible the cure of the disease. ”

“ A beginning has naturally been made with the organic study of the criminal, both anatomical and physiological, since we must study the organ before the function, and the physical before the moral. This, however, has given rise to a host of misconceptions and one- sided criticisms, which have not yet ceased; for criminal anthropology has been charged, by such as consider only the most conspicuous data with narrowing crime down to the mere result of conformations of the skull or convolutions of the brain. ”

“ Again, Miss Carpenter, in her Female Life in Prison, wrote:—“Some women are less easy to tame than the creatures of the jungle.... And yet these women are not always in for the worst crimes: there are few, if any, murderers amongst them; they have been chiefly convicted of theft after theft, accompanied by violence.” These observations are entirely in accord with the results of criminal anthropology; the murderer belongs very frequently to the class of criminals by passion, the least anti-social of all, and is at other times frequently the subject of some morbid impulse, epileptic or insane. ”

“ Thus we are not concerned merely with the construction of a theory of anthropology or psychology, or a system of criminal statistics, nor merely with the setting of abstract legal theories against other theories which are still more abstract. Our task is to show that the basis of every theory concerning the self-defence of the community against evil-doers must be the observation of the individual and of society in their criminal activity. In one word, our task is to construct a criminal sociology. ”

“ The second division of criminal anthropology, which is by far the more important, with a more direct influence upon criminal sociology, is the psychological study of the criminal. This recognition of its greater importance does not prevent our critics from concentrating their attack upon the organic characterisation of criminals, in oblivion of the psychological characterisation, which even in Lombroso's book occupies the larger part of the text. ”

“ We will leave to the jurists the great civic labor resulting from having brought the individual as well as the crime under consideration, in relation to the social phenomenon of delinquency—in other words, of having substituted an anthropological for a speculative attitude. Whether the delinquent should be cured, or simply isolated, or even subjected to punishment; whether the prison should be transformed into an asylum for the criminal insane; whether the penal laws should be reformed on principles of a higher order of civil morality: these are problems which interest us only secondarily. ”

“ That this resemblance is not merely superficial, but that some perversity or arrest of development sometimes produces an individual inapt to our civilisation, but apt to a lower civilisation which we have outgrown, and which we call criminal, we have had occasion to observe repeatedly in our brief summary of the facts of criminal anthropology. ”

“ But criminal anthropology as a science is in an embryo stage....” With regard to the abnormal we are only on the threshold of justice; a multitude of causes, theological and instinctive, prevent the facts from being faced and known. ”

“ As for the actual discussion of evidence, when we have established the scientific rules of evidence, based upon expert acquaintance with criminal anthropology, and when we have eliminated all verbal contention over the precise measure of moral responsibility in the prisoner, the whole debate will be a criticism of the personal and material indications, of the determining motives, and the anthropological category to which the accused belongs, and of the consequent form of social defence best adapted to his physical and psychical character. ”

“ Born or instinctive criminals are those who most frequently present the organic and psychological characteristics established by criminal anthropology. These are either savage or brutal men, or crafty and idle, who draw no distinction between homicide, robbery or other kinds of crime, and honest industry. ``They are criminals just as others are good workingmen,'' says Frgier ”

“ Native custom goes on the ancient doctrine that the criminal’s whole family are responsible; so that when it is known that a man has been slain, and especially when the actual culprit has escaped, his kinsfolk run for their lives; the very children of seven years old know whether they are of kin to the manslayer, and, if so, they are off at once into hiding. Here then we come in view of two principles which every student of law should have clearly in his mind in tracing its history up from its lowest stages. ”

“ If you have a case of simple theft, you may have a far greater influence of the social factor than of the anthropological factor. On the other hand, if you have a case of murder, the anthropological element will have a far greater influence than the social. And so on in every case of crime, and every individual that you will have to judge on the bench of the criminal. ”

“ When, now, the real Negro criminal appeared, and instead of petty stealing and vagrancy we began to have highway robbery, burglary, murder, and rape, there was a curious effect on both sides the color-line: the Negroes refused to believe the evidence of white witnesses or the fairness of white juries, so that the greatest deterrent to crime, the public opinion of one's own social caste, was lost, and the criminal was looked, upon as crucified rather than hanged. ”

“ In these same offenders we very rarely observe, if at all, the organic anomalies which create a criminal type. And even the psychological characteristics are much slighter in countries where certain crimes of

passion are endemic, almost ranking amongst the customs of the community, like the homicides which occur in Corsica and Sardinia for the vindication of honour, or the political assassinations in Russia and Ireland. ”

“ Even if a statistical survey of crime and recidivism did not point directly in explanation to the peculiarities of the unit offender, it would in general seem as if the anthropological outlook, applied to the criminal himself, would be easily the best point of vantage in studying the crime situation. ”

“ There have been some changes of late years in the care of criminals, but does public opinion yet everywhere demand that jailers and prison-keepers and executioners of the penal law should be men of refinement, of high character, of any degree of culture? I do not know any class more needing the best direct personal influence of the best civilization than the criminal. ”

“ Who cares to inquire into the origin of Negro crime, or into the causes which have contributed mightily to produce the Negro criminal? The book of the Genesis of this man’s crimes awaits to be written by an impartial and sympathetic seeker after truth. The causes which have operated for fifty years to produce Negro criminals will some day, I trust, be traced without fear or bias to their source. ”

“ There are still those who would maintain the one-sided standpoint that the origin of crime may be traced to only one of these elements, for instance, to the social element alone. So far as I am concerned, I have combatted this opinion from the very inauguration of the positive school of criminology, and I combat it today. It is certainly easy enough to think that the entire origin of all crime is due to the unfavorable social conditions in which the criminal lives. ”

“ First, innocent men are often slain and forced to sleep eternally in dishonored graves. Secondly, when men who are innocent are thus slain the real culprits are left behind to repeat their deeds and thus continue to bring reproach upon the race to which they belong. Thirdly, illegal execution always begets sympathy in the hearts of our people for a criminal, however dastardly may be his crime. ”

“ The first set of portraits are those of criminals convicted of murder, manslaughter, or robbery accompanied with violence. It will be observed that the features of the composites are much better looking than those of the components. The special villainous irregularities in the latter have disappeared, and the common humanity that underlies them has prevailed. They represent, not the criminal, but the man who is liable to fall into crime. ”

“ But when I am further asked why such homicides should do more harm to your community in the estimation of the world than murders for the purpose of robbery do to ours, the answer is that here the murderer is, as a general thing, condemned by public opinion and hunted down as an infamous criminal and hung, if caught, while the kind of manslaying in the South I speak of is, as a general thing, greatly “deplored,” but at the same time very frequently excused, and almost universally protected against due punishment by morbid public sentiment. ”

“ The social sentiments relating to crime are traced in their historical evolution, from the half-instinctive and reflex vengeance of savages through the regulated retributive justice of former ages to the more humane desire to reform the criminal which has characterized this century. ”

“ And what has society done to protect itself against this aggressor? True, there are criminal codes, courts of law, and that surprising survival of the unfittest, trial by jury. Vast edifices have been built as prisons and reformatories, and philanthropic persons have formed societies for the instruction of the criminal and to care for him when his prison gates are opened. But, in spite of it all, the criminal becomes more numerous. He breeds criminals; the taint is in the blood, and there is no royal touch can expel it. ”

“ But as if compounding crime, it is asserted with many of the appearances of truth, that Negro boys and girls, upon trivial charges, are convicted and sent to the convict camp for the express purpose of securing to the lessees of convicts the benefit of their unrequited toil until they reach their majority. Thus confined among confirmed criminals they naturally partake of the character of their environments, and conceive and multiply vice and criminology. This system punishes the real criminal unjustly. ”

“ So true is this, that, as we shall presently see, the gravest crimes, especially against persons, precisely because they mostly indicate congenital criminality, follow a more steady and regular movement than these slighter but far more frequent offences against property, public order, and persons, of a more occasional character, and that, as microbes of the world of crime, they are the more direct outcome of social environment. ”

“ Crimes against Humanity. Atrocities and offenses, including but not limited to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, or other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds whether or not in violation of the domestic laws of the country where perpetrated.
“ (d) Membership in categories of a criminal group or organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal. ”

“ On the other hand, the lower classes or social outcasts are notorious for their criminal propensities to robbery and murder. In practice they are characterised by crime and wretchedness; they are criminals and beggars. ”

“ Apart from the violence proceeding from blood feuds, the unfrequency among such tribes of most of the acts we consider criminal is very noteworthy. The great mass of offenses, whether against person or property, which disgrace and disfigure civilization, are the product of evil passions engendered by the exasperating inequalities of condition which are unknown to the experience of uncivilized races. ”

“ Our adversaries had the idea that the mere possession of a crooked nose or a slanting skull stamped a man as predisposed by birth to murder or theft. But a man may he a born criminal, that is to say, he may have some congenital degeneration which predisposes him toward crime, and yet he may die at the age of 80 without having committed any crime, because he was fortunate enough to live in an environment which did not offer him any temptation to commit crime. ”

“ The demand was no doubt fostered by the extraordinary prevalence of crime. Criminal records would probably be read with avidity at times when ruffianism was in the ascendant, and offences of the most heinous description were of daily occurrence. New crimes cropped up daily. The whole country was a prey to lawlessness and disorder. Outrages of all kinds, riots, robberies, murders, took place continually. ”