In thefts and resistance to authorities, relapse is less frequent
here than in the assize courts, for in the majority of these minor
offences, in their general forms, there is a greater number of
occasional offences, as is also the case with bankruptcies,
defamation, <p 18>abuse, rural offences, &c., which demonstrate
their more occasional character by their very low figures.
Hence the statistics of general and specific relapse indirectly
confirm the fact that criminals, as a whole, have no uniform
anthropological type; and that the bio-psychical types and
anomalies belong more especially to the category of habitual
criminals and those born into the criminal class, who, after all,
are the only ones hitherto studied by criminal anthropologists.
What, then, is the numerical proportion of habitual criminals to
the aggregate number of criminals?
In the absence of direct inquiry, it is possible to get at this
proportion indirectly, from facts of two kinds. In the first
place, a study of the works on criminal anthropology supplies us
with an approximate figure, since the biological characteristics
united in individuals, in sufficient number to create a criminal
type, are met with in between forty and fifty per cent. of the
total.
And this conclusion may be confirmed by other data of criminal
statistics.
Whilst the statistics of relapse give us a very limited number of
crimes and offences committed by born and habitual criminals,
science and criminal legislation give us a far more extended
classification.
Ellero reckoned in the penal code of the German Empire 203 crimes
and offences; and I find that the Italian code of 1859 enumerates
about 180, the new code about 200, and the French penal code about
150. Thus the kind of crimes of habitual criminals <p 19>would
only be about one-tenth of the complete legal classification of
crimes and offences.
It is easy indeed to suppose that born and habitual criminals do
not generally commit political crimes and offences, nor offences
connected with the press, nor against freedom of worship, nor in
corruption of public functionaries, nor misuse of title or
authority; nor calumny, making false attestations or false
reports; nor adultery, incest, or abduction of minors; nor
infanticide, abortion, or palming of children; nor betrayal of
professional secrets; nor bankruptcy offences, nor damage to
property, nor violation of domicile, nor illegal arrests, nor
duels, nor defamation, nor abuse. I say generally; for, as there
are occasional criminals who commit the offences characteristic of
habitual criminality, such as homicides, robberies, rapes, &c., so
there are born criminals who sometimes commit crimes out of their
ordinary course.
It is now necessary to add a few statistical data in respect of
the classification of crime, which I take, like the others, from
the essay already mentioned.
ITALY. FRANCE. BELGIUM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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