The Kansas University Quarterly : $b Vol. I, No. 4, April 1893Various
History
The Kansas University Quarterly : $b Vol. I, No. 4, April 1893
Various
Natural history -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
grows up to follow the calling of his parents and neighbors, just as an
individual who is brought up to know nothing but farming, and considers
this the legitimate calling of his father and neighbors, would seem
likely to take to it as a livelihood rather than to something else with
which he is less familiar.
The investigations of such men as Charles Booth in London[6] would seem
to indicate that crime arises chiefly out of conditions, examples,
and habits, rather than from the assumption that men are born to
crime through any inherent psychological tendency. In this it is not
intended to show that heredity does not have a large influence in the
development of crime. Statistics have been prepared to thoroughly
substantiate the fact that heredity plays a great part in the
development of the criminal.
[6] Life and Labor of the People of London, by Charles Booth, 3 vols.
“Of the inmates of Elmira reformatory 499, or 13.7 per cent. have
been of insane or epileptic heredity. Of 233 prisoners at Auburn, New
York, 23.03 per cent. were clearly of neurotic (insane, epileptic,
etc.) origin; in reality many more. Virgilio found that 195 out of
266 criminals were affected by diseases that are usually hereditary.
Rossi found five insane parents to seventy-one criminals, six insane
brothers and sisters and fourteen cases of insanity among more
distant relatives. Kock found morbid inheritance in 46 per cent. of
criminals. Marro, who has examined the matter very carefully, found
the proportion 77 per cent., and by taking into consideration the
large range of abnormal characters in the parents, the proportion of
criminals with bad heredity rose to 90 per cent. He found that an
unusually large proportion of the parents had died from cerebro-spinal
diseases and from phthisis. Sichard examining nearly 4,000 criminals
in the prison of which he is director, found an insane, epileptic,
suicidal and alcoholic heredity in 36.8, incendiaries 32.2 per cent.
thieves, 28.7 sexual offenders, 23.6 per cent. sharpers. Penta found
among the parents of 184 criminals only 4 or 5 per cent. who were quite
healthy.”[7]
Such being the awful tendency of crime to breed crime, questions
arising respecting the causes of crime ought to be a careful study by
all persons interested in criminology or penology.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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