Crime: Its Cause and Treatment

by Clarence Darrow

To say that the one who gets money the most easily and keeps it the most safely has the best brain is no more reasonable than to say that the foxhound is more intelligent than the bull-dog because it can run faster. Nature formed one for running and the other for holding on. The brain power is not involved.

There are manifold ways of gratifying all these instincts. The desire for property calls simply for getting it and keeping it. It does not involve the method to be used. The way is determined by other faculties, by education, by opportunities, by the strength and weakness of inhibitions. It does not follow that all legal ways are morally right and all illegal ones morally wrong. Society in its development has established certain ways in which it may be done. These ways are easy for some, they are hard for others, and for many quite impossible.

Still the instinct for getting is always present, leading and urging to acquire and to keep. Endless are the ways that men have contrived to gratify this instinct. If, perchance, a law stands in the way, means are always sought to get around the law. Every desire is always seeking its own gratification or satisfaction. This means life. Most men believe that the way they adopt for getting money or gratifying other instincts is really no worse than some other person's way. The man who uses the confidence game contends with great assurance that his methods are like other business methods; that all men are using every means to get the largest return for the least effort, and one way is no better than another. A considerable portion of society has always supported him in these ideas. The law is full of shadowy lines which divide legal acquisition from the illegal, some of which are so fine that no one can see more than a technical difference. For instance, under an indictment for obtaining money by false pretenses, one may make all sorts of statements as to the quality, value, style and desirability of the article sold, if he does not make a specific statement of a fact regarding the material contained in them or the amount, number, quality or the like. He may lie, but to be safe he must know the kind of lie the law permits. Many lies pass as "puffing goods" and are within the pale. A trader is not expected to tell the truth. What he can and cannot say may be determined only by a careful examination of the law, and not always then.

Infinite are the reasons men give for doing the things that their instincts bid them do. All depends upon the strength of the instinct and the character of the machine; the restrictions and habits formed; and many other factors of which the man knows nothing. In fact, all depends upon his endowment and the outside forces that move to action, and for none of these is he in any way to be praised or blamed.

Society seems to be almost oblivious to the emotional life of man. The great masses of men have no capacity or chance to prepare a proper environment in the intense commercialism and mad rush of today. The laws of trade and commerce give most men food, clothing and shelter but nothing more. There is no beauty in their homes or surroundings; no music or art; no adventure or speculation. Existence is a dead thing, a dreary round. To many such people crime furnishes the only chance for adventure. Take away emotions and life is hopelessly dull and commonplace. The emotions of men must be fed just as the body must be fed. To many religion has furnished this emotional life. Churches have provided some art and some music. But aside from the Catholic Church almost none of this is for the poor. To many if not most people religion cannot take the place of joy. Dogma and creed deaden and cannot appeal to the reason of man. Still they have furnished a large part of the emotional life to great masses of men, without which existence would hold no hope or joy. But this is not enough to fill most lives. The element of joy is largely lacking. To many it makes no appeal, although music and art and beauty do. In no country has society so utterly neglected and ignored the emotional side of man as in America. This has led many men to a life of adventure that for them has been possible only in crime. Many others found this life in the saloon, mixed with influences not conducive to a normal life. The closing of the saloons has added to the already serious need of providing for the innate feelings of men. This is all the more important for America, as a large part of our population has come from lands where beauty and art and music have for generations been made a part of the common life of all.

VII

THE CRIMINAL

Those who have had no experience in the courts and no knowledge of what is known as the "criminal class" have a general idea that a criminal is not like other men. The people they know are law-abiding, conventional believers in the State and the Church and all social customs and relations; they have strict ideas of property rights, and regard the law as sacred. True they have no more acquaintance with law-makers and politicians in general than with the criminal class, which, of course, is one reason why they have such unbounded confidence in the law. Such persons are surprised and shocked when some member of the family or some friend is entangled in the courts, and generally regard it as a catastrophe that has come upon him by accident or a terrible mistake. As a rule, they do all in their power to help him whether he is acquitted or convicted. They never think that he and everyone else they know is not materially different from the ordinary criminal. As a matter of fact, the potential criminal is in every man, and no one was ever so abandoned that some friend would not plead for him, or that some one who knew him would not testify to his good deeds.

The criminal is not hard to understand. He is one who, from inherited defects or from great misfortune or especially hard circumstances, is not able to make the necessary adjustments to fit him to his environment. Seldom is he a man of average intelligence, unless he belongs to a certain class that will be discussed later. Almost always he is below the normal of intelligence and in perhaps half of the cases very much below. Nearly always he is a person of practically no education and no property. One who has given attention to the subject of crime knows exactly where the criminal comes from and how he will develop. The crimes of violence and murder, and the lesser crimes against property, practically all come from those who have been reared in the poor and congested districts of cities and large villages. The robbers, burglars, pickpockets and thieves are from these surroundings. In a broad sense, some criminals are born and some are made. Nearly all of them are both born and made. This does not mean that criminality can be inherited, or even that there is a criminal type. It means that with certain physical and mental imperfections and with certain environment the criminal will be the result.