According to calculations made by my father, 20% of Italian criminals descend from inebriate families; according to Penta the percentage is 27 and in dangerous criminals, 33%. The Jukes family, of whom we shall speak later, descended from a drunkard.
The first salient characteristic in hereditary alcoholism is the precocious taste for intoxicants; secondly, the susceptibility to alcohol, which is infinitely more injurious to the offspring of inebriates than to normal individuals; and thirdly, the growth of the craving for strong drinks, which inevitably undermine the constitution.
Direct Heredity. The effects of direct heredity are still more serious, for they are aggravated by environment and education. Official statistics show that 20% of juvenile offenders belong to families of doubtful reputation and 26% to those whose reputation is thoroughly bad. The criminal Galletto, a native of Marseilles, was the nephew of the equally ferocious anthropophagous violator of women, Orsolano. Dumollar was the son of a murderer; Patetot's grandfather and great-grandfather were in prison, as were the grandfathers and fathers of Papa, Crocco, Serravalle and Cavallante, Comptois and Lempave; the parents of the celebrated female thief Sans Refus, were both thieves.
The genealogical study of certain families has shown that there are whole generations, almost all the members of which belong to the ranks of crime, insanity, and prostitution (this last being amongst women the equivalent of criminality amongst men). A striking example is furnished by the notorious Jukes family, with 77 criminal descendants.
Ancestor, Max Jukes: 77 criminals; 142 vagabonds; 120 prostitutes; 18 keepers of houses of ill-fame; 91 illegitimates; 141 idiots or afflicted with impotency or syphilis; 46 sterile females.
A like criminal contingent may be found in the pedigrees of Chrêtien, the Lemaires, the Fieschi family, etc.
Race. This is of great importance in view of the atavistic origin of crime. There exist whole tribes and races more or less given to crime, such as the tribe Zakka Khel in India. In all regions of Italy, whole villages constitute hot-beds of crime, owing, no doubt, to ethnical causes: Artena in the province of Rome, Carde and San Giorgio Canavese in Piedmont, Pergola in Tuscany, San Severo in Apulia, San Mauro and Nicosia in Sicily. The frequency of homicide in Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia is fundamentally due to African and Oriental elements.
In the gipsies we have an entire race of criminals with all the passions and vices common to delinquent types: idleness, ignorance, impetuous fury, vanity, love of orgies, and ferocity. Murder is often committed for some trifling gain. The women are skilled thieves and train their children in dishonest practices. On the contrary, the percentage of crimes among Jews is always lower than that of the surrounding population; although there is a prevalence of certain specific forms of offences, often hereditary, such as fraud, forgery, libel, and chief of all, traffic in prostitution; murder is extremely rare.
Illnesses, Intoxications, Traumatism
These causes, although apparently as important as heredity, are in fact, decidedly less so. Both disease and trauma may intensify or call forth latent perversity, but they are less frequently the cause of it. There are, however, certain cases in which traumatism meningitis, typhus, or other diseases that affect the brain have undoubtedly evoked criminal tendencies in individuals hitherto normal. Twenty out of 290 criminals studied by my father with minute care had suffered from injury to the head in childhood; and recently a case came under his notice in which a youth of good family and excellent character received an injury to his head at the age of fourteen and became epileptic, developing subsequently into a gambler, thief, and murderer. Such cases, however, are not very common.