According to the criminal statistics, 21.5% of all the sexual crimes are due to alcoholism.[488]
To sum up, we see that the causes of these crimes are the economic condition which prevents some individuals from marrying at the natural age, the inferior social position of woman, alcoholism, and above all the sexual demoralization and lack of civilization in the lowest strata of society.
It is plain that not all the individuals who live in this environment are guilty of the crimes in question. The sexual instincts do not have equal force at all ages, nor with all individuals. There are individuals who have very pronounced sexual propensities, others who are almost indifferent in this respect, and between the two extremes lies the great majority. It is only for the first class that the danger of a crime against morals is great, for the others it is less so. If the opportunity (rape is almost always an “occasional” crime) presents itself to persons already predisposed, the moral check to restrain them is lacking. If they had lived in another environment, this act would be repugnant to them, as statistics prove; for this crime is not committed by persons of the other classes, although there are naturally proportionally more persons with strong sexual instincts among them. The opportunity to commit these crimes is happily not very frequent. As Voltaire has expressed it, “Rape is a crime as hard to prove as it is to commit.”
We must add a few words upon the history of this crime and the causes that have led to its being classified as such. As Dr. Post (the principal authority upon this question) has shown, among many primitive peoples rape is only considered as a detriment to the property of the man.[489] It is only little by little as the position of woman [[621]]improves, and her individuality is recognized, that rape is considered as a grave encroachment upon the liberty of the woman, and that it is punished as such.
C. Rape and Indecent Assault upon Children.
An examination of the etiology of these crimes shows that in great part the individuals who are guilty of them belong to the same category of criminals as those who commit sexual crimes upon adults. If they seduce or outrage a child and not a woman it is from accidental reasons (opportunity, lack of bodily strength, etc.); they are brutes who wish to satisfy their sexual instincts at any price; they are not, however, perverts. Although there is a quantitative difference between the man who violates an adult and one who commits this act upon a child (the latter being grosser and more egoistic than the former), there is no qualitative difference between the two so far as the majority of the criminals of whom we are speaking are concerned. We should only repeat ourselves if we treated of the etiology of these crimes more fully.
As with the crimes of which we were speaking above, there is with crimes against children also, a great increase toward spring, the maximum being reached in the month of June, after which there is a decrease, with the minimum in winter.[490] The statistics given for France show also that in this country the periods of economic prosperity bring an increase of these crimes, and the periods of depression a decrease.[491] And it is probably the same with other countries. As has been said also of the crimes against adults, all this shows us very little of the etiology of these crimes, since the intensity of the sexual life in general rises and falls in accordance with the economic situation.
Here also the married men play a smaller part than the unmarried and divorced; the poor classes show a larger number of crimes than those that have property (see p. 616); the illiterate, and persons who know how to read and write simply, show also proportionately higher figures than persons with a higher education,[492] and alcoholism again takes its place among the causes of this crime.[493] [[622]]