[CHAPTER I]
CRIMINALITY IN YOUTH
Introductory.—The foundations of the classical criminal law have been shattered. New ideas begin to prevail, new institutions appear and develop. The old criminal law will soon altogether disappear. In harmony with the general tendency of evolution, whereby our whole legal system tends to become an affair of local administration, criminal law tends to be transformed even more rapidly than other branches of law into a department of local administrative activity. We are to-day in the period of transition, in which this transformation is being effected. The aim of medical science is not merely to cure individual cases of disease, but to prevent the origination, recurrence, and diffusion of disease. Criminal law has similar aims, its highest aim of all being, not to punish, but to prevent crime. It regards as of primary importance, not individual liberty, but the interest of society, and it considers, not the crime, but the criminal. The transformation that is going on is further advanced in some portions of criminal law than it is in others. The most advanced portion of all is the one which concerns youthful criminals.
The Causes of Criminality in Youth.—The three causes of criminal offences are: (a) inherited predisposition; (b) bad educational influences; (c) poverty. (The climatic and physiological causes of criminality are of little importance, and are, essentially, social causes.)
(a) According to the theory of the “born criminal,”[6] most youthful criminals are born criminals. The view is correct to this extent only, in so far as a certain proportion—by no means a large one—of youthful criminals are born criminals; but many youthful criminals, although they have come into the world physically, mentally and morally degenerate, are not for this reason necessarily to be regarded as born criminals. To-day more degenerate individuals are born than formerly. It is more probable that the children of persons suffering from syphilis, tuberculosis, and alcoholism, and the children of prostitutes and criminals, will become criminals, than the children of sound individuals. We find, in fact, that a notably large proportion of all criminals are the offspring of persons of the former classes.
(b and c) The children of the proletariat tend to be much rougher, and are much more inclined to become criminals than the children of the well-to-do. Among young proletarians, we find more criminals than among adults. The towns are the true breeding-grounds of youthful criminals. To-day vagrant children in the streets are as constant a feature of town life as the street-lamps. The conditions of proletarian life make the proper upbringing of children impossible at the best of times. All the more is it impossible when the conditions are bad, as when crime, prostitution, and alcoholism prevail in the family circle. The principal cause of youthful criminality is to be found in the very character of proletarian family life, which makes education impossible, and often forces the child into a career of crime. It is well known that a considerable proportion of proletarian children receive no schooling at all—that is, they grow up unable to read and write, and a large number of criminals and prostitutes are made up of such illiterates. A notable proportion of youthful criminals are recruited from the class of wage-earning children, and these latter are almost all proletarians, and most of them have been forced to adopt wage-labour in very early youth. A foul dwelling-place contaminates the mind as well as the body; an enormous preponderance of proletarian children live in such contaminating surroundings. A principal cause of youthful criminality is to be found in the direct influence of poverty, i.e. poverty operating otherwise than through the education and environment. However well educated a child may have been, it must steal when starving and freezing. Poverty forces children to adopt a course of action which may enable them to satisfy their immediate and most pressing needs. About half of the girls who go wrong become prostitutes; about half of the boys in similar case become thieves.
The study of the child-psyche throws light upon the age at which children are especially liable to commit punishable offences, and upon the character of these. The character of the punishable offences committed by children is a natural consequence of the child-nature, whose especial characteristics are impulsiveness and acquisitiveness. It is chiefly on this account that among the punishable offences committed by children, theft is the most frequent, and next to this comes bodily injury. Punishable offences requiring strength, adroitness, or deliberation can hardly be undertaken by children. Sexual offences are committed by those children only in whom the sexual life is already awakening. Grievous bodily harm is effected only by those whose bodily strength is fully developed. Complicated criminal offences can be undertaken by children only when they possess special experience and training. Younger children commit fewer punishable offences than older ones, and different offences, their capacity being less, and their opportunities more limited. The suggestive influence of the adult criminal is very great; he exploits the youthful criminal, and by threats and chastisement forces him into criminal courses. During the nineteenth century, the number of criminals, of recidivists, of punishable offences, and the gravity of these latter, has increased to a greater extent than the population. The number of offences against public order, and of crimes against the person, has indeed diminished, but the number of crimes against property, and of offences against morality, has disproportionately increased. The number of the most serious crimes is smaller, but the number of relapses into crime has greatly increased.
During the nineteenth century, the number of juvenile criminals has also increased. The glitter of the industrial development of the nineteenth century has to be paid for in large part by the gigantic increase in juvenile criminality. In all the civilised countries of Europe, with the exception of England, there has been an extraordinary increase in the number of youthful criminals, and in the number of punishable offences committed by them, this increase being greater than the increase in the number of criminals and of criminal offences in general. In the case of juvenile criminals, there has also been an increase in the number of habitual offenders, as well as in the gravity of the punishable offences. Perhaps the most important difference between the older criminality and the newer, is that to-day the juvenile criminal and the habitual offender are more in evidence. Unquestionably these two phenomena are closely associated, for the great majority of professional criminals are persons whose first criminal offence was committed during childhood or youth. At the present day, in all the civilised countries of Europe, about 25 per cent. of all punishable offences are committed by young persons.
The following are some of the causes of the increase in juvenile criminality. The character of many of the offences customary in former days—for instance, robbery in the streets and highways by footpads and highwaymen—was such as to render it impossible for children to undertake them. Great towns, in whose streets and suburbs children could wander about, and in which it is comparatively easy for them to commit punishable offences, did not exist. Moreover, children begin to work for a living at an earlier age than in former times. The application of draconian laws, under which even little children suffered corporal and capital punishment, exercised a deterrent influence. Since the end of the eighteenth century punishments have become much milder. A large proportion of criminal offences are to-day more lucrative, easier to carry out, and less risky than in former times. Youthful criminality is probably far more extensive than the official records show, for these latter take no account of petty offences. Many punishable offences never become known outside the limits of the family. In view of the offenders’ youth, reports are often suppressed.
The Classical Criminal Law.—It is characteristic of the classical criminal law that criminal offences committed by children were either left unpunished, or, if punished, were punished less severely than the offences of adults. In the classical criminal law several age-classes were distinguished among juvenile criminals. (a) Children too young to understand that an offence is punishable, and for this reason liable neither to prosecution nor to punishment. In existing legislative systems, the age at which criminal responsibility is supposed to begin varies greatly; it may be as low as seven, and as high as fifteen years. (b) The second class consists of those children of an age at which criminal responsibility is supposed to have begun. If such a child commits a punishable offence, it is examined as to whether it possesses the necessary understanding of the punishable nature of the offence. If it is considered not to possess this understanding, no punishment is inflicted. The punishment is, in any case, less severe than that which would be inflicted upon an adult. To this class belong children at ages from seven to eighteen years. (c) The third age-class consists of offenders over eighteen years of age, who are regarded as necessarily possessed of an understanding of the punishable character of their offence, but in whom also the punishment is less severe than it would be if they were of full age.
Gradual Transformation of the Classical Criminal Law.—In the nineteenth century the provisions of the classical criminal law no longer meet the case of juvenile criminality. Their inefficiency is demonstrated by the enormous proportion of recidivists among juvenile offenders. The number of recidivists continually increases, and criminality tends more and more to be the work of habitual offenders. Indeed, the criminal, in most cases, continues to repeat the very offence for which he was first punished. This is especially true of offences against property. The oftener anyone has been punished, the greater is the probability that he will commit another offence, and the sooner is this likely to take place. In reality the frequency of recidivism is even greater than appears from the official statistics. These relate to those persons only who are regarded as recidivists by the existing laws. They take no account of how many individuals leave the country after their first conviction for a criminal offence.