VI.
H. Denis.
Professor Denis begins his report to the 3d Congress of Criminal Anthropology, entitled “La criminalité et la crise économique”, by calling attention to the effect that the crisis of 1846–47 had upon criminality. The crops of wheat, rye, and especially potatoes had been bad, and the price of these articles of food had accordingly risen. The breaking up of household labor and the introduction of machines brought about a revolution in the linen industry at the same time. So the figures for crime indicate an enormous increase during these years, and at the close of the period a continuous decrease. [[236]]
| Years. | Numbers of Delinquents to the 10,000 Inhabitants. |
| 1845 | 28.8 |
| 1846 | 47.9 |
| 1847 | 65.3 |
| 1848 | 42.4 |
| 1849 | 25.– |
| 1850 | 19.8 |
| 1851 | 19.8 |
| 1852 | 19.2 |
| 1853 | 19.7 |
Then the author treats of the effect produced upon criminality by the crises of 1874 and the years following. The price of grain no longer giving, in consequence of importation, an exact picture of the economic conditions, he adds to the chart which he uses, the “nombres indicateurs” (of 28 of the more important articles of commerce). The curve of these numbers shows a fluctuating rise during the period from 1850 to 1865, and a fluctuating decline during the period following the years 1874–75. During the first period, in which the economic conditions were favorable (the years 1870 to 1873 being characterized by an economic development that was even feverish), criminality remained fairly stationary. Only during the years 1856–57 and 1861–62 was there an increase, and this is probably to be ascribed to the high price of grain. The economic depression that commenced after 1874 was severely felt, and crime continually increased without the low price of grain being able to prevent it.
Professor Denis closes his report with the following words: “The solution of the problem of criminality must be in part sought in economic conditions; and the more regular and constant the social movement of wealth, the more we approach a normal equilibrium of collective functions, the more we instil justice into our economic institutions, the more shall we be able to gain the mastery over criminality.
“An Italian criminologist, Ferri, studying the evolution of criminality in France in relation to the income of the most numerous class, has shown that with a general rise in wages we see a decrease in certain kinds of crime. The general increase of prosperity is a sure pledge of a decrease in criminality. But there is another, and that is a decrease in those more or less marked oscillations, in the economic world, whose periodic return is certainly one of the gravest aspects of the modern state.
“In the second place, the economic causes that affect the tendency to crime reveal an immense solidarity, which continues to extend [[237]]itself into space, as heredity plunges its roots into time. The great fluctuations in prices are common to the whole world, and the individual whom these perturbations drive to crime by a series of shocks, comes into conflict with a great number of other individuals, without being conscious of this infinite solidarity. But science must endeavor to collect the evidence of it. Finally these great economic influences tend, on the one hand, to reduce the field of the individual responsibility, and on the other, to give a precise character to the responsibility of society in this connection. It is responsible, in fact, within the limits within which it might have restrained the economic fluctuations and corrected their effects, but has not done so. Here the terrible saying of Quetelet is still true: society herself has put the weapon into the hand of the criminal.”[24]