The following figures shed light upon the intellectual condition of those accused of certain important classes of crime:

[431]

[432]

The following figures give an estimate with regard to some specified crimes:114

[433]

The figures for those who have had a primary education are divided up as follows:117

The redactor of the official statistics of Switzerland observes that there are no figures to determine the number of illiterates among the non-criminal population, but the statistics of recruits for the years 1891 to 1895 show that about 19% of the recruits had a higher education.

I am of the opinion that the statistics which I have quoted,118 including, as they do, millions of criminals, are very significant: the illiterates supply, in general, a great proportion of the criminals, a proportion much greater than that of the illiterates in the general population. (In countries with a relatively small number of illiterates, like England, the Netherlands, and Prussia, for example, the difference is naturally much greater than in a country like Italy where the percentage of illiteracy is great. In Prussia for instance, there are [434]thirty-six times as many illiterates among the recidivists as among the recruits.)

However, most of the statistics, aside from the figures for illiteracy, give others which show how many persons really educated are to be found among the criminals. And then we note that a very great majority of criminals are ignorant and untrained. In England, for example, there is among male criminals only 1 to 1,000 who knows more than how to read and write well, and among the women not even 1 to 1,000; in Austria there are a little more than 4 to 1,000; and in France a little more than 20 to 1,000 among the men, and between 4 and 5 among the women. The relation between ignorance and criminality cannot, then, be contradicted. But it is impossible to fix exactly the extent of the influence of the one upon the other, or it is difficult to separate ignorance from other factors with which it is ordinarily found, as poverty, for instance.

The ancient idea that crime is only a consequence of ignorance need not be treated of, for morality and intellect are two distinct parts of the psychic life, even though there exists a certain relation between them.

The first reason why ignorance and the lack of general culture must be ranked among the general factors of crime is this: the person who, in our present society, where the great majority of parents care very little for the education of their children, does not go to school, is deprived of the moral ideas (honesty, etc.) which are taught there, and ordinarily passes his time in idleness and vagabondage.

The second reason which makes ignorance a factor of crime, is that generally an ignorant man is, more than others, a man moved by the impulse of the moment, who allows himself to be governed by his passions, and is induced to commit acts which he would not have committed if his intellectual equipment had been different.

In the third place, it is for the following reasons that ignorance and the lack of training fall within the etiology of crime. The mind of the man whose psychic qualities, whether in the domain of the arts, or of the sciences, have been developed, has become less susceptible to evil ideas. His intellectual condition constitutes thus a bridle which can restrain evil thoughts from realizing themselves; for real art and true science strengthen the social instincts. The figures cited above furnish only a slight contribution to this question. There is no doubt that if we had figures showing how many criminals there are any part of whose life is taken up by art or science, we should find the number very small. It could not be objected that the cause of this is [435]in the innate qualities of the criminals; certainly one man is born with greater capacity than another, but everyone is born with some capacities which, if developed, may become a source of happiness; and a happy man, says the proverb, is not wicked.

Finally ignorance is in still another way a factor in crime. Very often the author of a crime conceives and executes it in so clumsy a fashion and with so little chance of success, that we may be certain that he would not have committed it if he had not been an ignorant person, without knowledge of the forces with which he had to do.

When the Italian school is reproached with making their researches upon prisoners only, and not upon criminals and their free equals, the implication is that it is only the stupid and ignorant criminals that are in prison, while the others, the shrewd and tricky, remain at liberty. There is assuredly much truth in this assertion.

The lower proletariat. In the preceding pages I have already spoken of the influence exercised by bad material surroundings upon a man’s character; I have pointed out the moral consequences of bad housing conditions, and also that he becomes embittered and malicious through lack of the necessaries of life. All this applies to the proletariat in general, but much more strongly still to those who do not succeed, for any reason, in selling their labor, that is the lower proletariat.

If the dwellings of the working-class are bad, those of the lower proletariat are more pitiable still. There are, through sickness or lack of work, periods of dire poverty in the life of almost every worker—for the lower proletariat these periods are without intermission. Its poverty is chronic. And when the poverty makes itself felt for a long time together, the intellectual faculties become blunted to such a point that there remains of the man only the brute, struggling for existence.

Although the material and intellectual poverty of the lower proletariat is much greater than that of the proletariat, the difference between them is only quantitative. In one connection, however, there is also a qualitative difference, and a very important one, namely that the working-man is a useful being without whom society could not exist. However oppressed he may be, he is a man who has a feeling of self-respect. It is different with the member of the lower proletariat. He is not useful, but a detriment. He produces nothing, and tries to live upon what others make; he is merely tolerated. He who has lived long in poverty loses all feeling of self-respect, and lends himself to anything whatever that will suffice to prolong his existence. [436]

In short, poverty (taken in the sense of absolute want), kills the social sentiments in man, destroys in fact all relations between men. He who is abandoned by all can no longer have any feeling for those who have left him to his fate.

b. The proportion in which the different classes are guilty of crime. After having treated of the direct consequences of the present economic system upon the different classes, I shall take up this question, which is an important one for the problem of criminality, before touching upon the indirect consequences.

As I have already observed in Part I, the opinions with regard to this proportion are very divergent. There are authors (Garofalo, for instance) who are of the opinion that the bourgeoisie commits as many crimes, in proportion to its numbers, as the proletariat. On the other hand there are those who maintain that the prisons hold only the poor. That Garofalo’s conclusion does not hold good for Italy has been proved by the statistics of Fornasari di Verce and those of Dr. Marro, quoted in Part I of this book. The figures given by Fornasari di Verce have to do with the persons sentenced by the assizes, the correctional tribunals, and the justices of the peace. They show that 56% of the convicts were indigent, that 31% had only the strict necessities of life, 10% were moderately well off, while 2% were well-to-do or rich; while among the non-criminal population about 40% were rich or more or less well-to-do, and the other 60% indigent or having only the necessaries of life. But the figures for non-possessors become much greater if we take only the number of those sentenced by the court of assizes,—the real criminals.

The following figures give the economic condition of persons convicted for different crimes: [437]

Italy not being a rich country, it is evident that the headings “passably well-off” and “well-to-do or rich” have been given a liberal interpretation, otherwise they would never include almost 40% of the population. But even taking account of this fact, these figures show that the indigent, that is, the lower proletariat, and the proletariat without work, form a much higher proportion of the criminal class than of the population as a whole.

Other figures confirming these conclusions for Italy have been produced by Dr. Colajanni (see Part I of this work). Further than these, statistics concerning the financial condition of convicts are not numerous so far as I know. Here are those that are known to me: [438]

The following figures give us the proportions of the different crimes:

I have not been able to procure the figures showing the financial condition of the Austrian population. But it may be considered as certain that there are more well-to-do persons in Austria than about 3% of the population, and also that there are more persons with a little money than the percentage of criminals shown under that [439]heading. Therefore, as in Italy, the poor there are more guilty of crime than the well-to-do (and much more so of certain crimes). It is interesting to note that well-to-do women are not guilty at all of most crimes.124

There were no rich persons then among the recidivists; no one with an income of more than 5,000 marks. On the other hand, those of very limited income are exceedingly numerous, especially among the women. It is a pity that the first group was not further subdivided, for “less than 900 marks” leaves the group still very large.

The following figures give a picture of the financial situation of the Swiss criminals.