Criminal Types

CRIMINAL TYPES
BY COL. V. M. MASTEN
BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS
Copyright, 1922, by Richard G. Badger All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.

Very much in the printed page has been aimed wide of the mark alike of the prevention, the deterrence, and the reclamation of the predal felon.
It is intended that this semi-technical volume shall help to call the truly reformative turn. Also, the intention is that the subject matter of the book shall at once amplify and reënforce conclusions reached in The Crime Problem and Stop Thief! the author’s previous publications.
A distinctively scientific treatise on crime and criminals is not essayed by the writer, for the very good reason that such a treatise is not, at this moment, to any man’s hand. This, because human society seethes in the most fateful transitional state of all time up to this time; because human expression is more complex and varied than during any other period of human history; because material values change with constantly changing conditions; and because the criminal picks his tools and plys them agreeably with the pressure upon him of objective influences germane in those conditions of change.
The crass criminal presents no psychic problem. He is much as he was, impelled much as he was, when cavemen carried clubs. Having, usually, but mediocre mental equipment, and being crowded out of the big games of life, he has recourse naturally either to individual force, or to crooked cunning with which to match the throws of his better-equipped brothers.
By and large, the issue with the low-grade habitual forager is a very simple one; in the final analysis, he leaves society no choice other than to fight him with the like of his chosen weapons.
There will be isolated and sporadic exceptions to the general rule given; but as to the grand majority of marauding criminals, they must be met, both in and out of prison, with force more impressive than that which they employ; palpably so, else penal codes might as well be pigeon-holed for containing meaningless proscriptions.