Sociology and Modern Social Problems

by Charles A. Ellwood

There can be no doubt that the amount of serious crime in the United States is relatively high, although there is no reason to believe that the serious crimes against property are proportionate to the serious crimes against persons.

The Cost of Crime in the United States. The Hon. Eugene Smith, a lawyer of New York city, in a paper read before the National Prison Association in 1900, estimated that the criminal population of the United States costs not less than $600,000,000 annually. He based his estimate upon the cost of crime in New York city and other large cities of the country. He found that the probable expenses of government in the United States attributable to crime, that is, the cost of police, criminal courts, prisons, and other institutions connected with the prevention and repression of crime, amounted to about $200,000,000 per year. This is the amount paid by the taxpayers for the repression and extirpation of crime annually. In addition there is the cost of the criminal class through the destruction of property, their plunder, and the like. Mr. Smith estimated that there were no less than 250,000 dangerous criminals in the United States and that each such criminal cost the people of the United States, on the average $1600 annually. Accordingly, the 250,000 criminals would cost a total of $400,000,000 annually, which, added to the $200,000,000 paid out in taxes for the repression of the criminal class and protection against crime, makes a total of $600,000,000 paid out every year by the people of the United States as the cost of supporting the criminal class. While this figure seems enormous, careful students of the matter consider that it is an underestimate rather than an overestimate of the total cost of crime. We may compare the amount with certain other figures. The cost of public education in the United States is about $350,000,000 annually; the annual value of our wheat crop is about $600,000,000, and of our cotton crop about the same. It is evident that the problem of crime is worthy of serious study even from a financial standpoint alone.

Is Crime Increasing? How we answer this question will, of course, depend upon the length of time considered. We have no statistics going back further than fifty years in this country. Moreover, it is entirely possible to hold that while crime has decreased during the historic era among civilized peoples, it has increased during the last twenty-five or fifty years. All statistics of crime in the United States seem to show that it has increased. In 1850 for example, the number of prisoners was 6737 which was one prisoner to every 3442 of the population. But the census of 1850 was seriously defective, and we would better take the census of 1860 as the basis of our comparison. In 1860 the census showed a total prison population of 19,086, which was one prisoner to every 1647 of the population. In 1890 the census showed 82,329 prisoners in the total population, which was one in every 757. In other words, between 1860 and 1890 the total population of the country just doubled, while the number of prisoners quadrupled. Inasmuch as the census of 1904 was taken upon an entirely different basis, we cannot bring the comparison down to that year.

The value of these statistics has often been questioned, but it has been questioned chiefly by people who have not taken other corroborative evidence into account. The chief corroborating evidence is to be found in the statistics of prisoners in our state prisons from 1880 to 1904. Now only those are sent to state prisons who are guilty of felonies, and the length of term of sentence in our state prisons has steadily shortened during the last twenty-five years, while within the last few years the practice of suspending sentence on probation for first felons has been largely introduced. We should expect, therefore, a decrease in the state prison population in proportion to the general population. But we find that the number in state prisons rose from 30,659 in 1880, to 45,233 in 1890, an increase of 47.5 per cent, while the general population increased only 24.86 per cent. Again the number rose in 1904 to 60,553, an increase of 33 per cent, while the general population increased about 30 per cent. Apparently, therefore, the amount of serious crime in the United States is increasing more rapidly than the population. Corroborating evidence is also found from Massachusetts statistics, which indicate that between 1850 and 1880 the prison population increased twice as rapidly as the general population. Other evidence could be cited, but the statistics of our state penitentiaries may be considered conclusive when all facts are taken into consideration. There is apparently no escape from the conclusion that serious crime between 1880 and 1904 increased more rapidly than the population.

The amount of minor offenses, every one admits, has increased. The statistics of all European countries show this, and there is no reason to suppose that the United States is an exception in this regard. England is the only country of the civilized world in which there has been apparently a decrease in proportion to population of both serious crimes and minor offenses. This decrease of crime in England may be attributed largely to England's excellent prison system, and also to the swiftness and certainty of English courts of justice.

The Causes of Crime.—The causes of crime may be classified best, as we classified the causes of poverty, into objective and subjective. Objective causes are those outside of the individual, in the environment; subjective causes are causes in the individual, whether in his bodily make-up or his mental peculiarities.

The Objective Causes of Crime. The objective causes of crime may be divided into causes in the physical environment and causes in the social environment. The causes in the physical environment are relatively unimportant, but are worthy of note as showing how many various factors enter into this social phenomenon of crime. Climate and season seem to be the two chief physical factors that influence crime; and in connection with these we have two general rules, abundantly verified by statistics; namely, crimes against the person are more numerous in southern climates than crimes against property; and again crimes against the person are more numerous in summer than in winter, while crimes against property are more numerous in winter than in summer. All this is of course simply an outcome of the effect of climate and season upon general living conditions.

The causes of crime in the social environment are of course much the most important objective causes of crime, and, many students think, altogether the most important causes of crime in general. Let us briefly note some of the more important social conditions that give rise to crime.

(1) Conditions connected with the family life have a great influence on crime; indeed, inasmuch as the family is the chief agency in society for socializing the young, perhaps domestic conditions are more important in the production of crime than any other set of causes. We cannot enter into the discussion of the matter fully, but we have already seen in former chapters that demoralized homes contribute an undue proportion of criminals. It is estimated by those in charge of reform schools for delinquent children that from 85 to 90 per cent of the children in those institutions come from more or less demoralized or disrupted families. Illegitimate children notoriously drift into the criminal classes, while dependent children who grow up in charitable institutions are prone also to take the same course. Domestic conditions have of course an influence on the criminality or non-criminality of adults. This is best shown perhaps by the fact that the great proportion of criminals in our prisons are unmarried persons. Thus the United States prison census of 1904 showed that 64 per cent of all prisoners were single persons. Statistics from other countries are practically the same. This means that, on the one hand, the family life is a preventive of crime, and on the other that the socially abnormal classes who drift into crime are not apt to marry.

(2) Industrial conditions also have a profound influence upon criminal statistics. Economic crises, hard times, strikes, lockouts, are all productive of crime. Quetelet, the Belgian statistician, thought that the general rule could be laid down that, as the price of food increases, crimes against property increase, while crimes against persons decrease. At any rate, increase in the cost of the necessities of life is very apt to increase crimes of certain sorts.