Whilst we have no intention of offering a body of comparative statistics, but only of giving a simple indication of the periodic movement of crime, these data, which do not render it easy to compare one country with another, though they are intimately related so far as each particular country is concerned, suffice to exhibit a few facts of some considerable importance.
The most conspicuous general phenomenon in the countries here included is the steadiness of the gravest forms of crime side by side with the continuous increase of slighter offences, especially in the countries which show a long series of figures, such as France, England, and Belgium. This proceeds mainly from the progressive accumulation of offences against special enactments, which are constantly being added to the original basis of the penal code; but it is also a symptom of an actual transformation in the criminal activity of the century, from whence, through the gradual substitution of crimes against property in the great towns for crimes against the person in earlier centuries, we have a wider extension together with a lower degree of intensity. <p 64>
Another characteristic common to the countries under observation is that, whilst the graver crimes against property show a somewhat marked diminution, crimes against persons, on the other hand, show more steadiness, either of regularity, as in France and Belgium, or of increase, as in England, and still more in Germany. But this phenomenon in the case of crimes against the person is in actual correspondence with criminal activity arising from an increase of population. On the other hand—apart from the transformation of crimes of violence into crimes of craft and fraud, due to the increase of movable property—the decrease of offences against property is no more than the manifest effect of an artificial change of judicial procedure, summary proceedings taking the place of trial by jury.
An alternation, which is not invalidated by exceptions here and there, has been observed in the criminality of different countries, in the periodic movement of crimes and offences against property and those against the person, of such a kind that years of increase in the former usually answer to a diminution in the latter, and vice vers<a^>. The principal factors in the annual increase of theft, such as scarcity and extremes of weather, cause a corresponding diminution of violent assaults and bodily harm, of homicides and indecent assaults, and vice vers<a^>. On the other hand, offences against property, which are very numerous, contribute most of all to the total of annual crime; so that the maximum of 1880 in Italy, as well as in France, Belgium and Austria, is especially due to the great severity of the <p 65>winter of 1879-80, which in Italy coincided with an agricultural crisis, attested by the very high price of corn. Whereas from 1881 to 1885 there were very mild winters, with more abundant harvests, and from 1886 a greater extreme of cold and a more acute economic crisis.
The general tendency of these periodic oscillations of crime in Italy, as in other European countries, is nevertheless far more towards increase than towards decrease. This is also shown by the proportional triennial averages of crimes and offences placed on record, and of persons condemned to imprisonment.
In the movement of crime in each country it is necessary to distinguish special oscillations, more or less prolonged, of increase or decrease, from its general and permanent tendency. The latter is determined by the fundamental conditions of each nation, physical and social, apart from the purely artificial section of transgressions brought into existence by new laws. The special oscillations, on the other hand, are determined by the annual variations in this or that factor of the more numerous offences; that is to say, by abundance or scantiness of the harvests, by the annual variations of temperature, by industrial and political crises, and the like.
The oblivion of this marked distinction, coupled with the prejudices of the scientific schools, and even of political parties, leads to some curious disagreements, and to lively discussions on the results of criminal statistics. For on one side the champions of the classical school plainly see that the persistent <p 66>increase of crimes and offences amounts to a proof of that breakdown of penal systems, practical and theoretical, which have hitherto been applied—as was admitted by Holtzendorff. And on the other hand, the increase of crimes is denied or affirmed for the purpose of supporting or attacking some particular ministry. For, in parliaments more than elsewhere, there is always a deep-seated and vivacious prejudice, a kind of social artificiality, which causes men to think that the condition of States, moral and economic, is fundamentally determined far more by the action of this or that government than by natural factors, which are mainly superior to and outside of governments and politicians.
And this is why in Italy there has been much discussion of late, in scientific publications, at the sittings of the Central Commission of Judicial Statistics, and even in Parliament, as to whether crime was increasing or decreasing.
Beltrani-Scalia and Lombroso almost simultaneously called attention to the growth of Italian crime, and they were succeeded by various adherents of the positive school, such as Ferri, Garofalo, Pavia, Pugliese, Guidi, Bournet, Barzilai, and Rossi, who produced evidence that the general tendency of crime in Italy was to increase, and that the diminutions observed after 1880 were mere transitory oscillations; and after 1886 they were justified by facts.
On the other hand, official returns of criminal statistics, and a majority of the members of the Central Commission, when pursuing an inquiry suggested by myself into Italian crime since 1873 <p 67>—for previously to this date there are no criminal statistics in Italy except for 1853 and 1869-70—came to the conclusion that there was a tendency towards a diminution of crime. But their decision was formed from an entirely partial standpoint, which they had taken up in the exigency of polemical discussion. They compared, in fact, the years just concluded, 1881-5, with 1880, and thus it naturally followed that after a maximum they had a relative decrease. And it was only this ingenious comparison which gave an appearance of actual proof to their optimistic assertions; for when a fever is at forty degrees, the fall of even half a degree is very important. They paid special attention to the so-called high criminality, which is tried by the Assize courts, and is actually decreasing, though by the purely artificial effect of more and more effective measures of correction. But I have always maintained, and I have the support of M. Oettingen, that we cannot separate crimes and offences tried by the Assizes from those tried by the Tribunals, for there is only a difference of degree between them, as is clear in regard to theft, assaults and wounding, forgery and the like.