1,949 (1.5%) out of 126,717 women convicted in the years 1891–1895 were prostitutes.[272] Here also it must be taken into account that this number is made up only of prostitutes by occupation, and that those who follow it as an auxiliary calling are grouped under other occupations. Also, L. Ferriani, in his “Minderjährige Verbrecher”, concludes that of the 460 young female criminals studied by him, 243 (52.8%) were prostitutes.[273]
What data I have been able to secure do not prove—but render [[507]]exceedingly probable—the assertion that prostitutes show a high degree of criminality. In my opinion this phenomenon is to be explained as follows.
First. From its nature the profession opens a vast field for committing economic offenses.
Second. Prostitution has a very demoralizing effect upon those that practice it. Those who have not sufficiently taken account of the real causes of prostitution consider this a confusing of cause and effect, and believe that it is the demoralization which causes prostitution. In reasoning thus they forget that part of the prostitutes are forced by poverty to take up this profession, and that in such cases there is no need of supposing demoralization. Whatever may be the case with regard to the rest, the profession would increase the demoralization already existing.
All the authors who have taken up the question are agreed that this is really the case. It is impossible to imagine a more degrading situation than that of a prostitute. A woman who is continually forced to act in opposition to her feelings, who is obliged to enter into intimate relations with the first comer however abject he may be, who has become unaccustomed to all work, and who is despised, inevitably loses all respect for herself and falls lower and lower.[274]
A second bond of connection between criminality and prostitution is that it makes possible a category of persons who constitute a permanent danger to society, namely the “protectors.” The unregistered prostitutes need a man who will look after them, and to whom they may attach themselves in their forlorn condition. In exchange for this protection the prostitute gives up a large part of her earnings. In examining the biographies of great criminals we see that a large number of them have belonged to this category. It is evident that only demoralized persons can lead such a life, but that this life in its turn increases their demoralization.[275] [[508]]
In the third place, prostitution has a demoralizing effect upon the men who come into contact with the prostitutes. We cannot lay it to chance that it is shown in many criminal procedures that guilty persons have had relations with the world of prostitution. This world includes only a relatively small number of persons; but the men who frequent it are numerous, and the demoralization which ensues is prejudicial to society. This demoralization is easily explained, as Dr. Lux shows in his “Sozialpolitisches Handbuch”, in these words: “The venality of the delights of love debases the pleasure; the man learns to see in woman only a means of satisfying his lust; all higher regard for woman is lost to him, his thoughts become frivolous and cynical, his character continually more vulgar. Whoever has an opportunity to come to know the young men of the large cities, must, unless he is already tainted with their opinions himself, be shocked at the brutality and coarseness of their thought and speech. The whole conversational material of our gilded youth consists of filth and obscenities; they boast of things that a decent man would blush to be charged with. The young man is demoralized and depraved by association with prostitutes, of whose standard of morality he must beware lest he stifle in it every nobler feeling.”[276]
g. Alcoholism. Here we have to take up but a single one of the ways in which alcoholism is connected with criminality. For while acute alcohol-poisoning enters into the etiology of sexual offenses and those committed in revenge, etc., it has almost no relation to the largest of the classes, namely economic crimes. Acute alcoholism, therefore, has no place among our general observations. With chronic alcoholism it is otherwise; for the man who is subject to this undergoes a general demoralization by which he is predisposed to crime even when he is not drunk. The manner in which this demoralization takes place is not a question within the province of [[509]]sociology; it is sufficient for us that this consequence of chronic alcoholism is universally recognized.[277]
To show the influence of chronic alcoholism upon criminality we can use only the direct statistical method; that is to say, we must find the number of chronic alcoholics among criminals, and then place beside this the number among the non-criminal population, in order that we may compare them. If the latter figures are lacking, a comparison is impossible. However, as we shall see, the percentage of chronic alcoholics is so great among the criminals, that we can affirm that among the non-criminals the percentage is very small. Consequently the influence of chronic alcoholism, whether greater or less, is indubitably proved. Here are the statistics which we have at our disposal.