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.
