Criminality and economic conditions

by Willem Adriaan Bonger

The ignorant public, who know nothing about the professional criminal except when he appears before the tribunal, is astonished to find that there are persons so abject. This astonishment is like that of some one who has never seen a house built, and cannot imagine how such a colossus can be put up. But he who has seen how the house has been erected by adding one small brick to another no longer feels any astonishment. It is the same with the professional criminal; he who has followed the story of the criminal’s life recognizes with Dr. Havelock Ellis, that his crime is but the last link of a solidly forged chain.

Generally the professional criminal does not give the least sign of repentance. He does as much injury to society as he can, without having any shame about it. Yet he is not entirely deprived of moral sense, only it extends merely to those who are really his fellows. All the tales of the world of professional criminals which depict them as void of all sense of duty toward their fellows, proceed rather from the imagination of the authors than from facts really observed. The only competent authors are those who have been able to study the criminal in his own environment, and not in prison, where his true character makes itself known as little as that of an animal in a cage. Hear the opinion of Flynt, for example. “It is often said that his (the professional criminal’s) lack of remorse for his crimes proves him to be morally incompetent; but this opinion is formed on insufficient knowledge of his life. He has two systems of morality: one for his business and the other for the hang-out.”[422] There follows the description of the relations existing between him and society of which we have already spoken, after which the author continues as follows.

“In the bosom of his hang-out, however—and this is where we ought to study his ethics,—he is a very different man. His code of morals there will compare favorably with that of any class of society; and there is no class in which fair dealing is more seriously preached, [[583]]and unfair dealing more severely condemned. The average criminal will stand by a fellow-craftsman through thick and thin; and the only human being he will not tolerate is the one who turns traitor. The remorse of this traitor when brought to bay by his former brethren I have never seen exceeded anywhere.”[423]

After expatiating upon this subject, Flynt continues: “It is thought by criminologists that the good fellowship of the criminal is due to self-preservation and the fear that each man will hang separately if all do not hang together. They maintain that his good feeling is not genuine and spontaneous emotion, and that it is immaterial what happens to a ‘pal’ so long as he himself succeeds. This is not my experience in his company. He has never had the slightest intimation that I would return favors that he did me; and in the majority of instances he has had every reason to know that it was not in my power to show him the friendliness he wanted. Yet he has treated me with an altruism that even a Tolstoi might admire. At the hang-out I have been hospitably entertained on all occasions; and I have never met a criminal there who would not have given me money or seen me through a squabble, had I needed his assistance and he was able to give it. This same comradeship is noticeable in all his relations with men who are in the least connected with his life and business; and it is notorious fact that he will ‘divvy’ his last meal with a pal. To have to refuse the request of one of his fellows, or to do him an unkindness, is as much regretted by the criminal as by anyone else; and I have never known him to tell me a lie or to cheat me or to make fun of me behind my back.”[424]

This is altogether different from what is generally said and written by those who allow themselves to be led away by their imagination. It is plain that the manner in which criminals act toward a society that is hostile to them will not fail to influence the relations they have with their fellows, just as war for those who take part in it cannot leave their moral sense as regards their compatriots unharmed. However, nothing permits us to put the actions of these persons among themselves in the same rank as those towards society. In my opinion this fact has great significance for the moralist and the criminologist; it is one of the forms of the dualism of ethics. It is of very high importance for the criminologist, for its shows that we are upon the wrong track, since it is precisely the more serious forms of crime that the present methods of repression favor. [[584]]

In imprisoning young people who have committed merely misdemeanors of minor importance, and who have not yet lost all touch with normal society, and putting them in contact with inveterate criminals, or perhaps putting them into a cage like beasts, without striving to enlighten their darkened minds or teach them morality, and without making them capable of sustaining the struggle for existence by teaching them a trade, we are bringing up professional criminals. Punishment, as a means of intimidation, misses its aim in great part, for the professional criminals are recruited among individuals who are not easily intimidated.

We have now come to the question why a certain number only of those whose childhood has been neglected and who have committed a light offense, become professional criminals. In the first place there are those whom chance favors, since they are assisted, it may be by their families, it may be by some philanthropist, and so return to the right path. There are those also who have the advantage of being able to find work, since no one knows that they have been in prison.

Others have less chance; no one aids them, there is no work for them; all, however, do not become professional thieves. Those who become such are the more intelligent, energetic, ambitious, and courageous of these outcasts; the others become vagrants and mendicants. Here is the opinion of Flynt upon the criminal by profession, an opinion which agrees with that of other competent authors. “I must say … that those criminals who are known to me are not, as is also popularly supposed, the scum of their environment. On the contrary, they are above their environment, and are often gifted with talents which would enable them to do well in any class, could they only be brought to realize its responsibilities and to take advantage of its opportunities. The notion that the criminal is the lowest type of his class arises from a false conception of that class and of the people who compose it.…

“In this same class, however, there are some who are born with ambitions, and who have energy enough to try to fulfil them. These break away from class conditions; but unfortunately, the ladder of respectable business has no foothold in their environment.…

“Not all of these ambitious ones are endowed with an equal amount of energy. Some are capable only of tramp life, which, despite its many trials and vicissitudes, is more attractive than the life they seek to escape. Those with greater energy go into crime proper; and they may be called, mentally as well as physically, the aristocracy [[585]]of their class. This is my analysis of the majority of the criminal men and women I have encountered in the open, and I believe it will hold good throughout their entire class.”[425]