CHAPTER I
DRINK AND CRIME
Drink commonly accredited with the production of crime—Minor offences usually committed under its influence—Drink a factor in the causation of most crimes against the person—Double personality caused by drink—Drunken cruelty—Drunken rage—Assaults on the drunken—Sexual offences—Child neglect—Mental defect behind the drunkenness of some offenders—Malicious mischief and theft—Drunken kleptomania—The professional criminal and drink—Thefts from the drunken—Amount of crime not in ratio to amount of drinking in a district—The vice existent apart from crime, in the country—And in the wealthier parts of the city—Drunkenness and statistics—Summary.
Though the differences among prisoners in antecedents and faculties must be taken into account if they are to be treated in a rational manner, there are factors which are common to the causation of crime in many cases. Their influence may vary in strength, but it cannot be disregarded.
Drink is denounced—and consumed—by all classes. There are many who attribute all evils to its use, and some of these take the logical course and advocate the prohibition of its manufacture and sale. Others make the theory an excuse for doing nothing to remedy social conditions; for “you never can stop men from drinking,” and if drink be the cause of social evils, and you cannot stop its use, why should they worry?
Any theory of the causation of evil will be fashionable if it offers a superficial explanation of the facts and affords an excuse for doing nothing more troublesome than giving good advice to the poorer classes. Drink has brought misery and degradation on many, through their own indulgence or that of those on whom they have been dependent; if it does not cause, it is often an aggravation of poverty; and it is with no wish to minimise its ill effects that I protest against exaggerating them. Our social troubles are not traceable to any one cause, and it is not profitable to single out a particular vice and place all evil to its account; nor is the practice more laudable when the vice is not one to which we are ourselves inclined. By all means let temperance be taught and drunkenness be discouraged; this too we shall do better when we search for the causes of intemperance.
One of the statements most frequently made is that the great majority of crimes are due to drink. It would be more accurate to say that most prisoners were under the influence of drink at the time they committed the breach of the law for which they have been convicted. The great majority are petty offenders. Strike them off and our prison population would at once be reduced by more than a half. They have been drunk and incapable of taking care of themselves, or they have committed a breach of the peace through drink. Their sentences are short and their number is large. Many of them are regular customers and return again and again in the course of the year. Whether we are dealing wisely with them will bear discussion. They do not seem to be any the better for it so far as their conduct shows. They are enabled, in consequence of the rest and regular living of the prison, to start on their next spree in a better condition physically than would be the case if they were not detained there for a time; but this is rather a personal than a public gain. At present they swell our prison statistics and are a burden on the exchequer. That they should be mixed up with criminals is no advantage either to us or to them. The cause of their conviction is drink; but it does not make for clearness of statement to add their numbers to those of criminals who have committed crimes against the person or against property.
Crimes against the person are generally committed by people under the influence of drink, or on persons who are intoxicated. A man takes liquor to get out of himself, and is then in a condition to do or say things from which he would refrain if sober. Some are not improved in temper as a result of their drinking, and are more prone to quarrel and less able to control their passion. It is commonly observed that a man can and does develop a double personality, showing one set of characteristics when sober and another when under the influence of drink. In both states he receives impressions, and his actions when sober show that the impulses which direct his acts are different from those which dominate him when he is intoxicated. Just as his sober self is forgotten when he is drunk, his drunken self is forgotten when he is sober—not wholly, it may be, but in part. He seems more readily to remember violence suffered than violence inflicted by him. Impressions received in one condition tend to be revived when the person is again in that condition. If when he gets quarrelsome and hits out he finds he has struck one who will strike back, he generally gets out of the way and avoids the danger from that kind of person on a subsequent occasion. Just as he learns to keep clear of lamp-posts and other resistant objects, he learns to stop short of striking one who is likely to hurt him.