After having shown in the first chapter of his work, “Verbrechen und Prostitution”,[32] the relation between criminality and prostitution, and the increase of the two at the same time, the author gives, in his second chapter, a short exposition of the doctrine of criminal anthropology, and in the third chapter he takes up the doctrine of the social environment.
Here he treats first of the encouragement of prostitution and crime by the marriage restrictions. Marriages increase or decrease as economic conditions grow better or worse. So, for example, in Prussia there were, from 1866 to 1870, 1605 marriages to 100,000 of the population; this number rose to 1896 in the period of prosperity between the years 1870 and 1875, only to fall, in 1888, to 1624. In bad times the number of illegitimate births makes a consequent increase. It is very comprehensible that natural children furnish a greater number of criminals than legitimate children, since they have more difficulty in enduring the combat of life than the others.
Then he sets forth as a cause of crime the influence of domestic relations. When the parents belong already to the class of criminals, it is almost inevitable that their children should fall into the hands of justice while still young. And the present system of production brings it about that the education of the children of the proletariat is almost nil, since it obliges the father, and very often the mother also, to work away from home during a great part of the day and often of the night. The situation is still more unfavorable for the children who have lost their parents when they were still quite young. Starke says that about 57% of the legitimate children among the juvenile prisoners in Plötzensee were orphans or had been abandoned by their parents.
The third part has to do with the housing conditions of the proletariat. “A lodging fit for a human being is the first requirement for the bodily and mental welfare of the family; it is the prerequisite for a well-regulated family life, and for the rearing of the children to be moral men and women. The improprieties resulting from the exigencies of insufficient lodgings are innumerable, and this condition [[242]]is an inexhaustible source of crime, prostitution, and vice of every kind.” All the data prove that the proletariat, who, of all classes, pay the highest rent, are the most miserably housed. In Berlin, for example, the poorest classes have been shown to spend on an average a quarter of their income for rent. In Hamburg the part of the income that had to go for rent among the class whose income was from 600 to 1200 marks, in 1868 was 18.77%, in 1874 20.90%, in 1882 23.51%, and in 1892 24.71%, while the percentage remained the same or decreased for all other classes. In order to make up the resulting deficit, resort is often had to night-lodgings. “The disadvantages of subletting are obvious. ‘Children of both sexes have to sleep with their parents, and often with strangers, in the same room, often even in the same bed; the advantages of domesticity are lost; the tavern offers more pleasant entertainment than being crowded together with wife and children in one room that must be shared with strangers, and in which the opportunity for quarreling and fighting, in consequence of the narrow quarters, is constant. It is the bad housing conditions that are the cause of the increasing alcoholism, of the break-up of the family life, and of the lack of education for the youth.’ (Braun).”[33]
The chapter that concerns us next treats of the subsidiary businesses engaged in by school children. It goes without saying that in the cases where the wages of the father of the family must be increased by the labor of the mother, the children also must be put to work at an age at which they ought to have their leisure time for play. For though child-labor in factories is a little limited by legislation, it is still commonly practiced in household industry. Further most of the children of the proletariat must, in their free hours, do all kinds of work harmful to their physique and their morals. “It is plain to be seen how greatly the school-children are injured by engaging in additional work. Entirely aside from the harm they suffer in the matter of health, and from the fact that the tired children cannot give sufficient attention to the words of the teacher and that for many of them their instruction is as good as lost, is the great fact that their morals are in the highest degree endangered. Under the pressure of necessity, these children learn to grasp every advantage, whether allowable or not, and—not through their own fault, but through that of society—are precociously familiar with vice.”[34] “Any one who examines these conditions will not be surprised that according to the statement of Superintendent Schönberger, out of 100 juvenile prisoners [[243]]in the Plötzensee prison near Berlin, 70 had been employed during school days as breakfast-carriers, newsboys, messengers, bowling-alley-boys, etc., early in the morning, from half past four on, and in some cases still earlier, until school time, and in the afternoon either the whole time, or from four till half past seven or half past eight at night.”[35]
Next, Hirsch examines the influence of economic crises. He quotes, among other things, the following from the researches of J. S(chmidt). During the economic depression from 1875 to 1878 the number of punishments inflicted by the “Ordnungspolizei” in the country of Baden rose from 16,218 to 22,264, and that of the penalties inflicted by the “Sittenpolizei” (having surveillance of prostitution) from 1995 to 4485. There were increases, therefore, of 40% and 125%. In the period of prosperity from 1882 to 1885 these figures fell from 22,765 to 18,856 (16%), and from 4106 to 4007 (3%). During the critical years from 1889 to 1892 the number of recidivists convicted of theft rose 18%, and the number of other thieves convicted 6%. In the period from 1875 to 1878 (years of crisis) the number of offenses against property rose 17.4%, and decreased 13% in the years 1882 to 1885 (a period of prosperity).
In conclusion the author points out the fact that there are also criminals who are predisposed to crime by their physical constitution (mental disorders), and treats of “the repression of crime and prostitution.”[36] [[244]]
[1] See also, as members of the “Terza Scuola”: Vaccaro, “Genesi e funzione delle leggi penali”; Carnevale, “Una terza scuola di diritto penale”; Alimena, “Naturalismo critico e diritto penale.” In the “Mitteilungen der internationalen kriminalistischen Vereinigung”, Vol. IV, is found an article by Dr. E. Rosenfeld, entitled “Die dritte Schule”, in which the doctrine of this school is fully treated.
In a discourse more distinguished by hatred of Marxism than by a knowledge of that doctrine, Professor Benedikt said at the Congress of Criminal Anthropology held in Brussels: “The partisans of the ‘Terza Scuola’ are in reality only Marxists.” Among those considered as belonging to the Third School, there is only one Marxist as far as I know. Professor Benedikt may have been led into his error by the fact that Dr. Colajanni, one of the principal partisans of the Third School, and also one of the few criminologists of this school who has written upon the affinity between criminality and economic conditions, is in agreement with the Marxists in this, that he finds the causes of crime, in the last analysis, in economic conditions. This is why I speak of Dr. Colajanni, as representing the Third School, and of the socialists in the same chapter. Although Colajanni calls himself a republican in political matters, he is nevertheless a partisan of an eclectic socialism. (See “Il Socialismo.”) It is for this reason also that it is well to name him in this chapter. Other partisans of the Third School are also, as it appears, more or less of this opinion (see p. 18 of “Die dritte Schule”, where Dr. Rosenfeld treats of Professor Carnevale). However, it is evident from the manner in which Dr. Colajanni treats the question, that he is not a Marxist. [↑]