[The Jukes Family.]
The histories of many of these criminal families have been written, and perhaps the best known and most striking is that of the Jukes family, written by R. L. Dugdale. This family was traced by Dugdale for seven generations, and during that time it contributed to the welfare of the State an unparalleled history of pauperism and crime. It is seldom, indeed, that the history of crime can be traced so far as it can be in the case of the Jukes, and the reason is that most families disperse by intermarriage, and the taint becomes diluted and no longer stands out in prominence. The distinguished French novelist, Emile Zola, who, in a series of novels, traces out the history of a criminal family, falls into the error of supposing that such a thing as a long family history of crime is possible without isolation from the rest of the community. The family of the Jukes lived in a district by themselves in America, and they formed a family clan, and intermarried amongst themselves, thus complying with this isolation which is a necessity for the long continuation of any family characteristic.
[Intermarriage does not stamp out Criminal Tendencies.]
It might, perhaps, then be said that intermarriage and dispersion of the criminal taint is, indeed, the most ready way of getting rid of it. But this cannot be so, for it is more reasonable to suppose that although by intermarriage the intensity of the criminal tendency may be diminished, yet for the same reason individuals with this innate tendency will be all the more increased, and that the further intermarriage of these individuals with others having similar taints of character, may at any time tend to again reproduce the inveterate criminal in perpetual recurrence. We may dilute ink with water so that we can no longer see that it is black, but we dare not draw the inference that the ink has been destroyed. It is equally as impossible to believe that the criminal taint can disappear unless the criminals are prevented altogether from adding their progeny to those of the rest of society.
It might be urged that in the case of the family of the Jukes their crime was due to imitations of bad habits kept up in the isolated district in which they lived. It must be at once granted that much of their crime and pauperism was no doubt due to bad upbringing, and the polluted moral atmosphere in which they lived; nevertheless, we are justified in believing in the existence of such a thing as innate want of moral backbone, of which they were a probable example. We have not to go far to find in our everyday experience of life that out of a family whose members are most of them docile, yielding to discipline, and capable of affection and self-sacrifice, one or two, perhaps, seem by nature to be wanting in these qualities. Such sporadic cases are only to be explained on the ground that imperfections in their ancestry have cropped up in the new generation, for the criminal taint is a fact to be observed and accounted for like any so-called physical peculiarity of form or feature. It follows, too, that we are bound to look with the greatest pity and commiseration upon the inveterate criminal as upon a person diseased, and that we should use our best endeavour to prevent the recurrence or continued permanence of such a type.
[Segregation of the Criminal an Ultimate and Effectual Resort.]
We, therefore, come face to face with the necessity for practical action on our own part if we would fulfil our obligations to those who will come after us. As Pike remarks,[23] “Perpetual imprisonment of the irreclaimable—imprisonment not only nominally but really for life—would be among many causes of that change in the general tone of society which is shown by history to be the greatest preventive of crime as now understood. Like persons affected with scarlet fever or other infectious maladies, the propagandist criminal should be confined in his proper hospital—a prison—and if incurable should be detained until his death. Like phthisis or other hereditary disease, the criminal disposition would in the end cease to be inherited, if all who were tainted with it were compelled to live and die childless. The remedy may be painful, and even cruel, but perhaps greater cruelty and greater pain may be inflicted by the neglect which leaves physical and social ills to spread themselves unchecked.”
Many of the innate criminals, and those who have committed crime rather from the effect of want, or bad example, than from any inherent tendency, sooner or later fall upon the parish. Within the same wards of the poorhouse, or receiving the same out-door relief, we find this criminal class together with the incapables and deserving poor. This is, indeed, a most unfortunate state of things, for we are bound to draw a strong line of demarcation between those, on the one hand, who are in want through acquired habits of idleness, those who are innately incapable, and those, on the other hand, who are afflicted during their lifetime by sickness, adversity, or old age. We habitually speak of these classes as “the poor,” and the unfortunate use of this term as a common description of totally distinct conditions has led to most undesirable consequences.