The profound psychologist, Friedrich Nietzsche, has detected the roots of this phenomenon in average human nature. He speaks of the “horrible beautiful” of crime—of the happiness of one who has completely freed himself from the lower instincts of compassion and from the evil beast “conscience.”
Abundant as are the materials for a special psychology of certain specialities in crime, and extensive as was Lombroso’s acquaintance with individual criminals, none the less his account of the elementary qualities of the criminal nature is extremely simple. The differences between individual criminals, who at first sight appear extremely unlike, frequently depend merely upon the fact that the inclination to enrich their own personality at the expense of another is associated in the one case with a favourable, and in the other with an unfavourable, economic position. The thievish proletarian will steal anything he sees lying about or anything that he finds in someone else’s pocket. The millionaire similarly disposed will not steal single purses, but will find ways and means of emptying very numerous and very large purses. The criminal proletarian is a petty thief or a burglar; the criminal bourgeois founds fraudulent banks and limited liability companies, or transforms sound undertakings into swindles, or he systematically swindles his partners. Fraudulent bankruptcy is the leading field of typical bourgeois criminality. Thus we get an insight into the operation of many of the so-called “economic factors” of crime, which in essentials amount to this, that in times of economic depression a large number of unscrupulous persons seize opportunities for stealing bread that has risen in price or the money that is needed for the purchase of bread—a larger number than in more prosperous times; whereas in times of commercial expansion the talents of the swindler on the large scale and of the millionaire plunderer find their greatest opportunity. Moreover, it is clear that one who has no regard for his personal reputation will, if he is a poor man, more readily turn to the commission of offences against property; but if he is well-to-do, he is more likely to commit offences against the person. This is shown by the fact that those who are well off more often offend against the health, life, and sexual freedom of others; whilst those who are ill off more frequently commit offences against property. And it is further shown by the fact that when wages are rising, and the prices of the necessaries of life are falling, crimes against the person increase in number, whilst the number of thefts and embezzlements diminishes. This tendency is still more clearly manifested if the rise in wages and the fall in prices are simultaneous.
In addition to cruelty, which we encounter not only in offenders against the person, but also see frequently in the form of a lack of sympathy, in usurers and cheats, the comparative psychology of criminals enables us to recognize in them as permanent qualities a recklessness and remorselessness,[[26]] and, in most cases, also an entire lack of integrity—that is to say, merely negative qualities—due to deficiency in the development of sensibility. Among positive qualities, a characteristic one is the fatuous vanity of many habitual criminals. It is a phenomenon of worldwide familiarity that that which in the life of a human being was at first a means merely, ultimately becomes an independent end—indeed, the sole aim. This we find also in the career of the criminal, to whom crime becomes a field for vain display. The art of pocket-picking, of housebreaking, of poisoning, ultimately becomes one pursued for its own sake. Some have thought this almost demoniacal; but there is nothing very singular in the practice of an acquired facility from the pure pleasure of its clever performance—art for art’s sake. Moreover, we see the same thing also in criminals who secretly destroy property or secretly commit arson. Here the art of remaining undiscovered is cultivated for its own sake.
Lombroso gives a very elaborate description of several other psychical characters of criminals—of their religious life, and of their poetry and their literature, which latter, in bloodthirstiness and savage sensuality, closely resemble the tribal songs of the Australian blacks. In his subtle observation and description of the criminal psyche, in which he took note of the smallest details, and at the same time combined these details into a most effective general picture, making use alike of apparently trifling scrawls on prison walls and of comprehensive historical studies of crime, is certainly to be found his chief service. Here we find one of the finest examples known to modern psycho-pathology of the minute observation of details. Lombroso shows himself to be a true interpreter of nature, and a genius to whom, in the depth of his insight into human nature, we can, among the moderns, compare only Dostoieffsky, and, among those of an earlier day, only the brilliant criminal psychologist Shakespeare.
An important circumstance in the development of the individual criminal is the existence of a professional rascality with ancient traditions, representing a kind of syndicated organization of the criminal interests, associated with the equally old traditions of the receivers, vagabonds, prostitutes, and gipsies. This has introduced into the life of crime a conventional element, which would naturally not be able to maintain itself unless it corresponded to the innermost nature of the criminal. The old national capitals—Venice, Madrid, Paris, London—still possess ancient traditions of this character; but the colossal growth of the modern industrial towns has given rise, in addition, to the existence of a criminal world without traditions, one which knows little or nothing of the three leading features of the ancient tradition—thieves’ jargon, tattooing, and soutenage. Southern Italy and Sicily have preserved criminal organizations in the Camorra and the Maffia, out of which there has developed a systematic taxation of the propertied classes, and which even possess Parliamentary powers.
Side by side with the ancient thieves’ jargon, almost venerable in view of its genuine antiquity, as shown by numerous words and phrases derived from the Hebrew and Romany tongues, there has arisen the ever-changing speech of the canaille, to which contributions are continually furnished, first, by prostitutes, through whose intermediation is effected a contact between the most diverse classes of society; secondly, by submerged individuals originally belonging to the upper classes; and, thirdly, by the artist world. These jargons are naturally in a perpetual flux. They possess their classic writers, as does, for instance, the argot of contemporary Paris in the talented Bruant, to whom every new variation of the jargonization of speech streams down from the summit of Montmartre, and whose songs are diffused throughout France from thousands of small music-halls, just in the same way as François Villon, four and a half centuries ago, disseminated the jargon of his day in shameless but inspired songs.
Now, unquestionably, every argot possesses a criminal psychological interest. The canaille will take the new-coined word to its heart only when the thing or the relation described by this word expresses something of great or supreme importance to the blackguard or the cheat. To the burglar, the baby is important principally as a “screecher,” so he accepts this new-coined word. To the thief, in the same way, the fingers are “hooks,” or, in the argot of Poland, grabka—that which grips. To the naturalism of the vagabond, the cook from whom he begs may be most aptly described as finkelmusch—finkel being the fireside, and musch, a Hebrew word for the vulva.
The humour of every jargon lies in this—that its words are formed by the naming of that part of the denominated whole which appears to the name-giver to be the most important element of that whole. The astonishing vividness and speech-forming power often recognizable in such jargon is really somewhat atavistic when compared with the wearisome newspaper jargon (“journalese”) of our modern books among all civilized peoples. By means of precisely such a word-formation, directed towards the vivid and important, did the colloquial speech of prehistoric man originate.[[27]]
In tattooing we recognize allied qualities of originality and force. Many criminals depict on their own skins their fate and their philosophy. Naturally, most of them adorn themselves with merely professional designs, devoid of all trace of originality; but the standard specimens of this decorative art naturally correspond to the taste of the customers, just as the standard specimens of any other decorative art correspond to the taste of the public that demands it. Æsthetically, in fact, a criminal who has his skin tattooed stands nearer to the savage Fiji Islander than he does to the European decorative taste of the common people, as displayed in the shops of the working-class quarters in which chimney “ornaments” are sold. It must be admitted that æsthetic sentiments are not very closely allied to ethical. Nevertheless, the former are emotional stirrings, and it is in this sphere that we must look for the fundamental traits of the criminal nature. It is in this that we find the significance of the tattooings so often met with in criminals, even in those who have never been convicted, who have never been in a barrack, a shop, or a factory. In Lombroso’s atlas we find reproductions of numerous fantastic tattooed designs.
Thus the most important element in the psychology of the criminal is a rudimentary development of the life of feeling in general.[[28]]