In Great Britain alone during the last fifteen years there is no
scientific work in criminal anthropology to be recorded. When Dr. Coutagne
inaugurated, in 1888, a “Chronique Anglaise” in the _Archives de
l’Anthropologie Criminelle_, he could not conceal his embarrassment. While
the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian summaries are founded on a
large series of works in criminal anthropology, in England there is
absolutely no centre for the scientific study of criminality. “Legal
medicine,” he remarks, “has there inspired no special publication, nor any
learned society. At the International Medical Congress of London, in 1881,
although so remarkably organised, it was less well treated than
laryngology or dentistry, and formed the object of no section, state
medicine being almost synonymous with hygiene. If we consult the
scientific journals of England dealing with allied subjects, our baggage
will receive very few additions.” In 1889 the International Association of
Criminal Law was founded by Professor G. A. Van Hamel of Amsterdam,
Professor Fr. von Liszt of Marburg, and Professor Adolphe Prins of
Brussels. This association, which has a great future before it,
represents, from the scientific and practical standpoint, the movement of
reform in matters that relate to the criminal. It maintains that
criminality and the repression of crime must be regarded as much from the
social as from the legal point of view. It endeavours to establish this
principle and its consequences in the science of criminal law as well as
in penal legislation. The association already numbers between three and
four hundred members, and includes well-known representatives from
twenty-one different countries in Europe and America. England is among the
least well represented of all; the English members rank in number with the
Portuguese, Servian, and Argentine members. Germany is more than twenty
times better represented.[15] No interest was felt in England in the
International Congress of Criminal Anthropology recently held in Paris. At
this Congress official delegates came from all parts of the civilised
world, from Russia to Hawaii, but although there were two from the United
States, there was not one from Great Britain. When some twelve months
since I issued a series of Questions, dealing with some of the main points
in the investigation of the criminal, to the medical officers of the
larger prisons in Great Britain and Ireland, the answers that I received,
while sometimes of much interest--and I am indebted to my correspondents
for their anxiety to answer to the best of their ability--were amply
sufficient to show that criminal anthropology as an exact science is yet
unknown in England. Some of my correspondents, I fear, had not so much as
heard whether there be a criminal anthropology.[16] England has, however,
in the past been a home of studies connected with the condition of the
criminal. The centenary of John Howard, which we have lately celebrated,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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