Criminality and economic conditions

by Willem Adriaan Bonger

From cupidity. The class of criminals who use violence or commit a homicide from cupidity is very small. They furnish only a minor part of violent economic crimes, the total number of which is not itself very great. To show how far the influence of economic environment goes I will cite some striking cases taken at random.

First. In 1892 a certain Scheffer was convicted at Linz (Austria) of attempted murder. His crime was the following. He and his wife could earn their living only by working hard. Chance brought a change. One of their relatives, a young girl who had lost her father and mother a short time before, came to live with them. The girl being very rich, the condition of the Scheffers was entirely changed; from then on they could live in abundance. Once habituated to this wealth they were filled with the fear that their relative would marry and the money pass to someone else. Little by little the idea came to them of persuading the girl to make a will in their favor, and then killing her, an idea which they rejected at first, but which nevertheless [[595]]became stronger and stronger. From unforeseen circumstances the crime was never consummated, but stopped in the attempt.[445]

Second. In a little village upon the frontier of Austria and Bavaria there was committed in 1893 a murder under the following circumstances. One evening, while returning by himself along a lonely road, a rich peasant who was in the habit of carrying a considerable sum of money with him, was killed and robbed. It was proved that his servant was the author of the crime. This man was a natural child, very poor, and had had to work very hard all his life. Seeing his strength going he was in great fear of being no longer able to earn a living. His sole enjoyment in his monotonous and toilsome life was getting drunk on Sundays. Like most of the inhabitants of his commune he was an ardent poacher.[446]

Third. In 1892 the wife of an employe of the post office was assassinated in her dwelling in Berlin, and all her money stolen. The criminals were two young workmen of 17 and 18 years of age, one of whom knew by chance that the woman had savings.[447]

These three cases, types of hundreds of others, have in common the opportunity which had excited, in an unusual degree, the cupidity of the criminals, and the fact that these were very poor. Whatever other causes may have entered in, it is certain that without the great difference of fortune between the authors of the crimes and their victims, the crimes would never have been committed.

Finally, we come to the influence of the environment upon the authors of the crimes. As we have seen, the conditions under which criminals are brought up are in general very unfavorable, and this is especially the case with dangerous criminals. Consider, for example, the second case (we know nothing of the environment of the criminals in the first). What a life this murderer had behind him. The influences which give most men their aversion to violence were entirely lacking. On the contrary his environment had brutalized him. A natural child, he had been brought up in very poor circumstances, and was stupefied by long and toilsome work, with a weekly intoxication as his sole relaxation. No one would assert that this same individual would have become an assassin if he had lived under totally different conditions.

Or look at the third case. One of the guilty parties had been [[596]]brought up under unfavorable conditions (of the education of the other we know nothing), both were forced, quite young, to earn their living and had been thrown with bad companions, and one of them had already been sentenced to imprisonment.

It is a mistake to believe that such a case is the exception instead of being the general rule. He who takes the trouble to read the biographies of these criminals knows that they have always been brought up in an unfavorable environment, that they have suffered imprisonment at an early age, and have fallen lower and lower. As far as I know there are no statistics upon this subject except those of Dr. Baer in his study already referred to. Out of 22 young assassins examined by him 9 (40%) had had a bad education, 11 (50%) a defective education, and only 2 (10%) a better education; 8 (36%) were orphans; 11 (50%) had been brought up in very poor circumstances and were obliged while quite young to contribute to the support of the family; 10 (45%) had grown up in the streets of a great city and had thus been exposed to demoralizing influences; and 13 (60%) had received an insufficient primary education.[448]

The researches of Dr. Baer have to do with Germany, but they hold good for other countries also. Take, for example, the opinion of Tomel and Rollet, who are authors of great experience. In speaking of the “criminal type” they say: “Well, no, this type does not exist, since we always find the same conditions in the genesis of the criminal temperament, and if these educational and environmental conditions had been absent, the destiny of the little assassin might have been quite different.”[449]

We have still to fix our attention upon one side of the environment in which the authors of the crimes with which we are concerned at the moment, have lived. They come generally from an environment where,