One of the anthropological causes of crime is “man”, and one of the cosmic causes is “the universe.” But neither has anything to do with crime as such. Otherwise the air we breathe and the food that we eat would be causes of crime. On the contrary, it is the organization of society that is the cause of crime, and physical and anthropological influences are only conditions. (Speaking scientifically we do not separate causes and conditions, but this is the common usage.) If the causes ceased to exist the conditions would have no further importance.
Next, Dr. Turati treats of certain kinds of crime. First, crimes against property. As almost every criminologist will admit, these crimes are intimately connected with the unequal division of property. “But,” an opponent will object, “it is not possible, by means [[213]]of social institutions, to change cosmic influences, such as a low temperature, or the failure of the crops, both of which cause an increase of the crimes against property.” Those who are of this opinion forget, however, that a man does not become criminal because he is cold, but he who is cold becomes criminal only if society neglects to provide for the needs born of the cold.
The influence of society is not seen so distinctly when crimes against persons are in question. Nevertheless it is very great; the economic conditions of our day work in two ways, through poverty on the one side, and injustice on the other. Poverty injures not only the physique but also the morals of a man, since it leaves him in ignorance and grossness, and does not develop his moral sentiments. And then it is harder to bear the evils caused by society than those caused by nature. In the second place, economic inequality stifles the sense of justice in man, since it accustoms him to this inequality. “The law is equal for all”, is only a phrase, for all are not socially equal.
One of the most wide-spread objections to the proposition that crimes spring from social conditions is that if an improvement in these conditions leads to a decrease of the crimes against property, the crimes against persons increase. This is urged by Ferri, among others, as one of the most effective arguments against Turati and his partisans. But against this may be urged another fact brought out by Ferri, namely that while crime is increasing, it is becoming less intense and less brutal. We see clearly, then, that it is possible to have a powerful counter-determinant to the tendency to commit crimes against persons, i.e. education.
As to sexual crimes, they increase when the food supply increases. This is the cause: sexual needs have a direct relation to nutrition. An increase of the sexual needs, however, has nothing to do with criminality. It is only the social organization that changes these needs that have become more intense, into crimes, by subordinating the satisfaction of them to economic considerations. There are, besides, other social causes, like bad housing etc., that lead the proletariat to commit the crimes in question.
The author then points out the enormous influence of the abuse of alcohol upon criminality, the causes of this abuse being also found in the social organization.
Another argument of Ferri’s must be refuted, i.e. that Turati and his followers attach too much weight to education. Notwithstanding the equality in the education of two brothers, says Ferri, one becomes a scamp and the other a hero. To which the author replies that we [[214]]can say with just as good right, thanks to education the brother of a scamp becomes a hero.
But in speaking of education Ferri has in mind that of the bourgeoisie, which is in opposition to morality, and can consequently have but little influence. From the day when the state of society shall have become sound, and the interests of all taken to heart, morality can be in harmony with reality.
“The true, all-inclusive penal substitute is the equal diffusion, so far as is socially possible, of well-being and education, of the joys of love and thought.”