Criminality and economic conditionsBonger, Willem Adriaan
General
Criminality and economic conditions
Bonger, Willem Adriaan
Crime -- Economic aspects
“The statement is made that the two brothers have been subjected to the
same environmental influences merely because they have been brought up
in the same house, taught in the same school, fed and clothed alike.
Yet the mere fact of having been born first or second is not without
importance. To have been reared with an older or with a younger brother
constitutes a difference of environment that may contribute powerfully
to differentiate character. Add to this the differences of environment
proceeding from nurses, servants, diseases, games, etc., and you will
have opened headings under which may be classed differences
innumerable. There are no small things in such a matter. Biographies as
now written are no more than outlines when one thinks of what truly
psychological biographies ought to be. To have been taught in the same
college in the case of two brothers is a similarity that may, and
certainly does, conceal the greatest differences. They have not had the
same teachers, the same fellow-pupils, nor, above all, the same
comrades. Between the education given, and that actually received, the
difference may be great....
“The influences that act upon the child outside of the curriculum have
the more chance to be effective, since the curriculum is carried out in
the less agreeable manner.” [109]
In consequence of what has been said, I believe that the conclusion of
Professor Ferri that there are anthropological factors of crime, is too
hasty. But there are still other objections to be urged to it.
Let us suppose that two persons who live, and have lived, in the same
circumstances are in a position to commit a very advantageous crime,
and their morality does not prevent. At the moment when the time comes
to act, one commits the crime and the other does not—he lacks the
courage. Courage, then, is a factor of crime, and the lack of it a
factor of virtue! Not so, that depends upon circumstances. In another
case, he who commits a crime is stupid, and does not consider the risk,
and he who does not commit it is a crafty man. Stupidity, then, is a
factor of crime, and craft of virtue! Not so, that depends upon
circumstances. The reverse is also true, probably more true still.
Thousands of great criminals so far from being stupid have had
something of the genius in them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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