The English Prison System

by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise

Next, comparison with some seventeenth century skulls, recently discovered while excavations were being made in Whitechapel, leads to the interesting conclusion that there is a close agreement between correlation values obtained from measurements of English skulls 300 years old, and those calculated from the cephalic-diameters of English convicts alive to-day. And a detailed comparative analysis of head-length and -breadth statistics brings against a current theory, respecting the anomalous conformation of the criminal's head, the following fact: that amongst 200 criminals, the head of only one will be genuinely anomalous—a proportion less than has been found amongst Scottish insane people, and probably much the same as would be found in any section of the law-abiding healthy community.

Comparison with respect to hair and eye colour, nose conformation, deafness, left-handedness, tattooing, of such data as are available, illustrates the absence of any marked peculiarity in the case of criminals, and, lastly, a comparison of the head-contours of 800 convicts with those of 118 Royal Engineers, according to a plan invented by Professor Pearson for comparing skull-contours, demonstrates with great precision that, so far from criminals as a class being differentiated or stigmatized by low and receding foreheads, by projecting occiputs, by asymmetry, and by sugar-loaf, dome-shaped, and other peculiar forms of heads, the agreement between the contrasted types is so remarkable, and the differences so trifling, that at least in this respect no ground can be said to exist for the popular belief that criminal tendency can be inferred from the shape of a man's head. From all these comparisons, pursued strictly according to the biometric method of which I have only attempted to give the outline, Dr. Goring draws his conclusion that "no evidence has emerged confirming the existence of a physical criminal type, such as Lombroso and his disciples have described. The data show that physical differences exist between different kinds of criminals, precisely as they exist between different kinds of law-abiding people. But, when allowance is made for a certain range of probable variation, and when they are reduced to a common standard of age, stature, intelligence, class, &c., these differences tend entirely to disappear. The results nowhere confirm the evidence, nor justify the allegations, of criminal anthropologists. They challenge their evidence at almost every point. In fact, both with regard to measurements and the presence of physical anomalies in criminals, the statistics present a startling conformity with similar statistics of the law-abiding classes. The final conclusion we are bound to accept until further evidence, in the train of long series of statistics, may compel us to reject or to modify an apparent certainty—our inevitable conclusion must be that there is no such thing as a physical criminal type."

But although no physical type peculiar to criminals can be demonstrated, certain physical differences in criminals have emerged, and it is in the examination of these differences that Dr. Goring attempts to establish a theory of criminality more simple and reasonable than that which refers them to the presence of a definite criminal type. From a comparison of the stature and weight of the general population, published in 1882 by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he shows that, (apart from differences due to class differentiation,) in physique, as measured by stature and weight, criminals, with the exception of those convicted of fraud, are markedly differentiated from the non-criminal sections of the community. This physical inferiority, however, must not be associated with any condition of degeneracy, atavism, or other defect, mental or physical, originating spontaneously, but all the evidence points to the truth of the theory that these bodily conditions are "selective factors" determining, to some extent, conviction for crime. It may be imagined that as good physique determines occupation, so a bad physique predisposes to a criminal career. It also facilitates arrest by the Police, and apprehensions are considerably fewer than offences committed. It is, too, generally observed that persons of good physique are less irascible and prone to violence, and the case of the incendiary would show that a weakly man has recourse to a mean act from motives of revenge, not being capable of an act requiring physical force. "Fraudulents," it is true, are not selected for crime, for they resemble, in weight and stature, the law-abiding public; but they are an exceptional case, which, while destructive of a theory of degeneracy, is not necessarily inimical to the theory that physique selects crime. Dr. Goring does not deny that there is a possibility that this physical inferiority may tend to become an inbred characteristic of the criminal classes, the convicted fathers having sons who inherit their diminutive stature, and thus, in course of time, an inbred differentiation of the criminal classes might result. That this may be so is illustrated by statistics, which show that industrial and reformatory school children are consistently on the average one inch shorter in stature, and several pounds less in weight, than any other class of school-children of the same age in the United Kingdom. Nothing more than this can be conceded to the Lombrosian School. The only fact at the basis of criminal anthropology is that thieves, and burglars, and incendiaries (i.e., about 90 per cent. of all criminals) are markedly differentiated from the general population in stature and body-weight. There is no other scientific foundation than this for the extravagant doctrines of the "Positive" School.

It is also held by Dr. Goring that there is no such thing as a "mental criminal type." It is not denied that marked unlikeness of mental characters exists between criminal groups, as it does between different sections of the law-abiding community; but the point emphasised is that this unlikeness is associated not with a differentiation in criminal tendency, but with the criminal's differentiation in general intelligence or mental capacity, which, according to the nature of his crime, varies enormously: e.g., the percentage of actual mental defectives convicted of stack-firing is 53, of rape 16, of stealing 11, of manslaughter 5, whereas amongst persons convicted of embezzlement, forgery, and other forms of fraud, the percentage is practically zero. The recent Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, from an enumeration of defectives in sixteen representative districts of the British Isles, estimated that ·46 per cent. of the whole population of England and Wales are mentally defective; a similar enumeration in prisons, casual wards, shelters, etc., revealed 10·28 per cent. of mental defects. Dr. Goring contends that it is clear from this that criminals, as well as showing wide differences amongst themselves, are also, as a class, highly differentiated in mental capacity from the law-abiding classes. Mental defectives, it is argued, unlike the insane and pathological imbeciles, are not a special class of human beings, and they are chiefly distinguished from other normal persons by their low level of general intelligence. The term mental deficiency, as applied to convicts, as well as connoting a mind of inferior capacity, in many cases implies also an unbalanced mind, i.e., a mind whose equilibrium is easily disturbed by the preponderance of extreme degrees of objectionable and dangerous qualities, such as impulsiveness, excitability, passionate temper, &c. These qualities are held to be not "morbid" but "natural," being shared in some degree by persons of all mental grades. The measure of general intelligence among criminals bears also a striking relation to their occupational class. Thus, if we examine, say, 1,000 cases of conviction for crime, we should find that the percentage of mentally defective criminals varied from 6 to 35, accordingly as the offender belonged to the professional, commercial, artizan, or labouring class,—the actual percentages for all crime in each class being 6, 15, 26, and 35, respectively. Probably, in the opinion of Dr. Goring, the chief source of the high relationship between weak-mindedness and crime resides in the fact that the criminal thing, which we call "criminality," and which leads to the perpetration of many, if not most, anti-social offences to-day, is not inherent wickedness, but natural stupidity. The striking characteristic of 90 per cent. of offences is their incredible stupidity, and, moreover, it is probable that the commonly alleged causes of crime, such as alcoholism and epilepsy, are not more than accidental associations with crime, themselves depending upon the high degree of relationship which is admitted to exist between defective intelligence and crime.

So far then, the conclusion is that English criminals are selected by a physical condition and by a mental constitution which are independent of each other: that the one significant physical association with criminality is a generally defective physique, and that the one vital, mental constitutional factor in the etiology of crime is defective intelligence.

The question of the respective influence of heredity and environment is next considered by Dr Goring. The family histories of 1,500 convicts are examined, and two important relations are demonstrated (1) that the percentage of criminal offspring increases progressively according to whether neither parents, the mother only, the father only, or both parents are criminal: (2) that the percentage of criminal offspring becomes steadily greater as the age of the children increases from 14 to 23. With regard to age, the interesting fact results that the mean age of criminal enlistment is 22, with a deviation of nine years; and 14 to 32 may be regarded as the age when the chance of inherited criminal disposition is most likely to reveal itself—the modal age at first conviction is about 19.

It appears also that the probabilities of conviction are greatly increased when a brother has been convicted, and the greatest intensity of the fraternal, as well as of the paternal association, occurs in families tainted by the crimes of stealing and burglary, i.e., the taint of habitual and professional criminality. But though the tendency for crime to recur in families already criminally tainted is an indisputable statistical fact, it is not in itself a fact of heredity. It may be due to contagion within the corrupted home into which a criminal is born. The solution of the question as to which of the two influences, heredity or contagion, is predominant, cannot be determined by observation alone—there are numberless instances pointing one way or the other—it can only be determined by a statistical examination of family statistics, where the possible influence of each factor has been eliminated. The high degree of association between criminality in husband and wife would, at first sight, seem to furnish proof of the influence of contagion, it being a relation where heredity can be eliminated, but when it can be shown that every other married female criminal is the wife of a criminal husband, and that four out of every five alcoholic wives have alcoholic husbands, the theory of contagion gives way to a theory of 'associative or selective' mating among criminals, due to the universal tendency prevailing in every department of life, of like to mate with like. So again, if we eliminate contagion, i.e., if we examine crimes in the perpetration of which parental example would not play an important part, such as arson, damage, or sexual offences, the parental correlation is found to be greater than in stealing or burglary, when the influence of parental example would be likely to have most effect. The result arrived at is that the criminal diathesis, revealed by the tendency to be convicted and imprisoned for crime, is inherited at much the same rate as are other physical and mental qualities and pathological conditions in man, and that the influence of parental contagion is, on the whole, inconsiderable, relatively to the influence of inheritance, and of mental defectiveness, which are by far the most significant factors discovered in the etiology of crime.

Other environmental factors which are commonly alleged as the 'causes' of crime, e.g., illiteracy, alcoholism, poverty, etc., are examined statistically, so far as the data at the disposal of the author furnish ground for valid scientific conclusion.

These alleged causes are, in reality, nothing more than the co-existence of associated phenomena, and until such association is analysed by statistical methods, causation, in the strict scientific sense, cannot be demonstrated. Thus, to take a general instance: poverty and illiteracy are often described as the 'causes' of crime, but as more than a third of the population of Great Britain belongs to the class of general labourers, who are presumably both poor and illiterate, such a statement can mean no more than that there is a more frequent association of criminal acts with persons living on a low rather than on a high economic scale. The exact numerical measure of the association can only be obtained by elaborate statistical comparison, the data for which are not in existence.

As a matter of fact, a statistical comparison of the penal records of convicts reveals the startling fact that if there be any relation between a convict's education and the frequency of his convictions for crime, it is that those who have received no schooling are the least frequently convicted, and that the worst penal records are of those who have passed through reformatory and industrial schools. Again, if we take alcoholism—it is the fact that deaths from alcoholism are twice as frequent among prisoners as in the general population (26 per 1,000 as against 12 per 1,000), from which it might be inferred that alcoholism is specially associated with the committing of crime. But the incidence of two statistical facts does not, of itself, determine which of the two is antecedent to the other. Does the alcoholist tend to become criminal, or the criminal tend to become alcoholic? Or is the relation of alcoholism to crime due to the fact that both have a common antecedent in defective intelligence? The employment of the correlative tables would seem to point conclusively to the fact that this antecedent is defective intelligence. If a comparison is made of the mean degrees of intelligence of alcoholic and temperate convicts, it appears that there is a pronounced differentiation of intelligence in favour of the latter, and that the mental grade of alcoholic convicts is lower by a half than that of alcoholics in the general population. Apart from offences connected with personal violence, where there is a direct association with inebriety, alcoholism cannot strictly be regarded as a cause of crime, and the general conclusion would seem to be that adverse environment is related much more intimately to the intelligence of convicts than it is to the nature of their crimes, or to the degree of their recidivism. Again, if we examine the relation of occupation to criminality, it appears that crime is related much more closely to the opportunity which a particular occupation offers than to the economic scale of living which it suggests: thus, sailors, miners, and labourers are relatively free from association with the acquisitive offences, for which, from the special facilities afforded by their occupation, clerks, shop-keepers, and persons engaged in commerce are disproportionately selected; and this proclivity to fraud in all its forms is distributed equally through all these classes, the professional and the upper classes providing nearly their proportional share of thieves. Four per cent. of persons in the general population belong to the professional classes: the number of convicted thieves belonging to this class is three per cent. As ninety-five per cent. of all offences are of an acquisitive kind, it is difficult to sustain the point that poverty is a cause of crime.