Criminality and economic conditionsBonger, Willem Adriaan
General
Criminality and economic conditions
Bonger, Willem Adriaan
Crime -- Economic aspects
The famous individual factors are only ordinary human qualities, like
courage, strength, needs, intelligence, etc. etc., [110] which men
possess in differing degrees, and which in like circumstances lead the
one rather than the other to commit a crime. These qualities in
themselves, however, have nothing to do with crime. Professor
Manouvrier expresses my thought on this subject in the following:
“There are, however, certain individuals more moved to crime than
others, in circumstances otherwise equal. Certainly, as man is more
given to crime than woman, as a robust and bold man is more given to
crimes of violence than one who is miserable and timid, etc., yet each
type of character finds some kind of crime practicable, if only arson.
The athlete will be more inclined to strike, the smooth talker to play
the confidence man, but we do not for that reason indict muscular
strength, nor ready speech, nor boldness, nor agility, nor address. No
more do we indict violence or trickery, qualities defined from the
vicious use made of qualities valuable for honest purposes.” [111]
The reasoning of Professor Ferri, that there is in every crime, besides
others, an anthropological factor, is only the statement of the fact,
known long before the rise of modern criminology, that the
predisposition to crime is not the same with all men. This
predisposition, as we have seen, considered by itself, has nothing to
do with crime as such. So much the more is the conclusion of Professor
Ferri and the Italian school in general absolutely false, when they
deduce from the undeniable fact that the predisposition is not the same
for all, the notion that this predisposition is by nature pathological.
Thus we have finally come to two other groups of anthropological
factors: the organic constitution of the criminal, as, for example, the
anomalies of the skull, brain, etc. and the psychical constitution of
the criminal, as, for example, the anomalies of intelligence and
feeling. [112] This is the special territory of the Italian school: the
criminal is a being apart—“genus homo criminalis”—with special stigmata
peculiar to him; there is a criminal type, anatomically recognizable;
most criminals are born-criminals, etc. The explanation of this special
character is to be found in atavism, an hypothesis later replaced by
that of epilepsy; finally it has been claimed that the character of the
criminal is in general of a pathological nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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