Criminality and economic conditionsBonger, Willem Adriaan
General
Criminality and economic conditions
Bonger, Willem Adriaan
Crime -- Economic aspects
“The personal characteristics of the criminal include the purely
biological features of his condition, such as race, age, sex; and the
bio-social features, such as civil status, profession, residence,
social class, and education, which have been up to this time the almost
exclusive subject of criminal statistics.
“The physical factors of crime are the climate, nature of the soil,
length of nights and days, the seasons, the annual temperature,
meteorological conditions, and agricultural production.
“The social factors include the density of population; public opinion,
morals, religion; condition of the family; the educational system;
industrial production; alcoholism; economic and political conditions;
public administration, the courts, the police; and in general the
legislative, civil, and penal organization:—that is to say, a medley of
latent causes, which interlace and combine in all parts of the social
organism, and almost always escape the attention of ... criminologists
and legislators.” [107]
ANTHROPOLOGICAL FACTORS.
Let us consider first the “personal characteristics of the criminal.”
Professor Ferri draws the following conclusions with regard to the
existence of anthropological factors in general: “In fact, if crime
were the product of the social environment exclusively, how could the
fact be explained, that in the same social environment and in like
circumstances of poverty, abandonment, and lack of education, out of
100 individuals, 60 commit no crime, and of the 40 that remain, 5
prefer suicide to crime, 5 become insane, 5 become beggars or
non-dangerous vagrants, and only the 25 others become real criminals?
And why is it that among these, while some limit themselves to theft
without violence, others commit robberies, and even, before the victim
resists, or threatens, or calls for help, commit a murder with the sole
aim of theft?” [108]
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