These figures show that in Italy also the capitalists and liberal professions furnish a figure for criminality below that of the other groups. The same is true of the following table:
Italy, 1891–1895.[139]
| Groups of Professions. | Convicts. Annual Average to the 100,000 of the Population. | |
| Proprietors or Managers. | Dependents. | |
| Agriculture | 307.43 | 1,368.99 |
| Manufacturing, arts and trades | 678.56 | 861.57 |
| Commerce | 1,278.11 | 1,585.03 |
[[447]]
The following table is more detailed for certain occupations:
Italy, 1891–1895.[140]
| Occupations. | Convicts. | |
| Annual Average to 100,000 of Population. | ||
| Proprietors or Managers. | Dependents. | |
| Men. | ||
| Building trade | 1,654.52 | 1,895.18 |
| Manufacturing (textile, mechanical, chemical, alimentary, arts and trades) | 837.80 | 1,443.22 |
| Shoemaking | 1,080.95 | 2,254.63 |
| Meat business | 3,925.95 | 3,900.61 |
| Cafés, etc. | 1,542.12 | 914.68 |
| Sale of food and fuel | 1,035.58 | 2,411.66 |
| Other kinds of commerce | 1,649.80 | 1,383.12 |
| Navigation, fishing | 259.11 | 1.769.94 |
| Women. | ||
| Manufacturing (mines, building, tobacco, textile, alimentary, arts and trades) | 133.70 | 193.38 |
| Seamstresses, dressmakers, milliners | 285.00 | 138.15 |
| Sale of food and fuel | 460.46 | 511.49 |
| Other kinds of commerce | 2,403.88 | 3,113.34 |
We have now arrived at the end of our observations upon occupations among criminals. Other statistics are available, but either it is impossible to compare them with statistics of the non-criminal population, or they are without significance for some other reason. At any rate it seems to me that those I have given are enough to show that proportionately the non-possessors are more guilty of crime than the possessors.[141]
The thesis set forth above is confirmed, then, in three different ways. [[448]]The question still remains to be answered, to what must we attribute the greater criminality among the non-possessors?
As was remarked at the beginning of this section (on the egoistic tendency of the present economic system, and its consequences), there are three questions which present themselves in connection with the etiology of crime; first, what is the origin of the criminal idea? Second, what are the forces in man which prevent this idea from coming to realization? Third, the occasion for committing the crime. For the moment we shall concern ourselves with the second question only; and we shall ask ourselves the question, is the explanation that these forces are weaker with non-possessors than with others? It is very difficult, if not impossible, to give an answer to this question, for it is very complicated. In the first place it is necessary to prove that the environment of the non-possessors arouses thoughts for which that of the possessors offers no place. The circumstances in which the well-to-do live are in general of such a nature that the moral force has no need of offering combat, since the criminal thought does not exist. For example, in economic offenses one of the principal provocatives of criminal ideas is poverty, which is unknown to the bourgeoisie. It follows that nothing definite can be said about the relative force of the moral sentiments in these two groups of the population in counteracting criminal ideas. Other examples could be added, and I am of the opinion that this influence of the environment will be by itself sufficient to explain the difference in the criminality of the two groups.