Criminality and economic conditions

by Willem Adriaan Bonger

To sum up. I believe I have shown that the fundamental causes of theft and similar crimes committed from cupidity are, on the one hand, the cupidity aroused by the environment and, on the other, neglected childhood among the poor. It is especially those weak in character who run the greatest risk of becoming guilty of these crimes.

c. CRIMES COMMITTED BY PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS.

In considering all the kinds of theft and analogous crimes, we note that the thefts committed by professional criminals represent only a minority. But as soon as we limit our consideration to the more serious forms of theft, such as burglary and similar crimes, we shall discover that they are committed almost exclusively by individuals whose principal or subsidiary occupation is theft, and who, in general, do not consider it shameful, and do not feel the slightest repentance.

The question arises, how it is possible for anyone to embrace so abject a profession, and thus become so harmful a parasite.[417] There are authors who would have us believe that there are persons who have chosen crime from pleasure in it. As Leuss observes in his work, “Aus dem Zuchthause”, this opinion is so absurd that it would be a waste of time to consider it. No one of sound mind could possibly prefer so abominable a profession, and one so full of risks from the point of view of simple calculation. There must be other reasons for the existence of such persons.[418] If we wish to examine these causes we must divide professional criminals into separate groups. [[580]]

The first category is composed of children. Sad as this is it is none the less true. It is plain that not a single child follows the profession of thief from pleasure, for a child prefers not to work at all. These children, then, are taught to steal by their parents. If they are not very numerous, in the great cities there are always some cases of this kind. Dr. Puibaraud, former police official in Paris, describes one of these as follows. “We recall that one day, on visiting the Petite-Roquette, we found in a cell a child scarcely eight years old, with a wide-awake face, a quick eye, but whose physiognomy was already very peculiar. It was a young pickpocket who had been found drunk upon the street, and who, being arrested by an agent and taken to the station, had confessed that the gold he had in his possession was the proceeds of a theft committed by him without the knowledge of his ‘papa.’ This capture ended by the whole family’s being arrested at their lodgings, near the Place Maubert.

“This gamin was very intelligent and gave the following account of himself, which was corroborated by what was brought out in the examination. ‘My father showed me how to pick pockets, but so far I have only “done” ladies because that is easier. With gentlemen you may touch their leg when you stick your hand in their pocket and they turn round, and that’s no joke! With ladies you do not get so close and they do not feel your hand. It isn’t hard at all. Papa taught me well. We went every day together to the Palais Royal and Place de la Bastille omnibus stations. The Palais Royal is no good. The best is the Madeleine, but Mother G. works that and she quarrels with papa. We don’t go there any more. Last week papa told me to wait for him at the Palais Royal omnibus stand. He didn’t come, and, “ma foi!” I went to work by myself. I got a purse from an old lady. There were sixty francs in it. I drank a bit and then I was arrested.’ ”[419]

As we see this child found theft the most natural thing in the world (and any other child in the same environment would think the same); he “worked” with his father. If exceptionally favorable circumstances do not happen to present themselves to such children they will belong to the army of professional criminals all their lives.

Now, as for the others, those who have not been brought up for a life of crime, yet practice it as their profession—how can we explain [[581]]their manner of life? The answer to this question can be found only in the works of those who have familiarized themselves with the life of criminals, and who have lived in their midst in order to know them (like Flynt, for example), or who are in a position, because of their profession, to study them in detail, and become their confidants (like the well-known almoners of the Grande-Roquette: Crozes, Moreau, and Faure).[420]

Except for a few subsidiary circumstances the life of the professional criminal may be summed up as follows. With very rare exceptions he springs from a corrupt environment, perhaps having lost his parents while still very young, or having even been abandoned by them. Being misled by bad company, he commits an “occasional” theft while still a child, for which he must pay the penalty of an imprisonment; he may, at times owe his entrance into prison to a non-economic misdeed. This, however, is a very rare exception.[421] As we have remarked above, prison never improves him, and generally makes him worse. If he is in contact with the other prisoners, among whom there are naturally a number of out and out criminals, he hears the recital of their adventurous life, learns their tricks and all that he still needs to know to be thoroughly informed as to “the profession.” Nor will the separate cell be any more profitable to him, brutalized as he already is by his earlier environment. Then after a certain time he is set at liberty and returned to society. The partisans of free will say that he has expiated his fault and can now commence a new life.

That is easy to say, and certainly justice will not concern itself with him any further until he commits a new offense. But this is not the same as saying that society pardons him and aids him, in order that he may remain in the right path. On the contrary, forgetting that we must forgive those who have trespassed against us, society makes life hard for him. It is almost impossible for him to find work; the fact that he has been in prison is enough to insure his being refused everywhere. Why should anyone hire an old prisoner when there are so many others who have never got into the courts? And then [[582]]most prisoners have never learned a trade, and this is one reason more why they cannot easily find employment. The liberated convict becomes a nomad, begins by losing all contact with the normal world (supposing he ever had any) and feels himself a social pariah. On the other hand he has relations more and more frequent with the “under world”, with those who recognize no duty toward a society which is not interested in their fate. His moral sense comes to be more and more blunted until he becomes a criminal by profession, having a feeling neither of shame nor of repentance.