Criminality and economic conditions

In “Die Frau und der Sozialismus” the author gives the following pages to the relation between the present social organization and crime: “The increase of crime of every description is intimately connected with the social conditions of the community, little as the latter is inclined to believe it. Society hides its head in the sand, like the ostrich, in order not to be forced to recognize a state of things that bears witness against it, and silences its own conscience and others’ with the lying pretense that laziness and love of pleasure on the part of the workmen and their want of religion is accountable for everything. This is hypocrisy of the most revolting kind. The more unfavorable and depressed the condition of society, the more numerous and grave do crimes become. The struggle for existence then assumes its most brutal and violent shape, it throws man back into his primæval state, in which each regarded the other as his deadly enemy. The ties of solidarity, not too firm at the best of times, become daily looser. [228]

“The ruling classes, who do not and will not recognize the causes of things, attempt to effect a change by employing force against the products of these conditions, and even men whom we should expect to be enlightened and free from prejudice, are ready to support the system. Professor Haeckel, for instance, regards the stringent application of capital punishment as desirable, and harmonizes in this point with the reactionaries of every shade, who on all other subjects are his bitterest enemies. According to his theory, hopeless criminals and ne’er-do-wells must be rooted out like weeds, which deprive the more valuable plants of light, air, and soil. If Professor Haeckel had occupied himself even to a slight degree with the study of social science, instead of limiting himself to natural science, he would have discovered that all these criminals could be transformed into useful, valuable members of society, if society offered them more favorable means of existence. He would have found that the annihilation of the criminal has just as little effect on crime, i.e. on the development of fresh crimes, as if on a number of farms the ground were superficially cleared of weeds while the roots and seeds remained undestroyed. Man will never be able absolutely to prevent the development of noxious organisms in nature, but it is unquestionably within his power so to improve the social organism created by himself, that it may afford equally favorable conditions of existence and an equal freedom of growth to all; that no one may be forced to gratify his hunger or his desire of possession or his ambition at the expense of someone else. People only need to investigate the causes of crime and to remove them, and they will abolish crime itself.

“Naturally those who seek to abolish crime by abolishing its causes cannot take kindly to measures of brutal suppression. They cannot prevent society from protecting itself against crime in its own way, but they demand all the more urgently the radical reformation of society, i.e. the removal of causes.”16

“The relationship between social conditions and crime has often been pointed out by statisticians and sociologists. One of the offenses that comes closest to us—for our society, in spite of all the Christian teaching about charity, regards it as a crime—in times of business depression, is mendicity. We learn from the statistics of the kingdom of Saxony, that in measure as the last great commercial [229]crisis grew worse, beginning in Germany in 1890 with the end not yet in sight, the number of persons sentenced for mendicity also increased. In 1889, in the Kingdom of Saxony 8566 persons were punished for this offense, 8815 in 1890, 10,075 in 1891, and in 1892 as many as 13,120, a very great increase. The impoverishment of the masses on the one hand, with increasing wealth on the other, is the chief mark of our period. In 1874 there was one poor man to 724 persons, while in 1882 the number had reached 1 to 622.17 Crimes and misdemeanors show a similar tendency. In 1874, there were 308,605 persons sentenced in Austria-Hungary, and 600,000 in 1892. In the German Empire in 1882 there were 329,968 persons sentenced for crimes and misdemeanors against the laws, i.e. 103.2 persons to 10,000 of the population over 12 years old; in 1892 the number of those sentenced reached 422,327, or 143.3 to the 10,000, an increase of 39%. Those convicted of crimes and misdemeanors against property were:

“We think that these figures speak volumes, that they show how the deterioration of social conditions increases and multiplies poverty, need, misdemeanors and crimes.”18