A criminal is a man who violates the laws decreed by the State to
regulate the relations between its citizens, but the voluminous codes
which in past times set forth these laws treat only of crime, never of
the criminal. That ignoble multitude whom Dante relegated to the
Infernal Regions were consigned by magistrates and judges to the care of
gaolers and executioners, who alone deigned to deal with them. The
judge, immovable in his doctrine, unshaken by doubts, solemn in all his
inviolability and convinced of his wisdom, which no one dared to
question, passed sentence without remission according to his whim, and
both judge and culprit were equally ignorant of the ultimate effect of
the penalties inflicted.
In 1764, the great Italian jurist and economist, Cesare Beccaria first
called public attention to those wretched beings, whose confessions (if
statements extorted by torture can thus be called) formed the sole
foundation for the trial, the sole guide in the application of the
punishment, which was bestowed blindly, without formality, without
hearing the defence, exactly as though sentence were being passed on
abstract symbols, not on human souls and bodies.
The Classical School of Penal Jurisprudence, of which Beccaria was the
founder and Francesco Carrara the greatest and most glorious disciple,
aimed only at establishing sound judgments and fixed laws to guide
capricious and often undiscerning judges in the application of
penalties. In writing his great work, the founder of this School was
inspired by the highest of all human sentiments—pity; but although the
criminal incidentally receives notice, the writings of this School treat
only of the application of the law, not of offenders themselves.
This is the difference between the Classical and the Modern School of
Penal Jurisprudence. The Classical School based its doctrines on the
assumption that all criminals, except in a few extreme cases, are
endowed with intelligence and feelings like normal individuals, and that
they commit misdeeds consciously, being prompted thereto by their
unrestrained desire for evil. The offence alone was considered, and on
it the whole existing penal system has been founded, the severity of the
sentence meted out to the offender being regulated by the gravity of his misdeed.
The Modern, or Positive, School of Penal Jurisprudence, on the contrary,
maintains that the anti-social tendencies of criminals are the result of
their physical and psychic organisation, which differs essentially from
that of normal individuals; and it aims at studying the morphology and
various functional phenomena of the criminal with the object of curing,
instead of punishing him. The Modern School is therefore founded on a
new science, Criminal Anthropology, which may be defined as the Natural
History of the Criminal, because it embraces his organic and psychic
constitution and social life, just as anthropology does in the case of
normal human beings and the different races.
If we examine a number of criminals, we shall find that they exhibit
numerous anomalies in the face, skeleton, and various psychic and
sensitive functions, so that they strongly resemble primitive races. It
was these anomalies that first drew my father's attention to the close
relationship between the criminal and the savage and made him suspect
that criminal tendencies are of atavistic origin.
When a young doctor at the Asylum in Pavia, he was requested to make a
post-mortem examination on a criminal named Vilella, an Italian Jack the
Ripper, who by atrocious crimes had spread terror in the Province of
Lombardy. Scarcely had he laid open the skull, when he perceived at the
base, on the spot where the internal occipital crest or ridge is found
in normal individuals, a small hollow, which he called median occipital
fossa (see Fig. 1). This abnormal character was correlated to a still
greater anomaly in the cerebellum, the hypertrophy of the vermis,
i.e., the spinal cord which separates the cerebellar lobes lying
underneath the cerebral hemispheres. This vermis was so enlarged in the
case of Vilella, that it almost formed a small, intermediate cerebellum
like that found in the lower types of apes, rodents, and birds. This
anomaly is very rare among inferior races, with the exception of the
South American Indian tribe of the Aymaras of Bolivia and Peru, in whom
it is not infrequently found (40%). It is seldom met with in the insane
or other degenerates, but later investigations have shown it to be
prevalent in criminals.
This discovery was like a flash of light. "At the sight of that skull,"
says my father, "I seemed to see all at once, standing out clearly
illumined as in a vast plain under a flaming sky, the problem of the
nature of the criminal, who reproduces in civilised times
characteristics, not only of primitive savages, but of still lower types
as far back as the carnivora."
Fig. 1Fossette Occipital(see
page 6)
Thus was explained the origin of the enormous jaws, strong canines,
prominent zygomæ, and strongly developed orbital arches which he had so
frequently remarked in criminals, for these peculiarities are common to
carnivores and savages, who tear and devour raw flesh. Thus also it was
easy to understand why the span of the arms in criminals so often
exceeds the height, for this is a characteristic of apes, whose
fore-limbs are used in walking and climbing. The other anomalies
exhibited by criminals—the scanty beard as opposed to the general
hairiness of the body, prehensile foot, diminished number of lines in
the palm of the hand, cheek-pouches, enormous development of the middle
incisors and frequent absence of the lateral ones, flattened nose and
angular or sugar-loaf form of the skull, common to criminals and apes;
the excessive size of the orbits, which, combined with the hooked nose,
so often imparts to criminals the aspect of birds of prey, the
projection of the lower part of the face and jaws (prognathism) found in
negroes and animals, and supernumerary teeth (amounting in some cases to
a double row as in snakes) and cranial bones (epactal bone as in the
Peruvian Indians): all these characteristics pointed to one conclusion,
the atavistic origin of the criminal, who reproduces physical, psychic,
and functional qualities of remote ancestors.
Subsequent research on the part of my father and his disciples showed
that other factors besides atavism come into play in determining the
criminal type. These are: disease and environment. Later on, the study
of innumerable offenders led them to the conclusion that all
law-breakers cannot be classed in a single species, for their ranks
include very diversified types, who differ not only in their bent
towards a particular form of crime, but also in the degree of tenacity
and intensity displayed by them in their perverse propensities, so that,
in reality, they form a graduated scale leading from the born criminal
to the normal individual.
Born criminals form about one third of the mass of offenders, but,
though inferior in numbers, they constitute the most important part of
the whole criminal army, partly because they are constantly appearing
before the public and also because the crimes committed by them are of a
peculiarly monstrous character; the other two thirds are composed of
criminaloids (minor offenders), occasional and habitual criminals, etc.,
who do not show such a marked degree of diversity from normal persons.
Let us commence with the born criminal, who as principal nucleus of the
wretched army of law-breakers, naturally manifests the most numerous and
salient anomalies.
The median occipital fossa and other abnormal features just enumerated
are not the only peculiarities exhibited by this aggravated type of
offender. By careful research, my father and others of his School have
brought to light many anomalies in bodily organs, and functions both
physical and mental, all of which serve to indicate the atavistic and
pathological origin of the instinctive criminal.
It would be incompatible with the scope of this summary, were I to give
a minute description of the innumerable anomalies discovered in
criminals by the Modern School, to attempt to trace such abnormal traits
back to their source, or to demonstrate their effect on the organism.
This has been done in a very minute fashion in the three volumes of my
father's work Criminal Man and his subsequent writings on the same
subject, Modern Forms of Crime, Recent Research in Criminal
Anthropology, Prison Palimpsests, etc., etc., to which readers
desirous of obtaining a more thorough knowledge of the subject should refer.
The present volume will only touch briefly on the principal
characteristics of criminals, with the object of presenting a general
outline of the studies of criminologists.
The Head. As the seat of all the greatest disturbances, this part
naturally manifests the greatest number of anomalies, which extend from
the external conformation of the brain-case to the composition of its contents.
The criminal skull does not exhibit any marked characteristics of size
and shape. Generally speaking, it tends to be larger or smaller than the
average skull common to the region or country from which the criminal
hails. It varies between 1200 and 1600 c.c.; i.e., between 73 and 100
cubic inches, the normal average being 92. This applies also to the
cephalic index; that is, the ratio of the maximum width to the maximum
length of the skull[1] multiplied by 100, which serves to give a
concrete idea of the form of the skull, because the higher the index,
the nearer the skull approaches a spherical form, and the lower the
index, the more elongated it becomes. The skulls of criminals have no
characteristic cephalic index, but tend to an exaggeration of the
ethnical type prevalent in their native countries. In regions where
dolichocephaly (index less than 80) abounds, the skulls of criminals
show a very low index; if, on the contrary, they are natives of
districts where brachycephaly (index 80 or more) prevails, they exhibit a very high index.
SKULL FORMATION
 | |
 |
| Fig. 2 | |
Fig. 3 |
In 15.5% we find trochocephalous or abnormally round heads (index 91). A
very high percentage (nearly double that of normal individuals) have
submicrocephalous or small skulls. In other cases the skull is
excessively large (macrocephaly) or abnormally small and ill-shaped with
a narrow, receding forehead (microcephaly, 0.2%). More rarely the skull
is of normal size, but shaped like the keel of a boat (scaphocephaly,
0.1% and subscaphocephaly 6%). (See Fig. 2.) Sometimes the anomalies are
still more serious and we find wholly asymmetrical skulls with
protuberances on either side (plagiocephaly 10.9%, see Fig. 3), or
terminating in a peak on the bregma or anterior fontanel (acrocephaly,
see Fig. 4), or depressed in the middle (cymbocephaly, sphenocephaly).
At times, there are crests or grooves along the sutures (11.9%) or the
cranial bones are abnormally thick, a characteristic of savage peoples
(36.6%) or abnormally thin (8.10%). Other anomalies of importance are
the presence of Wormian bones in the sutures of the skull (21.22%), the
bone of the Incas already alluded to (4%), and above all, the median
occipital fossa. Of great importance also are the prominent frontal
sinuses found in 25% (double that of normal individuals), the
semicircular line of the temples, which is sometimes so exaggerated that
it forms a ridge and is correlated to an excessive development of the
temporal muscles, a common characteristic of primates and carnivores.
Sometimes the forehead is receding, as in apes (19%), or low and narrow (10%).
The Face. In striking contrast to the narrow forehead and low vault of
the skull, the face of the criminal, like those of most animals, is of
disproportionate size, a phenomenon intimately connected with the
greater development of the senses as compared with that of the nervous
centres. Prognathism, the projection of the lower portion of the face
beyond the forehead, is found in 45.7% of criminals. Progeneismus, the
projection of the lower teeth and jaw beyond the upper, is found in 38%,
whereas among normal persons the proportion is barely 28%. As a natural
consequence of this predominance of the lower portion of the face, the
orbital arches and zygomæ show a corresponding development (35%) and the
size of the jaws is naturally increased, the mean diameter being 103.9
mm. (4.09 inches) as against 93 mm. (3.66 inches) in normal persons.
Among criminals 29% have voluminous jaws.
The excessive dimensions of the jaws and cheek-bones admit of other
explanations besides the atavistic one of a greater development of the
masticatory system. They may have been influenced by the habit of
certain gestures, the setting of the teeth or tension of the muscles of
the mouth, which accompany violent muscular efforts and are natural to
men who form energetic or violent resolves and meditate plans of revenge.
Asymmetry is a common characteristic of the criminal physiognomy. The
eyes and ears are frequently situated at different levels and are of
unequal size, the nose slants towards one side, etc. This asymmetry, as
we shall see later, is connected with marked irregularities in the senses and functions.
The Eye. This window, through which the mind opens to the outer
world, is naturally the centre of many anomalies of a psychic character,
hard expression, shifty glance, which are difficult to describe but are,
nevertheless, apparent to all observers (see Fig. 4). Side by side with
peculiarities of expression, we find many physical anomalies—ptosis, a
drooping of the upper eyelid, which gives the eye a half-closed
appearance and is frequently unilateral; and strabismus, a want of
parallelism between the visual axes, which is insignificant if it arises
from errors of refraction, but is very serious if it betokens
progressive or congenital diseases of the brain or its membranous
coverings. Other anomalies are asymmetry of the iris, which frequently
differs in colour from its fellow; oblique eyelids, a Mongolian
characteristic, with the edge of the upper eyelid folding inward or a
prolongation of the internal fold of the eyelid, which Metchnikoff
regards as a persistence of embryonic characters.
The Ear. The external ear is often of large size; occasionally also it
is smaller than the ears of normal individuals. Twenty-eight per cent.
of criminals have handle-shaped ears standing out from the face as in
the chimpanzee: in other cases they are placed at different levels.
Frequently too, we find misshapen, flattened ears, devoid of helix,
tragus, and anti-tragus, and with a protuberance on the upper part of
the posterior margin (Darwin's tubercle), a relic of the pointed ear
characteristic of apes. Anomalies are also found in the lobe, which in
some cases adheres too closely to the face, or is of huge size as in the
ancient Egyptians; in other cases, the lobe is entirely absent, or is
atrophied till the ear assumes a form like that common to apes.
The Nose. This is frequently twisted, up-turned or of a flattened,
negroid character in thieves; in murderers, on the contrary, it is often
aquiline like the beak of a bird of prey. Not infrequently we meet with
the trilobate nose, its tip rising like an isolated peak from the
swollen nostrils, a form found among the Akkas, a tribe of pygmies of
Central Africa. All these peculiarities have given rise to popular saws,
of a character more or less prevalent everywhere.
The Mouth. This part shows perhaps a greater number of anomalies than
any other facial organ. We have already alluded to the excessive
development of the jaws in criminals. They are sometimes the seat of
other abnormal characters,—the lemurine apophysis, a bony elevation at
the angle of the jaw, which may easily be recognised externally by
passing the hand over the skin; and the canine fossa, a depression in
the upper jaw for the attachment of the canine muscle. This muscle,
which is strongly developed in the dog, serves when contracted to draw
back the lip leaving the canines exposed.
The lips of violators of women and murderers are fleshy, swollen and
protruding, as in negroes. Swindlers have thin, straight lips. Hare-lip
is more common in criminals than in normal persons.
The Cheek-pouches. Folds in the flesh of the cheek which recall the
pouches of certain species of mammals, are not uncommon in criminals.
The Palate. A central ridge (torus palatinus), more easily felt than
seen, may sometimes be found on the palate, or this part may exhibit
other peculiarities, a series of cavities and protuberances
corresponding to the palatal teeth of reptiles. Another frequent
abnormality is cleft palate, a fissure in the palate, due to defective development.
The Teeth. These are specially important, for criminals rarely have
normal dentition. The incisors show the greatest number of anomalies.
Sometimes both the lateral incisors are absent and the middle ones are
of excessive size, a peculiarity which recalls the incisors of rodents.
The teeth are frequently striated transversely or set very wide apart
(diastema) with gaps on either side of the upper canines into which the
lower ones fit, a simian characteristic. In some cases, these spaces
occur between the middle incisors or between these and the lateral ones.
| Fig. 4 | | Fig. 5 |
 | |  |
Head of Criminal
(see page 14) | | Head of Criminal
(see page 18) |
Very often the teeth show a strange uniformity, which recalls the
homodontism of the lower vertebrates. In some cases, however, this
uniformity is limited to the premolars, which are furnished with
tubercles like the molars, a peculiarity of gorillas and orang-outangs.
In 4% the canines are very strongly developed, long, sharp, and curving
inwardly as in carnivores. Premature caries is common.
The Chin. Generally speaking, this part of the face projects
moderately in Europeans. In criminals it is often small and receding, as
in children, or else excessively long, short or flat, as in apes.
Wrinkles. Although common to normal individuals, the abundance,
variety, and precocity of wrinkles almost invariably manifested by
criminals, cannot fail to strike the observer. The following are the
most common: horizontal and vertical lines on the forehead, horizontal
and circumflex lines at the root of the nose, the so-called crow's-feet
on the temple at the outer corners of the eyes, naso-labial wrinkles
around the region of the mouth and nose.
The Hair. The hair of the scalp, cheeks and chin, eyebrows, and other
parts of the body, shows a number of anomalies. In general it may be
said that in the distribution of hair, criminals of both sexes tend to
exhibit characteristics of the opposite sex. Dark hair prevails
especially in murderers, and curly and woolly hair in swindlers. Both
grey hair and baldness are rare and when found make their appearance
later in life than in the case of normal individuals. The beard is
scanty and frequently missing altogether. On the other hand, the
forehead is often covered with down. The eyebrows are bushy and tend to
meet across the nose. Sometimes they grow in a slanting direction and
give the face a satyr-like expression (see Fig. 5).
The blemishes peculiar to the delinquent are not only confined to the
face and head, but are found in the trunk and limbs.
The Thorax. An increase or decrease in the number of ribs is found in
12% of criminals. This is an atavistic character common to animals and
lower or prehistoric human races and contrasts with the numerical
uniformity characteristic of civilised mankind.
Polymastia, or the presence of supernumerary nipples (which are
generally placed symmetrically below the normal ones as in many mammals)
is not an uncommon anomaly. Gynecomastia or hypertrophy of the mammæ is
still more frequent in male criminals. In female criminals, on the
contrary, we often find imperfect development or absence of the
nipples, a characteristic of monotremata or lowest order of the mammals;
or the breasts are flabby and pendent like those of Hottentot women.
The chest is often covered with hair which gives the subject the appearance of an animal.
The Pelvis and Abdomen. The abdomen, pelvis, and reproductive organs
sometimes show an inversion of sex-characters. In 42% the sacral canal
is uncovered, and in some cases there is a prolongation of the coccyx,
which resembles the stump of a tail, sometimes tufted with hair.
The Upper Limbs. One of the most striking and frequent anomalies
exhibited by criminals is the excessive length of the arms as compared
with the lower limbs, owing to which the span of the arms exceeds the
total height, an ape-like character.
Six per cent. exhibit an anomaly which is extremely rare among normal
individuals—the olecranon foramen, a perforation in the head of the
humerus where it articulates with the ulna. This is normal in the ape
and dog and is frequently found in the bones of prehistoric man and in
some of the existing inferior races of mankind.
Several abnormal characters, which point to an atavistic origin, are
found in the palm and fingers. Supernumerary fingers (polydactylism) or
a reduction in the usual number are not uncommon. Sometimes we find
syndactylism, or palmate fingers, a continuation of the interdigital
skin to the second phalanx. The length of the fingers varies according
to the type of crime to which the individual is addicted. Those guilty
of crimes against the person have short, clumsy fingers and especially
short thumbs. Long fingers are common to swindlers, thieves, sexual
offenders, and pickpockets. The lines on the palmar surfaces of the
finger-tips are often of a simple nature as in the anthropoids. The
principal lines on the palm are of special significance. Normal persons
possess three, two horizontal and one vertical, but in criminals these
lines are often reduced to one or two of horizontal or transverse
direction, as in apes.
The Lower Limbs. Of a number of criminals examined, 16% showed an
unusual development of the third trochanter, a protuberance on the head
of the femur where it articulates with the pelvis. This distinctly
atavistic character is connected with the position of the hind-limb in quadrupeds.
The Feet. Spaces between the toes like the interdigital spaces of the
hand are very common, and in conjunction with the greater mobility of
the toes and greater length of the big-toe, produce the prehensile foot,
of the quadrumana, which is used for grasping. The foot is often flat,
as in negroes. In the feet, as in the hands, there is frequently a
tendency to greater strength or dexterity on the left side, contrary to
what happens in normal persons, and this tendency is manifested in many
cases where there is no trace of functional and motorial left-handedness.
The Cerebrum and the Cerebellum. The chief and most common anomaly is
the prevalence of macroscopic anomalies in the left hemisphere, which
are correlated to the sensory and functional left-handedness common to
criminals and acquired through illness. The most notable anomaly of the
cerebellum is the hypertrophy of the vermis, which represents the middle
lobe found in the lower mammals. Anomalies in the cerebral convolutions
consist principally of anastomotic folds, the doubling of the fissure of
Rolando, the frequent existence of a fourth frontal convolution, the
imperfect development of the precuneus (as in many types of apes), etc.
Anomalies of a purely pathological character are still more common.
These are: adhesions of the meninges, thickening of the pia mater,
congestion of the meninges, partial atrophy, centres of softening,
seaming of the optic thalami, atrophy of the corpus callosum, etc.
Of great importance, too, are the histological anomalies discovered by
Roncoroni in the brains of criminals and epileptics. In normal
individuals the layers of the frontal region are disposed in the following manner:
1. Molecular layer. 2. Superficial layer of small cells. 3. Layer of
small pyramidal cells. 4. Deep layer of small nerve cells. 5. Layer of
polymorphous cells (see Fig. 6).
In certain animals, the dog, ape, rabbit, ox, and domestic fowl, the
superficial layer is frequently non-existent and the deep one is found
only to some extent in the ape.
In born criminals and epileptics there is a prevalence of large,
pyramidal, and polymorphous cells, whereas in normal individuals small,
triangular, and star-shaped cells predominate. Also the transition from
the small superficial to the large pyramidal cells is not so regular,
and the number of nervous cells is noticeably below the average.
Whereas, moreover, in the normally constituted brain, nervous cells are
very scarce or entirely absent in the white substance, in the case of
born criminals and epileptics they abound in this part of the brain.
The abnormal morphological arrangement described by Roncoroni is
probably the anatomical expression of hereditary alterations, and
reveals disorders in nervous development which lead to moral insanity
or epilepsy according to the gravity of the morbid conditions which give
rise to them.
Fig. 6
a) Cortical strata of the circumvolutions of the parietal lobes of a normal person.
b) Cortical strata of the circumvolutions of the parietal lobes of a criminal epileptic.
1. Molecular stratum. 2. External granular stratum. 3. Stratum of the
small pyramidal cells. 4. Stratum of the large pyramidal cells. 5. Deep
stratum of the small nervous cells or the deep granular stratum. 6.
Stratum of polymorphic cells. S.B. White matter.
These anomalies in the limbs, trunk, skull and, above all, in the face,
when numerous and marked, constitute what is known to criminal
anthropologists as the criminal type, in exactly the same way as the sum
of the characters peculiar to cretins form what is called the cretinous
type. In neither case have the anomalies an intrinsic importance, since
they are neither the cause of the anti-social tendencies of the criminal
nor of the mental deficiencies of the cretin. They are the outward and
visible signs of a mysterious and complicated process of degeneration,
which in the case of the criminal evokes evil impulses that are largely
of atavistic origin.
The above-mentioned physiognomical and skeletal anomalies are further
supplemented by functional peculiarities, and all these abnormal
characteristics converge, as mountain streams to the hollow in the
plain, towards a central idea—the atavistic nature of the born criminal.
An examination of the senses and sensibility of criminals gives the following results:
General Sensibility. Tested simply by touching with the finger, a
certain degree of obtuseness is noted. By using an apparatus invented by
Du Bois-Reymond and adopted by my father, the degree of sensibility
obtained was 49.6 mm. in criminals as against 64.2 mm. in normal
individuals. Criminals are more sensitive on the left side, contrary to
normal persons, in whom greater sensibility prevails on the right.
Sensibility to Pain. Compared with ordinary individuals, the criminal
shows greater insensibility to pain as well as to touch. This obtuseness
sometimes reaches complete analgesia or total absence of feeling (16%),
a phenomenon never encountered in normal persons. The mean degree of
dolorific sensibility in criminals is 34.1 mm. whereas it is rarely
lower than 40 mm. in normal individuals. Here again the left-handedness
of criminals becomes apparent, 39% showing greater sensibility on the left.
Tactile Sensibility. The distance at which two points applied to the
finger-tips are felt separately is more than 4 mm. in 30% of criminals,
a degree of obtuseness only found in 4% of normal individuals. Criminals
exhibit greater tactile sensibility on the left. Tactile obtuseness
varies with the class of crime practised by the individual. While in
burglars, swindlers, and assaulters, it is double that of normal
persons, in murderers, violators, and incendiaries it is often four or five times as great.
Sensibility to the Magnet, which scarcely exists in normal persons, is
common to a marked degree in criminals (48%).
Meteoric Sensibility. This is far more apparent in criminals and the
insane than in normal individuals. With variations of temperature and
atmospheric pressure, both criminals and lunatics become agitated and
manifest changes of disposition and sensations of various kinds, which
are rarely experienced by normal persons.
Sight is generally acute, perhaps more so than in ordinary
individuals, and in this the criminal resembles the savage. Chromatic
sensibility, on the contrary, is decidedly defective, the percentage of
colour-blindness being twice that of normal persons. The field of vision
is frequently limited by the white and exhibits much stranger anomalies,
a special irregularity of outline with deep peripheral scotoma, which we
shall see is a special characteristic of the epileptic.
Hearing, Smell, Taste are generally of less than average acuteness
in criminals. Cases of complete anosmia and qualitative obtuseness are
not uncommon.[2]
Agility. Criminals are generally agile and preserve this quality even
at an advanced age. When over seventy, Vilella sprang like a goat up the
steep rocks of his native Calabria, and the celebrated thief "La
Vecchia," when quite an old man, escaped from his captors by leaping
from a high rampart at Pavia.
Strength. Contrary to what might be expected, tests by means of the
dynamometer show that criminals do not usually possess an extraordinary
degree of strength. There is frequently a slight difference between the
strength of the right and left limbs, but more often ambidexterity, as
in children, and a greater degree of strength in the left limbs.
The physical type of the criminal is completed and intensified by his
moral and intellectual physiognomy, which furnishes a further proof of
his relationship to the savage and epileptic.
Natural Affections. These play an important part in the life of a
normally constituted individual and are in fact the raison d'être of
his existence, but the criminal rarely, if ever, experiences emotions of
this kind and least of all regarding his own kin. On the other hand, he
shows exaggerated and abnormal fondness for animals and strangers. La
Sola, a female criminal, manifested about as much affection for her
children as if they had been kittens and induced her accomplice to
murder a former paramour, who was deeply attached to her; yet she tended
the sick and dying with the utmost devotion.
In the place of domestic and social affections, the criminal is
dominated by a few absorbing passions: vanity, impulsiveness, desire for revenge, licentiousness.
The ability to discriminate between right and wrong, which is the
highest attribute of civilised humanity, is notably lacking in
physically and psychically stunted organisms. Many criminals do not
realise the immorality of their actions. In French criminal jargon
conscience is called "la muette," the thief "l'ami," and "travailler"
and "servir" signify to steal. A Milanese thief once remarked to my
father: "I don't steal. I only relieve the rich of their superfluous
wealth." Lacenaire, speaking of his accomplice Avril, remarked, "I
realised at once that we should be able to work together." A thief asked
by Ferri what he did when he found the purse stolen by him contained no
money, replied, "I call them rogues." The notions of right and wrong
appear to be completely inverted in such minds. They seem to think they
have a right to rob and murder and that those who hinder them are
acting unfairly. Murderers, especially when actuated by motives of
revenge, consider their actions righteous in the extreme.
Repentance and Remorse. We hear a great deal about the remorse of
criminals, but those who come into contact with these degenerates
realise that they are rarely, if ever, tormented by such feelings. Very
few confess their crimes: the greater number deny all guilt in a most
strenuous manner and are fond of protesting that they are victims of
injustice, calumny, and jealousy. As Despine once remarked with much
insight, nothing resembles the sleep of the just more closely than the slumbers of an assassin.
Many criminals, indeed, allege repentance, but generally from
hypocritical motives; either because they hope to gain some advantage by
working on the feelings of philanthropists, or with a view to escaping,
or, at any rate, improving their condition while in prison. Thus
Lacenaire, when convicted for the first time, wrote in a moving strain
to his friend Vigouroux in order to get money and help from him,
"Repentance is the only course left open to me. You may well feel
pleased at having turned a man from a path of crime for which he was not
intended by nature." A few hours later he committed another theft, and
before he died remarked cynically that he had never experienced
remorse. When tried at the Assizes at Pavia, Rognoni pronounced a
touching discourse on his repentance and refused the wine brought him in
prison for some days because it reminded him of his murdered brother.
But he obtained it surreptitiously from his fellow-prisoners, and when
one of them grumbled at having to give up his own portion, Rognoni
threatened him saying, "I have already murdered four, and shall make no
bones about killing a fifth."
Sometimes remorse is advanced by criminals as a palliation of their
crimes. Michelieu justified the coup de grace inflicted on his victim
by saying, "When I saw her in that state, I felt such terrible remorse
that I shot her dead in order not to meet her glance."
Sometimes an appearance of remorse is produced by hallucinations due to
alcoholism. Philippe and Lucke imagined they saw the spectres of the
persons they had murdered a short time before, but in reality they were
suffering from the effects of drink and so little true remorse did they
feel that on being sentenced, Philippe remarked, "If they had not sent
me to Cayenne, I should have done it again." Generally speaking, what
seems to be repentance is only the fear of death or some superstitious
dread, which assumes an appearance of remorse, but is devoid of real
feeling.
A typical instance of hypocrisy and cynicism is furnished by the
Marquise de Brinvilliers, the notorious poisoner, who succeeded in
deceiving the venerable prison-chaplain so completely that he regarded
her as a model of penitence, yet in her last moments she wrote to her
husband denying her guilt and exhibited lascivious and revengeful feelings.
Many criminals, when in prison, model sculptural representations of
their crimes with crumbs of bread (see Fig. 7).
Cynicism. The strongest proof of the total lack of remorse in
criminals and their inability to distinguish between good and evil is
furnished by the callous way in which they boast of their depraved
actions and feign pious sentiments which they do not feel. One criminal
humbly entreated to be allowed to retain his own crucifix while in
prison. It was subsequently discovered that the sacred image served as a
sheath for his dagger (see Fig. 8).
Philippe made the following statement to one of his female companions.
"My way of loving women is a very strange one. After enjoying their
caresses, I take the greatest delight in strangling them or cutting
their throats. Soon you will hear everyone talking about me." Shortly
before he murdered his father, Lachaud said to his friends, "This
evening I shall dig a grave and lay my father there to rest eternally."
Sometimes, indeed, a criminal realises dimly the depravity of his
actions; he rarely judges them, however, as a normal person would, but
seeks to explain and justify them after his own fashion. When asked by
the magistrate if he denied having stolen a horse, Ansalone replied,
"Surely you do not call that a theft; a leader of brigands could hardly
be expected to go on foot!"
Others consider that their actions are less criminal if their intentions
were good; like Holland, who murdered to obtain food for his wife and
children. Others, again, think themselves excused by the fact that many
do worse things with impunity. Any circumstance, the lack or
insufficiency of evidence against them or the fact that they are accused
of an offence different from the one they have really committed, is
seized upon as a mitigation of their guilt, and they always manifest
much resentment against those who administer the law. "London thieves,"
observes Mayhew, "realise that they do wrong, but think that they are no
worse than ordinary bankrupts."
The constant perusal of newspaper reports leads criminals to believe
that there are a great many rogues in higher circles, and by taking
exceptions to be the rule, they flatter themselves that their own
actions are not very reprehensible, because the wealthy are not censured
for similar actions.
| Fig. 7 | | Fig. 8 |
 | |  |
Figures made in Prison
Murder of a Sleeping Victim
Work of a Prisoner
(see page 31) | | Crucifix Poignard
(see page 31) |
These instances show that criminals are not entirely unable to
distinguish between right and wrong. Nevertheless, their moral sense is
sterile because it is suffocated by passions and the deadening force of
habit.
In the cant of Spanish thieves, justice is called "la justa" (the just),
and this name is given in French slang to the Assizes, but, as Mayor
observes, it may be applied ironically.
In alluding to the unknown author of the crimes committed in reality by
himself, the murderer Prévost remarked, "Whoever it is, he is bound to
end by the guillotine sooner or later." In such cases, although a sense
of truth and justice exists, the desire to act according to it is
lacking.
"It is one thing [observes Harwick] to possess a theoretical notion
of what is right and wrong, but quite another to act according to
it. In order that the knowledge of good should be transformed into
an ardent desire for its triumph, as food is converted into chyle
and blood, it must be urged to action by elevated sentiments, and
these are generally lacking in the criminal. If, on the contrary,
good feelings really exist, the individual desires to do right and
his convictions are translated into action with the same energy
that he displayed in doing wrong."
A philanthropist once invited a number of young London thieves to a
friendly gathering, and it was noticed that the most hardened offenders
were greeted with the greatest amount of applause from the company.
Nevertheless, when the President requested one of them to change a gold
coin outside, and he did not return, those present showed great
indignation and anxiety, abusing and threatening their absent companion,
whose ultimate return was hailed with genuine relief. In this case, no
doubt, envy and vanity played as great a part as a sense of integrity,
in the resentment shown at this fancied breach of faith.
In the prisons at Moscow, offences against discipline are dealt with by
the offenders' fellow-prisoners. The convict population on the island of
San Stefano compiled spontaneously a Draconian code to quell internal
discord arising from racial jealousies.
Treachery. This species of morality and justice, which unexpectedly
makes its appearance in the midst of a naturally unrighteous community,
can only be forced and temporary. When, instead of reaping advantages,
interests and passions are injured by acting rightly, these notions of
justice, unsustained by innate integrity suddenly fail. Contrary to
universal belief, criminals are very prone to betray their companions
and accomplices, and are easily induced to act as informers in the hope
of gaining some personal advantage or of injuring those they envy or
suspect of treachery towards themselves.
"Many thieves," says Vidocq, "consider it a stroke of luck to be
consulted by the police." In fact, Bouscaut, one of a notorious band of
malefactors in France, was chiefly instrumental in causing the arrest of
the gang; and the brigand Caruso aided the authorities in capturing his
former companions.
Vanity. Pride, or rather vanity, and an exaggerated notion of their
own importance, which we find in the masses, generally in inverse
proportion to real merit, is especially strong in criminals. In the cell
occupied by La Gala, the following notice was found in his handwriting:
"March 24th. On this date La Gala learnt to knit." Another criminal,
Crocco, tried hard to save his brother, "Lest," he said, "my race should
die out." Lacenaire was less troubled by the death-sentence than by
adverse criticisms of his bad verse and the fear of public contempt. "I
do not fear being hated," he is reported to have said, "but I dread
being despised—the tempest leaves traces of its passage, but unobserved
the humble flower fades."
Thus thieves are loth to confess that they are guilty of only petty
larceny, and are sometimes prompted by vanity to commit more serious
robberies. The same false shame is common to fallen women, among whom
contempt is incurred, not by excess of depravity but by the failure to
command high prices. Grellinier, a petty thief, boasted in court of
imaginary offences, with the desire of appearing in the light of a great
criminal. The crimes in the haunted castle, attributed by Holmes to
himself, were certainly in part inventions. The female poisoner,
Buscemi, when writing to her accomplice, signed herself, "Your Lucrezia
Borgia."
One of the most frequent causes of modern crime is the desire to gratify
personal vanity and to become notorious.
Impulsiveness. This is another and almost pathognomonical
characteristic of born criminals, and also, as we shall see later on, of
epileptics and the morally insane. That which in ordinary individuals is
only an eccentric and fugitive suggestion vanishing as soon as it
arises, in the case of abnormal subjects is rapidly translated into
action, which, although unconscious, is not the less dangerous. A youth
of this impulsive type, returning home one evening flushed with wine,
met a peasant leading his ass and cried out, "As I have not come to
blows with anyone to-day, I must vent my rage on this beast," at the
same time drawing his knife and plunging it several times into the poor
animal's body (Ladelci, Il Vino, Rome, 1868). Pinel describes a
morally insane subject, who was in the habit of giving way to his
passions, killing any horses that did not please him and thrashing his
political opponents. He even went to the length of throwing a lady down
a well, because she ventured to contradict him.
"The most trifling causes [remarks Tamburini, speaking of Sbro...]
that stand in the way of his wishes, provoke a fit of rage in which
he appears to lose all self-control, like little children, who in
resenting any offence show no sense of proportion. The most trivial
reasons for disliking anyone awaken in him an irresistible desire
to kill the object of his aversion, and if any new blasphemy rises
to his lips, he feels constrained to repeat it."
A thief once said to my father: "It is in our very blood. It may be only
a pin, but I cannot help taking it, although I am quite ready to give it
back to its owner." The pickpocket Bor... confessed that at the age of
twelve he had begun to steal in the streets and at school, to the extent
of taking things from under his schoolfellows' pillows, and that it was
impossible for him to resist stealing, even when his pockets were full.
If he had not stolen some article before going to bed, he was unable to
sleep, and when midnight struck, he felt obliged to take the first thing
that came to his hand, destroying it frequently as soon as he had
appropriated it.
"To give up stealing," said Deham to Lauvergne, "would be like ceasing
to exist. Stealing is a passion that burns like love and when I feel the
blood seething in my brain and fingers, I think I should be capable of
robbing myself, if that were possible." When sentenced to the galleys,
he stole the bands from the masts, nails, and copper plates, and he
himself fixed the number of lashes he was to receive after each of these
exploits, which did not prevent his recommencing stealing directly
afterward (Les Forçats, p. 358).
Ponticelli once saw a thief, who was dying of consumption, steal an old
slipper from his neighbour and hide it under the bedclothes.
Vindictiveness. Closely allied to this impulsiveness and exaggerated
personal vanity, we find an extraordinary thirst for revenge. Lebuc
murdered a man who had stolen some matches from him. Baron R... caused
the death of a man, because he had failed to order a religious
procession to halt under the windows of his palace.
"To see expire the one you hate—
Such is the joy of the gods.
My sole desire is to hate and be avenged."
wrote Lacenaire.
After a slight dispute with Voit, whose hospitality he had enjoyed,
Renaud threw his friend down a well. He was arrested, and when Voit, who
had been rescued, pardoned him, he said, "I only regret not having
finished him, but when I come out of prison, I will do so." And he kept
his word.
The tattooing on the persons of criminals and their writings while in
prison are full of solemn oaths of vengeance. A female thief once said,
"If it were true that those who refuse to pardon will be damned
eternally, I should still withhold my forgiveness."
Cruelty depends on moral and physical insensibility, those incapable
of feeling pain being indifferent to the sufferings of others.
The post of executioner was eagerly competed for at the prison of
Rochefort. Mammon used to drink the blood of his victims and when this
was not to be had, he drank his own. The executioner Jean became so
maddened by the sight of blood flowing beneath his lash, that guards
were stationed to prevent undue prolongation of the punishment. Dippe
wrote: "My chief pleasure is beheading. When I was young, stabbing was
my sole pastime."
It has often been observed that the ferocity of women exceeds that of
men. Rulfi killed her own niece, whom she detested, by thrusting long
pins into her, and the female brigand Ciclope reproached her lover for
murdering his victims too quickly.
Idleness. Like savages, criminals are dominated by an incorrigible
laziness, which in certain cases leads them to prefer death from
starvation to regular work. This idleness alternates with periods of
ferocious impulsiveness, during which they display the greatest energy.
Like savages, too, they are passionately fond of alcohol, orgies, and
sensual pleasures, which alone rouse them to activity.
Orgies. Those who have observed children absorbed all day long by a
game that pleases them, can understand the meaning of these words,
spoken by a woman: "Criminals are grown-up children." The love of
habitual debauch is so intense that, as soon as thieves have made some
great haul or escaped from prison, they return to their haunts to
carouse and make merry, in spite of the evident danger of falling once
more into the hands of the police.
Gambling. The passion for gambling is so strong that the criminal is
always in a penniless condition, no matter how much treasure he has
appropriated, and cases of starvation in prison are not unknown,
prisoners having sold their rations in order to gratify this vice.
Games. Many primitive and cruel amusements, similar to the pastimes of
savages, have been preserved or reconstructed by criminals. Such are
the games known to Italian offenders as "La Patta," in which one of the
players tries to avoid being struck while passing his head between two
points brought together horizontally by another, who stands with his
arms outstretched; and "La Rota," in which the players run in a circle,
one behind the other, seeking to escape, by dodging, the blows from a
stout stick, aimed at them by one of their companions.
Intelligence is feeble in some and exaggerated in others. Prudence and
forethought are generally lacking. A very common characteristic is
recklessness, which leads criminals to run the risk of arrest for the
sake of being witty, or to leave some blood-stained weapon on the very
spot where they have committed a crime, notwithstanding the fact that
they have taken a hundred precautions to avoid detection. This same
recklessness prompts them, when the danger is scarcely past, to make
verses or pictures of their exploits or to tattoo them upon their
persons, heedless of consequences.
Zino relates the story of a Sicilian schoolboy, who illustrated his
criminal relations with his schoolfellows by a series of sketches in his
album. A certain Cavaglia, called "Fusil" robbed and murdered an
accomplice and hid the body in a cupboard. He was arrested and in prison
decided to commit suicide a hundred days after the date of his crime,
but before doing so, he adorned his water-jug with an account of his
misdeed, partly in pictures and partly in writing, as though he desired
to raise a monument to himself (see Fig. 9). The clearest and strangest
instance of this recklessness was furnished by a photograph discovered
by the police, in which, at the risk of arrest and detection, three
criminals had had themselves photographed in the very act of committing
a murder.
Slang. This is a peculiar jargon used by criminals when speaking among
themselves. The syntax and grammatical construction of the language
remain unchanged, but the meanings of words are altered, many being
formed in the same way as in primitive languages; i.e., an object
frequently receives the name of one of its attributes. Thus a kid is
called "jumper," death "the lean or cruel one," the soul "the false or
shameful one," the body "the veil," the hour "the swift one," the moon
"the spy," a purse "the saint," alms "the rogue," a sermon "the tedious
one," etc. Many words are formed as among savages, by onomatopoeia, as
"tuff" (pistol), "tic" (watch), "guanguana" (sweetheart), "fric frac"
(lottery).
Fig. 9
The necessity of eluding police investigations is the reason usually
given for the origin of this slang. No doubt it was one of the chief
causes, but does not explain the continued use of a jargon which is too
well known now to serve this purpose; moreover, it is employed in poems,
the object of which is to invite public attention, not to avoid it, and
by criminals in their homes where there is no need for secrecy.
Pictography. One of the strangest characteristics of criminals is the
tendency to express their ideas pictorially. While in prison, Troppmann
painted the scene of his misdeed, for the purpose of showing that it had
been committed by others. We have already mentioned the rude
illustrations engraved by the murderer Cavaglia on his pitcher,
representing his crime, imprisonment, and suicide. Books, crockery,
guns, all the utensils criminals have in constant use, serve as a canvas
on which to portray their exploits.
From pictography it is but an easy step to hieroglyphics like those used
by ancient peoples. The hieroglyphics of criminals are closely allied to
their slang, of which in fact they are only a pictorial representation,
and, although largely inspired by the necessity for secrecy, show, in
addition, evident atavistic tendencies.
De Blasio has explained the meaning of the hieroglyphics used by the
"camorristi" (members of the camorra at Naples), especially when they
are in prison. For instance, to indicate the President of the Tribunal,
they use a crown with three points; to indicate a judge, the judge's cap
(see Fig. 10). The following is a list of some of the hieroglyphics
mentioned by De Blasio:
Fig. 10
Drawings in Script. Discovered by De Blasio
Police Inspector—a hat like those worn by the Italian soldiers who
are called Alpini (a helmet with flat top and an upright feather on the
left side).
Public Prosecutor—an open-mouthed viper (see Fig. 10).
Carabineer—a bugle.
Theft—a skull and cross-bones.
Commissary of the Police—a dwarf with the three-cornered hat worn by
the carabinieri.
Arts and Industries of the Criminal. Although habitual criminals show
a strong aversion to any kind of useful labour, in prison and at large,
they, nevertheless, apply themselves with great diligence to certain
tasks, sometimes of an illegal nature, such as the manufacture of
implements to aid them in escaping, sometimes merely artistic, such as
modelling, with breadcrumbs, brickdust, or soap, the figures of persons.
Sometimes they make baskets, machines, dominoes, draughts,
playing-cards, etc., or form means of communication with their
fellow-prisoners and construct weapons for executing their schemes of
vengeance. They also devote themselves to eccentric and useless
occupations, like the training of animals, such as mice, marmosets,
birds, and even fleas (Lattes). This morbid and misguided activity,
which frequently shows gleams of talent, might well be utilised for
increasing the scope of prison industries.
This personal decoration so often found on great criminals is one of the
strangest relics of a former state. It consists of designs,
hieroglyphics, and words punctured in the skin by a special and very
painful process.
Fig. 11
Alphabet Discovered by De Blasio
Among primitive peoples, who live in a more or less nude condition,
tattooing takes the place of decorations or ornamental garments, and
serves as a mark of distinction or rank. When an Eskimo slays an enemy,
he adorns his upper-lip with a couple of blue stripes, and the warriors
of Sumatra add a special sign to their decorations for every foe they
kill. In Wuhaiva, ladies of noble birth are more extensively tattooed
than women of humbler rank. Among the Maoris, tattooing is a species of
armorial bearings indicative of noble birth.
According to ancient writers, tattooing was practised by Thracians,
Picts, and Celts. Roman soldiers tattooed their arms with the names of
their generals, and artisans in the Middle Ages were marked with the
insignia of their crafts. In modern times this custom has fallen into
disuse among the higher classes and only exists among sailors, soldiers,
peasants, and workmen.
Although not exclusively confined to criminals, tattooing is practised
by them to a far larger extent than by normal persons: 9% of adult
criminals and 40% of minors are tattooed; whereas, in normal persons the
proportion is only 0.1%. Recidivists and born criminals, whether thieves
or murderers, show the highest percentage of tattooing. Forgers and
swindlers are rarely tattooed.
Sometimes tattooing consists of a motto symbolical of the career of the
criminal it adorns. Tardieu found on the arm of a sailor who had served
various terms of imprisonment, the words, "Pas de chance." The
notorious criminal Malassen was tattooed on the chest with the drawing
of a guillotine, under which was written the following prophecy: "J'ai
mal commencé, je finirai mal. C'est la fin qui m'attend."
Tattooing frequently bears witness to indecency. Of 142 criminals
examined by my father, the tattooing on five showed obscenity of design
and position and furnished also a remarkable proof of the insensibility
to pain characteristic of criminals, the parts tattooed being the most
sensitive of the whole body, and therefore left untouched even by
savages.
Another fact worthy of mention is the extent to which criminals are
tattooed. Thirty-five out of 378 criminals examined by Lacassagne were
decorated literally from head to foot.
In a great many cases, the designs reveal violence of character and a
desire for revenge. A Piedmontese sailor, who had perpetrated fraud and
murder from motives of revenge, bore on his breast between two daggers,
the words: "I swear to revenge myself." Another had written on his
forehead, "Death to the middle classes," with the drawing of a dagger
underneath. A young Ligurian, the leader of a mutiny in an Italian
Reformatory, was tattooed with designs representing all the most
important episodes of his life, and the idea of revenge was paramount.
On his right forearm figured two crossed swords, underneath them the
initials M. N. (of an intimate friend), and on the inner side, traced
longitudinally, the motto: "Death to cowards. Long live our alliance."
Tattooing, as practised by criminals, is a perfect substitute for
writing with symbols and hieroglyphics, and they take a keen pleasure in
this mode of adorning their skins.
Of atavistic origin, also, is the practice, common to members of the
camorra, of branding their sweethearts on the face, not from motives
of revenge, but as a sign of proprietorship, like the chiefs of savage
tribes, who mark their wives and other belongings; and the form of
tattooing called "Paranza," which distinguishes the various bands of
malefactors,—the band of the "banner," of the "three arrows," of the
"bell-ringer," of the "Carmelites," etc.
All the physical and psychic peculiarities of which we have spoken are
found singly in many normal individuals. Moreover, crime is not always
the result of degeneration and atavism; and, on the other hand, many
persons who are considered perfectly normal are not so in reality.
However, in normal individuals, we never find that accumulation of
physical, psychic, functional, and skeletal anomalies in one and the
same person, that we do in the case of criminals, among whom also entire
freedom from abnormal characteristics is more rare than among ordinary
individuals.
Just as a musical theme is the result of a sum of notes, and not of any
single note, the criminal type results from the aggregate of these
anomalies, which render him strange and terrible, not only to the
scientific observer, but to ordinary persons who are capable of an
impartial judgment.
Painters and poets, unhampered by false doctrines, divined this type
long before it became the subject of a special branch of study. The
assassins, executioners, and devils painted by Mantegna, Titian, and
Ribera the Spagnoletto embody with marvellous exactitude the
characteristics of the born criminal; and the descriptions of great
writers, Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, and Ibsen, are equally
faithful representations, physically and psychically, of this morbid
type.
The conclusions of instinctive observers have found expression in many
proverbs, which warn the world against the very characteristics we have
noted in criminals.
A proverb common in Romagna, says: "Poca barba e niun colore, sotto il
cielo non vi ha peggiore" (There is nothing worse under Heaven than a
scanty beard and a colourless face), and in Piedmont there is a saying,
"Faccia smorta, peggio che scabbia" (An ashen face is worse than the
itch). The Venetians have a number of proverbs expressing distrust of
the criminal type: "Uomo rosso e femina barbuta da lontan xe megio la
saluta" (Greet from afar the red-haired man and the bearded woman);
"Vàrdete da chi te parla e guarda in la, e vàrdete da chi tiene i oci
bassi e da chi camina a corti passi" (Beware of him who looks away when
he speaks to you, and of him who keeps his eyes cast down and takes
mincing steps); "El guerzo xe maledetto per ogni verso" (The squint-eyed
are on all sides accursed); "Megio vendere un campo e una cà che tor una
dona dal naso levà" (Better sell a field and a house than take a wife
with a turned-up nose); "Naso che guarda in testa è peggior che la
tempesta" (A turned-up nose is worse than hail); etc.
There are innumerable cases on record, in which persons quite ignorant
of criminology have escaped robbery or murder, thanks to the timely
distrust awakened in them by the appearance of individuals who had tried
to win their confidence. My father once placed before forty children,
twenty portraits of thieves and twenty representing great men, and 80%
recognised in the first the portraits of bad and deceitful people.
In conclusion, the born criminal possesses certain physical and mental
characteristics, which mark him out as a special type, materially and
morally diverse from the bulk of mankind.
Like the little cage-bred bird which instinctively crouches and trembles
at the sight of the hawk, although ignorant of its ferocity, an honest
man feels instinctive repugnance at the sight of a miscreant and thus
signalises the abnormality of the criminal type.
No one, before my father, had ever recognised in the criminal an
abnormal being driven by an irresistible atavistic impulse to commit
anti-social acts, but many had observed (cases of the kind were too
frequent to escape notice) the existence of certain individuals, nearly
always members of degenerate families, who seemed from their earliest
infancy to be prompted by some fatal impulse to do evil to their
fellow-men. They differed from ordinary people, because they hated the
very persons who to normal beings are the nearest and dearest, parents,
husbands, wives, and children, and because their inhuman deeds seemed to
cause them no remorse. These individuals, who were sometimes treated as
lunatics, sometimes as diseased persons, and sometimes as criminals,
were said by the earliest observers to be afflicted with moral
insanity.
Analogy. Those who are familiar with all that Pinel, Morel, Richard
Connon, and other great alienists have written on the morally insane
cannot help remarking the analogy, nay identity, of the physical,
intellectual, and moral characteristics of this type of lunatic and
those of the born criminal.
The same physical anomalies already observed in criminals, as described
in the first chapter (cranial deformities, asymmetry, physical and
functional left-handedness, anomalies in the teeth, hands, and feet),
are described by these older writers as being characteristic of the
morally insane, as are also those mental and moral qualities already
noted in the born criminal—vanity, want of affection, cruelty,
idleness, and love of orgies.
Only the analogy of the origin and early manifestations was lacking to
complete the proof of the identity of the two forms. It is true that
moral insanity is more often found in the descendants of insane,
neurotic, or dipsomaniac forebears than in those of criminals, and that
the characteristics are manifested at an earlier age than is the case
with born criminals, but these differences are not of fundamental
importance.
Cases. During many years of observation, my father was able to follow
innumerable cases of moral insanity in which perversity was manifested
literally from the cradle, and in which the victims of this disease grew
up into delinquents in no wise distinguishable from born criminals.
A typical instance is that of a certain Rizz... who was brought to him
by the mother because, while still at the breast, he bit his nurse so
viciously that bottle-feeding had to be substituted. At the age of two
years, careful training and medical treatment notwithstanding, this
child was separated from his brothers, because he stuck pins into their
pillows and played dangerous tricks on them. Two years later, he broke
open his father's cash-box and stole money to buy sweets; at six,
although decidedly intelligent, he was expelled from every private
school in the town, because he instigated the others to mischief or
ill-treated them. At fourteen, he seduced a servant and ran away, and at
twenty he killed his fiancée by throwing her out of a window. Thanks to
the testimony of a great many doctors, Rizz... was declared to be
morally insane, but if the family had been poor instead of well-to-do,
and the mother had neglected to have her child examined in infancy by a
medical man, thus obtaining ample proof of the pathological nature of
his perversity, Rizz... would have been condemned as an ordinary
criminal, because, like all morally insane persons, he was very
intelligent and able to reason clearly, like a normal individual.
Another typical case is that of a child named Rav... (see Fig. 12) a
native of the Romagna, who was brought to my father at the age of eight,
because his parents were convinced that his conduct was due to a morbid
condition. Unlike the above-mentioned case, his evil acts were always
carried out in an underhand way. He showed great spite towards his
brothers and sisters, especially the smaller ones, whom he attempted to
strangle on several occasions, and was expelled from school on account
of the bad influence he exercised over his schoolfellows. He delighted
above everything in robbing his parents, employers, and the neighbours
and in falsely accusing others, and so cleverly did he manage this that
he caused a great deal of mischief before his double-dealing was
discovered. When only eight, on leaving home early every morning to go
to work, he would secretly throw all the milk left at the neighbours'
doors into the dust-bin, then he accused the janitor of stealing it and
got him dismissed. A year later, he nearly succeeded in causing the
arrest of a pawnbroker, whom he accused of having lent him money on a
cloak, it being illegal in Italy to accept anything in pawn from a
minor. The cloak, however, was discovered by his mother hidden in the
cellar. At ten years of age, he alleged that his father had brutally
ill-treated him, and as severe marks and bruises on his body gave colour
to the accusation, the poor man was arrested. The marks, however, were
self-inflicted.
Another boy, a certain Man..., a peasant from the Val d'Aosta, an
Alpine valley in Piedmont, where cretinism is indigenous, exhibited
perverse tendencies from his earliest infancy. When twelve years old, he
killed his companion in a squabble over an egg. (See Fig. 13.)
In the above-mentioned cases, the subjects all belonged to well-to-do or
honest families and the pathological heredity was therefore exclusively
nervous, not criminal. For this reason, the parents were struck by the
abnormal depravity of their sons and had them medically examined and
treated, thus discovering that they were morally insane. If, on the
other hand, the parents had been criminals and had, themselves, set a
bad example, nobody would have supposed that these depraved tendencies
were innate in the children or had developed precociously. The fact of
the prevalence of moral insanity in neurotic families (with frequent
cases of lunacy, alcoholism, etc.) rather than in those of criminal
tendencies appears at first sight strange, but according to the new
theory advanced by my father, the criminal is a mentally diseased
person; and we shall see in a later chapter that the heredity of insane,
neurotic, and dipsomaniac parents is completely equivalent to a criminal
heredity.
| Fig. 12 | Fig. 13 |
 |  |
Boy Morally Insane
(see page 55) | Boy Morally Insane
(see page 56) |
Proofs of Analogy. Thus the genesis and early manifestations, which
might have been diverse, really constitute a counter-proof. Careful
anamnesis shows that both born criminals and the morally insane begin at
a very early age to exhibit symptoms of the morbid tendencies which make
them such a danger to society, and if the general public and the police,
when such cases are brought to their notice, usually fail to realise
that they arise from precocious perversity, it is because atrocious
actions are excused on the ground of extreme youth and attributed to
this cause rather than to vicious propensities. In many cases, indeed,
they are revealed only to the physician.
A counter-proof is likewise furnished by investigations of the origin of
these pathological cases, since the study of born criminals shows that
they, as well as the morally insane, are as frequently the offspring of
insane, epileptic, neurotic, and drunken parents as of criminals, but in
the latter case, the morbid origin of their perversity is seldom brought
to light owing to the criminality of the parents, who naturally view
with indifference symptoms of vice in their children.
We have already stated that the physical and psychic characteristics of
born criminals coincide with those of the morally insane. Both are
identical with those of another class of degenerates, known to the world
as epileptics.
The term epilepsy was applied to a malady frequently studied but little
understood by the ancient medical world, the chief symptoms of which
were repeated tonic and clonic fits, preceded by the so-called
"epileptic aura" and followed by a deep sleep. It was called morbus
sacer and believed to be of divine origin.
Careful examination of epileptics by clinical and mental experts, showed
that in addition to the characteristic seizure, these unfortunate beings
were subject to other phenomena, which sometimes took the place of the
convulsive fit and in other cases preceded or followed it. These were
pavor nocturnus, sudden sweats, heat, neuralgia, sialorrhea,
periodical cephalalgia and, above all, vertigo; and these symptoms were
not always accompanied by unconsciousness nor followed by coma.
Sometimes the seizure was only manifested by paroxysms of rage or
ferocious and brutal impulses (devouring animals alive), which, if
consciously committed, would be considered criminal. This fact led
doctors and mental experts to examine other patients, and they were able
to advance positive proof that a certain number of epileptics never
experience the typical seizure, the disease being manifested in this
milder form with cephalalgia, sialorrhea, delirious ferocity, and above
all, giddiness.
The multiformity of epilepsy has been fully confirmed by the experiments
of Luciani, Zehen, and others, who produced various forms of epilepsy by
submitting different cerebral zones to varying degrees of irritation. By
graduating the electric current, Rosenbach was able to provoke the whole
series of epileptic phenomena described above, from the mildest to the
most serious manifestations. A slight irritation of the motor areas gave
rise to tetanic contractions and clonic convulsions in a given joint; an
increase in the strength of the current produced more violent movements
which spread over the whole limb, and by intensifying the current still
further, to half the body. Finally, on the application of a very strong
current, the typical fit was produced with clonic spasms in all the
body, unconsciousness, nystagmus, and rigidity of the pupils.
By irritating the frontal lobes of dogs, Richet and Bernard produced
vertigo and certain physical phenomena (snuffing, barking, and biting).
Taking these investigations as a basis, Jackson came to the conclusion
that epileptic fits are due to a rapid and excessive explosion of the
grey matter, which, instead of developing its force gradually, develops
it all of a sudden because it is irritated. And as it has been shown
conclusively that the disease can be manifested in such varied
forms—vertigo, twitching of the muscles, sialorrhea, cephalalgia, fits
of rage, and ferocious actions—which appear to be the equivalent of the
typical seizure, individuals subject to these forms of neurosis should
be classed as epileptics, even if they never experience the typical
motor attack.
It is in this category, which may be called attenuated epilepsy, that we
should place criminals, who in addition to the psychic and physical
characteristics of the epileptic, possess others peculiar to themselves.
Physical anomalies (plagiocephaly, microcephaly, macrocephaly,
strabismus, facial and cranial asymmetry, prominent frontal sinuses,
median occipital fossa, receding forehead, projecting ears,
progeneismus, and badly shaped teeth) are characteristic both of
criminals and epileptics, as was demonstrated in certain epileptics
treated by my father (Figs. 14 and 15), and the same holds good
of functional and histological anomalies. The histological anomaly
discovered by Roncoroni in the frontal lobe of born criminals,
consisting of the atrophy of the deep granular layer, the inversion of
the pyramidal layers and small cells with enlargement and rarefaction of
the pyramidal cells, and the existence of nervous cells in the white
substance, is found in about the same proportion in cases of
non-criminal epileptics. We find also in the same proportion in the
field of vision of epileptics, as of born criminals, the anomaly
discovered by Ottolenghi, consisting of peripheral scotoma intersecting
the nearly uniform line of varying size common to normal eyes.
Fig. 14
Psychological Characteristics. The complete identity of epileptics,
born criminals and the morally insane becomes evident as soon as we
study their psychology.
Epilepsy, congenital criminality, and moral insanity alone are capable
of comprising in one clinical form intellectual divergencies which range
from genius to imbecility. In epileptics, this divergence is sometimes
manifested in one and the same person in the space of twenty-four hours.
An individual at one time afflicted with loss of will-power and amnesia,
and incapable of formulating the simplest notion, will shortly
afterwards give expression to original ideas and reason logically.
Contradictions and exaggerations of sentiment are salient
characteristics of epileptics as of born criminals and the morally
insane. Quarrelsome, suspicious, and cynical individuals suddenly become
gentle, respectful, and affectionate. The cynic expresses religious
sentiments, and the man who has brutally ill-treated his first wife,
kneels before the second. An epileptic observed by Tonnini fancied
himself at times to be Napoleon; at others, he would lick the ground
like the humblest slave.
The extreme excitability manifested by born criminals is shared by
epileptics. Distrustful, intolerant, and incapable of sincere
attachment, a gesture or a look is sufficient to infuriate them and
incite them to the most atrocious deeds.
Epilepsy has a disastrous effect on the character. It destroys the moral
sense, causes irritability, alters the sensations through constant
hallucinations and delusions, deadens the natural feelings or leads them
into morbid channels.
Affection for Animals. The hatred frequently manifested by criminals
and epileptics towards the members of their own families is in many
cases accompanied by an extraordinary fondness for animals as is shown
by the cases of Caligula, Commodus, Lacenaire, Rosas, Dr. Francia, and
La Sola,—who preferred kittens to her own children. A morally insane
individual known to my father would spend months in training dogs,
horses, birds, geese, and other fowls. He was wont to remark that all
animals were friendly to him as though they recognised in him one of
their own kind. Dostoyevsky's fellow-convicts showed great fondness for
a horse, an eagle, and a number of geese. They were so attached to a
goat that they wanted to gild its horns.
Fig. 15
Somnambulism. This is a frequent characteristic of epileptics. Krafft-Ebing says:
"The seizure is often followed by a condition approaching
somnambulism. The patient appears to have recovered consciousness,
talks coherently, behaves in an orderly manner, and resumes his
ordinary occupations. Yet he is not really conscious as is shown by
the fact that, later he is entirely ignorant of what he has been
doing during this stage. This peculiar state of mental daze may
last a long time, sometimes during the whole interval between two
seizures."
Many of the criminals observed by Dostoyevsky were given to
gesticulating and talking agitatedly in their sleep.
Obscenity is a common characteristic. Kowalewsky (Archivio di
Psichiatria, 1885) notes the resemblance between the reproductive act
and the epileptic seizure, the tonic tension of the muscles, loss of
consciousness and mydriasis in both cases, and remarks also on the
frequency with which epileptic attacks are accompanied by sexual
propensities.
The desire for sexual indulgence, like the taste for alcohol, is
distinguished by the precocity peculiar to criminals and the morally
insane. Precocious sexual instincts have been observed in children of
four years, and in one case obscenity was manifested by an infant of one
year.
Marro (Annali di Freniatria, 1890) describes a child of three years
and ten months, who had exhibited signs of epilepsy from birth and was
of a jealous, irascible disposition. He was in the habit of scratching
and biting his brothers and sisters, knocking over the furniture, hiding
things, and tearing his clothes, and when unable to hurt or annoy
others, would vent his rage upon himself. If punished, he would continue
his misdeeds in an underhand way.
Another child had been afflicted with convulsions from his earliest
infancy, in consequence of which his character deteriorated, and while
still a mere infant, he behaved with the utmost violence. He killed a
cat, attempted to strangle his brother, and to set fire to the house.
Invulnerability, another characteristic common to criminals, has been
observed by Tonnini in epileptics, whose wounds and injuries heal with
astonishing rapidity, and he is inclined to regard this peculiarity in
the light of a reversion to a stage of evolution, at which animals like
lizards and salamanders were able to replace severed joints by new
growths. This invulnerability is shared by all degenerates: epileptics,
imbeciles, and the morally insane.
"One of these latter," says Tonnini, "tore out his moustache bodily and
with it a large piece of skin. In a few days the wound was nearly
healed."
Very characteristic is the almost automatic tendency to destroy animate
and inanimate objects, which results in frequent wounding, suicides, and
homicides. This desire to destroy is also common to children. Fernando
P. (Fig. 15), an epileptic treated by my father, when enraged was in the
habit of smashing all the furniture within his reach and throwing the
pieces over a wall some twenty-five feet high.
Misdea, a regimental barber, to whom we shall refer later, roused to
fury by dismissal from his post, broke four razors into small pieces
with his teeth. Another epileptic, Piz... used to break all the
crockery in his cell regularly every other day, "just to give vent to
his feelings."
This tendency to destroy everything in the cell is common also to
ordinary criminals.
Cases of Moral Insanity with Latent Epileptic Phenomena. The following
cases, which were treated by my father and which were subject to
careful observation and study, will serve to give a clear idea of the
criminal form of epilepsy.
Subject: Giuliano Celestino, age 16. Yellow skin abundantly tattooed,
absence of hair on face or body. Cranium: plagiocephaly on the left
frontal and right parietal regions, obliquely-placed eyes, narrow
forehead, prominent orbital arches, line of the mouth horizontal as in
apes, lateral incisors of upper jaw resembling the canines with rugged
margins, excessive zygomatic and maxillary development, tactile
sensibility very obtuse, dolorific sensibility non-existent on the
right, very obtuse on the left, rotular reflex action exaggerated on the
right, very feeble on the left. Devoid of natural feeling. When asked if
he was fond of his mother, he replied: "When she brings me cigars and
money." When questioned concerning his crimes he showed neither shame
nor confusion. On the contrary, he confessed with a smile that when only
ten he had tried to kill his youngest brother, who was then an infant in
the cradle, and when hindered by his mother, had struck and bitten her.
His father was a drunkard afflicted with syphilis, and Giuliano had
suffered from epilepsy from the age of seven. At this age he began to
indulge in alcohol and self-abuse, and stole from his parents in order
to buy sweets. He appears to have been subject to an ambulatory mania,
which caused him to wander aimlessly about the country, and if kept
within doors he would let himself down from the windows, climb up the
chimney, or, failing in these attempts to escape, would break the
furniture and attract the attention of the neighbours by his terrific
yells. From the age of eight, despite his parents' efforts to apprentice
him, he was always immediately dismissed by his employers. He ran away
with a strolling company of acrobats, and later apprenticed himself to a
butcher in order to revel in the horrors of the slaughter-house. At
fifteen he was confined in a reformatory, where he twice attempted to
escape and to set fire to the building, and was sentenced to two years'
imprisonment. For the space of a few days, he appears to have suffered
from epileptic attacks, although in a masked form, accompanied by
various attempts at suicide. These were renewed every other month for a
whole year. When asked what he would do for a living when released, he
would reply laughingly that there was plenty of money in other people's
pockets.
L... a morally insane subject, age 16, native of Turin, the son of an
aged, but extremely respectable man. Height 1.50 m., weight, 46.2 kg.,
with abundant hair, and down on the forehead, incisors crowded
together, excessive development of the canines, and exaggerated orbital
angle of the frontal bone. He was entirely devoid of affection for his
family, remarking cynically that he was fond of his father when he gave
him money and did not worry him. Sometimes he kicked the poor old man
and otherwise abused him. When unable to obtain money, he would smash
all the furniture in the house, until, for the sake of economy, his
family gave him what he wanted. In order to get a five-pound note from
money-lenders he would sign promissory notes for ten times that amount.
He changed his ideas from one hour to another. Sometimes he wanted to
enter the army, at others to emigrate to France, etc. When only fourteen
he frequented houses of ill-fame, where he played the bully.
Although this case may be regarded as a typical instance of moral
insanity, there were apparently no symptoms of vertigo or convulsions.
At the age of sixteen, however, while suffering from rheumatism, this
subject tried to throw himself from the balcony of his bedroom at the
same hour three nights running. After this he seems to have suffered
from amnesia.
These frenzied attempts at self-destruction, which seem to have taken
the place of the epileptic seizure, were related to my father casually
by the boy's mother; but in other cases, similar incidents, although of
the utmost importance to the criminologist, often pass unnoticed.
In the Actes du Congrès d'Anthropologie, Angelucci describes another
typical case of epileptic moral insanity. E. G. (brother a criminal
epileptic, father a sufferer from cancer) was sentenced several times
for assaulting people often without motive. Tattooed with the figure of
a naked woman, microcephalous (39.2 cubic inches = 589 c.c.), having
cranial and facial asymmetry, he was vain, deceitful, and violent, and
made great show of scepticism although he wore a great many medals of
the Virgin. This subject was over twenty-five when the first epileptic
seizure took place.
The connection between epilepsy and crime is one of derivation rather
than identity. Epilepsy represents the genus of which criminality and
moral insanity are the species.
The born criminal is an epileptic, inasmuch as he possesses the
anatomical, skeletal, physiognomical, psychological, and moral
characteristics peculiar to the recognised form of epilepsy, and
sometimes also its motorial phenomena, although at rare intervals. More
frequently he exhibits its substitutes (vertigo, twitching, sialorrhea,
emotional attacks). But the criminal epileptic possesses other
characteristics peculiar to himself; in particular, that desire of evil
for its own sake, which is unknown to ordinary epileptics. In view of
this fact this form of epilepsy must be considered apart from the purely
nervous anomaly, both in the clinical diagnosis and the methods of cure
and social prophylaxis.
Moreover, the nervous anomaly, which in the case of criminals appears on
the scene from time to time, accentuating the criminal tendency till it
reaches the atavistic form and producing morbid complications which
sometimes prove fatal, serves to point out the true nature of the
disease and to emphasise the fact that while it is attenuated so far as
motor attacks are concerned, it is aggravated on the other hand by
criminal impulses, which render the patient semi-immune and permit him a
longer and less troubled existence, but provoke a constant brain
irritation, which clouds and disturbs his intellectual and moral nature.
In order better to understand these two forms of epilepsy, we must
recall two analogous forms of another and equally multiform disease,
tuberculosis in its forms of quick consumption and scrofula. The
etiology is identical and the symptoms frequently alike, but while the
latter proceeds very slowly and allows the patient a long life, the
former is rapid and severs life in its prime.
In motory epilepsy, the irritation is manifested on a sudden, but leaves
the mind healthy in the interval, although the attacks may lead to rapid
dementia. In criminal epilepsy this irritation does not break out in
violent seizures and is compatible with a long life, but it changes the
whole physical and psychic complexion of the individual.
The epileptic origin of criminality explains many characteristics of the
criminal, the genesis of which was previously obscure. Many of the moral
and physical peculiarities of born criminals and the morally insane may
be classed as professional characteristics acquired through the habit of
evil-doing, especially the naso-labial and zygomatic wrinkles, cynical
expression, tapering fingers, etc. Many anomalies also in the bones,
hair, ears, eyes, and the monstrous development of the jaws and teeth,
must be explained by arrested development in the fifth or sixth month of
ultra-uterine existence, corresponding to the characteristics of
inferior races by the usual law of ontogeny which recapitulates
phylogeny. But there is a final series of anomalies, the origin of which
was formerly wrapped in mystery: plagiocephaly, sclerosis, the
thickening of the meninges, cranial asymmetry, and other changes in the
cerebral layers, which can be explained only by a disease altering
precociously the whole cerebral conformation, as is exactly the case in
epilepsy.
The born criminal is an epileptic, not however afflicted with the common
form of this disease, but with a special kind. The pathological basis,
the etiology, and the anatomical and psychological characteristics are
identical, but there are many differences. While in the ordinary form
motor anomalies are very common, in the criminal form they are very
rare, while in ordinary epilepsy the mental explosions are accompanied
by unconsciousness, in the other form they are weakened and spread over
the whole existence, and consciousness is, relatively speaking,
preserved; and while, finally, the ordinary epileptic has not always the
tendency to do evil for its own sake—nay, may even achieve holiness—in
the hidden form the bent towards evil endures from birth to death. The
perversity concentrated in one second in the motor attack, is attenuated
in the second form, but spread over the whole existence. We have
therefore an epilepsy sui generis, a variety of epilepsy which may be
called criminal.
Thus the primitive idea of crime has become organic and complete. The
criminal is only a diseased person, an epileptic, in whom the cerebral
malady, begun in some cases during prenatal existence, or later, in
consequence of some infection or cerebral poisoning, produces, together
with certain signs of physical degeneration in the skull, face, teeth,
and brain, a return to the early brutal egotism natural to primitive
races, which manifests itself in homicide, theft, and other crimes.
Epileptic born criminals and the morally insane may be classed as
lunatics under certain aspects, but only by the scientific observer and
professional psychologist. Outside these two forms, there is an
important series of offenders, who are not criminals from birth, but
become such at a given moment of their lives, in consequence of an
alteration of the brain, which completely upsets their moral nature and
makes them unable to discriminate between right and wrong. They are
really insane; that is, entirely without responsibility for their
actions.
Nearly every class of mental derangement contributes a special form of
crime.
The Idiot is prompted by paroxysms of rage to commit murderous attacks
on his fellow-creatures. His exaggerated sexual propensities incite him
to rape, and his childish delight at the sight of flames, to arson.
The Imbecile, or weak-minded individual, yields to his first impulse,
or, dominated by the influence of others, becomes an accomplice in the
hope of some trivial reward.
The victims of Melancholia are driven to suicide by suppressed grief,
precordial agitation, or hallucinations. Sometimes the suicidal attempt
is indirect and takes the form of the murder of some important personage
or their own kin, in the hope that their own condemnation may follow, or
it is to save those dear to them from the miseries of life.
Persons afflicted with General Paralysis frequently steal, in the
belief that everything they see belongs to them, or because they are
incapable of understanding the meaning of property. If accused of theft,
they deny their guilt or assert that the stolen articles have been
hidden on their persons by others. They are inclined to forgery and
fraudulent bankruptcy, and when their misdeeds are brought home to them
they show no shame. Unnatural sexual offences and crimes against the
authorities are also common. While they are seldom guilty of murder,
they frequently commit arson, through carelessness, or with the idea of
destroying their homes because they think them too small, or wish to
get rid of the vermin in them, such as rats.
The sufferer from Dementia forgets his promises, however serious they
may be. Cerebral irritability often leads him to commit violent acts,
homicide, etc.
In some cases, mental alienation is manifested in a mania for
litigation, which urges the sufferer to offend statesmen, state lawyers,
and judges.
A common symptom of Pellagra is the tendency to unpremeditated murder
or suicide, without the slightest cause. The sight of water suggests
drowning, in the form of murder or suicide.
Young persons at the approach of puberty and women subject to amenorrhea
often exhibit a tendency to arson and crimes of an erotic nature.
Similar tendencies are sometimes displayed during pregnancy, and an
inclination to theft is not uncommon.
Maniacs are prone to satyriasis and bacchanalian excesses. They commit
rape and indecent acts in public and often appropriate strange objects,
hair or wearing apparel, with the idea of obtaining means to satisfy
their vices, either because they are unconscious of doing wrong or
because, like true megalomaniacs, they believe the stolen goods to be
their own property. Sometimes a feverish activity prompts them to
steal; "I felt a kind of uneasiness, a demon in my fingers," said one,
"which forced me to move them and carry off something."
Monomaniacs, especially if subject to hallucinations, frequently
manifest a tendency to homicide, either to escape imaginary persecutions
or in obedience to equally imaginary injunctions. The same motives
prompt them to commit special kinds of theft and arson. Na... (see Fig. 16)
murdered his friend without any reason, after suffering from delusions for one year.
The characteristics of insane criminals are so marked that it is not
difficult to distinguish them from habitual delinquents. They seldom
show any fear of the penalty incurred nor do they try to escape. They
take little trouble to hide their misdeeds, or to get rid of any clue.
If poisoners, they leave poison about in their victim's room; if
forgers, they take no trouble to make their signatures appear genuine;
if thieves, they exhibit stolen goods in public, or appropriate them in
the presence of witnesses. They frequently manifest unbounded rage and
assault those present, entirely forgetting the stolen objects. Once
their crime is accomplished, not only do they give themselves no trouble
to hide it, but are prone to confess it immediately, and are eager to
talk about it, saying with satisfaction that they feel relieved at what
they have done, that they have obeyed the order of superior beings and
consider their actions praiseworthy. They deny that they are insane, or
if they admit it in some cases, it is only because they are persuaded to
do so by their lawyers or fellow-prisoners. And even then, they are
ready at the first opportunity to contradict the idea, eulogising and
exaggerating their criminal acts.
A full confession in court is not uncommon, and in the case of impulsive
monomaniacs, epileptics, and insane inebriates, the descriptions are
full of characteristic expressions, showing what was the offender's
state of mind when dominated by criminal frenzy.
Rom..., an impulsive monomaniac, who stabbed an acquaintance, felt "the
blood rushing to his head, which seemed to be in flames."
Tixier narrates that, on seeing the old man he afterward murdered pass
him on a country road, "something went to his head." Frequently such
criminals are quick to give themselves up to justice.
Antecedents. Unlike the ordinary offender, insane criminals are often
perfectly law-abiding up to the moment of the crime.
Motive. Perhaps the greatest difference between born criminals and
insane criminals lies in the motive for the act, which in the case of
the latter is not only entirely disproportionate to it, but nearly
always absurd and depends far less on personal susceptibility.
Here are a few typical cases: A father fancies he hears a voice bidding
him kill his favourite child. He goes home, has the little victim
dressed in its best clothes and cuts off its head with perfect calmness.
A lady, ignorant of horticulture, plants some flowers on her husband's
grave. A day or two later, noticing that they are drooping, she imagines
that the gardener has watered them with boiling water, and after
reproaching him bitterly, wounds him with a pair of scissors.
These unfortunate beings frequently show perfect mental clearness before
the crime and even in the act of striking the fatal blow; yet their
action is purely instinctive and not prompted by passion or any other
cause. Although such individuals appear to reason, can it be said that
they are in full possession of their mental faculties? If they are, how
shall we explain the wholesale destruction of those they hold most dear?
A husband kills the wife to whom he is sincerely attached; a father, the
son he loves most; or a mother, the infant at her breast.
Such an extraordinary phenomenon can only be explained by a sudden
suspension of the intellectual and moral faculties and of the powers of
the will.
In addition to these casual forms of lunacy, in which the individual is
led to commit crime by a momentary alteration of his moral nature, we
find other forms which might be called specific, because the criminal
act forms the culminating point of the malady. The sufferers from these
forms are less easily distinguished from ordinary criminals and normal
persons than are the lunatics of whom we have just spoken. These mental
diseases, which should be studied separately, are alcoholism, hysteria,
and epilepsy.
It is well known that temporary drunkenness may transform an honest,
peacable individual into a rowdy, a murderer, or a thief.
Gall narrates the case of a certain Petri, who manifested homicidal
tendencies when excited by alcohol. Locatelli mentions a workman of
thirty, who, when under the influence of drink, would smash everything
around him and stab the companions who sought to restrain his drunken
fury. Ladelci and Carmignani cite the case of a miner, who was
repeatedly arrested for drunken brawls, and when reproved replied: "I
cannot help it. As soon as I drink, I must start fighting."
Very characteristic is the case of a certain Papor... who was imprisoned
for some time at Turin. His father was a drunkard and ill treated his
wife. The son became a soldier, then an excise officer, fireman, and
finally nurse in an infirmary, and was known as a respectable, temperate
man. In 1876, he was transferred to the Island of Lipari, where
malvoisie only costs 25 centimes a litre, and there he acquired a taste
for wine, without, however, drinking to excess. But a year later, a
change in the hospital regulations gave him longer hours of leisure, and
he began to drink deeply. In 1881, while intoxicated, he accosted a
sportsman and pretending to be a police officer, ordered him to give up
his gun. At that moment he was arrested by a genuine constable and taken
to the barracks, where he was sentenced, without any one's observing his
drunken condition. After his release, he committed other offences of the
same type, which were followed by confession and repentance.
Chronic Alcoholism. The phenomena developed by chronic inebriety are,
however, still more important from the point of view of the
criminologist than the immediate effects of alcohol on certain
constitutions.
Physical and Functional Characteristics of Chronic Inebriety. The
habitual drunkard rarely exhibits traces of congenital degeneracy, but
frequently that of an acquired character, especially paresis, facial
hemiparesis, slight exophthalmia (see Fig. 6), inequality of the pupils,
insensibility to touch and pain, which is often unilateral, especially
in the tongue, thermoanalgesia, hyperæsthesia, experienced at various
points not corresponding to the nervous territories and modified
spontaneously or by esthesiogenic agents (Grasset), alphalgesia
(sensation of pain at contact with painless bodies), a deficiency of
urea in the urine, out of proportion to the general state of
nourishment, and a proneness of the symptoms to return after trauma,
poisoning, agitation, or serious illness.
The gravest phenomena, however, are atrophy or degeneration in the
liver, heart, stomach, seminal canaliculi, and central nervous system,
which give rise to serious functional disturbances; most of all, in the
digestion—as manifested by the characteristic gastric catarrh,
matutinal vomit and cramp—and in the reproductive system, with
resulting impotence.
Psychic Disturbances—Hallucinations. The most frequent and precocious
symptoms are delusions and hallucinations, generally of a gloomy or even
of a terrible nature, and extremely varied and fleeting, which, like
dreams, in nearly every instance arise from recent and strong
impressions. The most characteristic hallucinations are those which
persuade the patient that he experiences the contact of disgusting
vermin, corpses, or other horrible objects. He is gnawed by imaginary
worms, burnt by matches, or persecuted by spies and the police.
Fig. 16
Italian CriminalA Case of Alcoholism
(see
page 82)
The strange pathological conditions resulting from chronic alcoholism
give rise to other fearful hallucinations. Cutaneous anæsthesia and
alcoholic anaphrodisia make the sufferers fancy they have lost the
generative organs, nose, legs, etc.; dyspepsia, exhaustion, and paresis,
that they have been poisoned or are being persecuted. The reaction
following excessively prolonged stimuli causes furious lypemania and
gloomy fancies. Sometimes chronic inebriates believe that they are
accused of imaginary crimes and loaded with chains amid heaps of
corpses. They implore mercy and try to kill themselves in order to
escape from their shame; or they remain motionless, bewildered, and
terrified. Not infrequently, because of the profound faith, which,
unlike many other lunatics, they have in their hallucinations, they pass
from melancholy broodings to a fit of mad energy, often of a homicidal
or suicidal nature. They imagine they are struggling with thieves or
wild beasts and hurl themselves from the window or rush naked through
the streets, killing the first person that crosses their path. In some,
this delirium of energy breaks out suddenly like an epileptic attack,
which it resembles in its brevity and intensity. With hair standing on
end, they rush about like savage beasts, grinding their teeth, biting,
rending their clothes, or tearing up the sod, or hurling themselves from
some height. These symptoms are preceded by vertigo, periodical
cephalalgia, and flushing of the face, and are manifested more
frequently by those who are already predisposed through trauma to the
head, or through typhus or heredity, or after great agitation and
prolonged fasting, and often bear no relation to the quantity of alcohol
imbibed, which may be small, or to the general physical state; but
depend on cerebral irritation caused by chronic alcoholism. The attacks
may disappear in a few hours without leaving the slightest recollection
in the mind of the patient (Krafft-Ebing, p. 182). They are, in short, a
species of disguised epilepsy, and thus they may well be styled, since
true alcoholic epilepsy is noted in many inebriates, specially in
absinthe-drinkers.
Apathy. Another characteristic almost invariably found in inebriates
who have committed a crime, is a strange apathy and indifference, a
total lack of concern regarding their state—a trait common also to
ordinary criminals, but in a less marked degree. They make themselves at
home in prison without showing the faintest interest in their trial or
in the offence which has caused their arrest, and only when brought
before the judge do they rouse themselves for a moment from their
lethargy.
A well-educated man, after a varied career as doctor, chemist, and
clerk, during which time he had been constantly dismissed from his posts
for drunkenness, met a policeman in the street and killed him, in the
belief that the officer wanted to arrest him. When taken to prison, the
first thing he did was to write to his mother begging her to send him
some pomade. When interrogated, he informed the examining magistrate
that the interrogatory was useless, since he had already chosen a fresh
trade, that of photographer. It was only after several months of total
abstinence in prison, that he began to come to his senses and to realise
the gravity of his situation. (Tardieu, De la Folie, 1870.)
Contrast between Apathy and Impulsiveness. This apathy alternates with
strange impulses, which, although strongly at variance with the
patient's former habits, he is unable to control, even when he is aware
that they are criminal.
Crimes peculiar to Inebriates. Since modification of the reproductive
organs is a common cause of hallucinations, inebriate criminals
frequently suffer from a species of erotic delirium, during which they
murder those whom they believe guilty of offences against
themselves—generally their wives or mistresses. This is partly owing to
the sexual nature of their hallucinations and partly to the wretchedness
of their homes, which are in such striking contrast to the rosy dreams
inspired by alcohol and which tend to increase the melancholy natural to
drunkards. They imagine they are being deceived and their impotence
derided, the most innocent gestures being interpreted as deadly insults.
In the prison at Turin, my father had under observation two of these
unfortunate beings, one a man of sixty and the other quite young. Both
had murdered their wives with the most revolting cruelty, because they
believed them to be unfaithful, although in reality both the women led
blameless lives.
Course of the Disease. The continued abuse of alcohol ends at last in
complete dementia or general pseudo-paralysis. The body is at first
obese, but rapidly loses flesh, the skin becomes greasy and damp, owing
to hypersecretion of the sebaceous and sudoriparous glands, and soils
the garments. Memory becomes enfeebled, speech uncertain and defective
(dysarthria), the association of ideas sluggish, sensibility blunted,
perception confused, judgment erroneous, and every species of regular
and continued application impossible. The earlier hallucinations
reappear, but in a less vivid form and only at long intervals; then
paralysis more or less rapidly becomes general and ends in death.
We have spoken of this disease in another chapter and have shown that
the born criminal is in reality an epileptic, in whom the malady,
instead of manifesting itself suddenly in strange muscular contortions
or terrible spasms, develops slowly in continual brain irritation, which
causes the individual thus affected to reproduce the ferocious egotism
natural to primitive savages, irresistibly bent on harming others.
But besides these epileptics, who are morally insane from their birth
and pass their lives in prisons and lunatic asylums, without any one
being able to mark the exact boundary between their perversity and their
irresponsibility; besides these individuals, whom society has a right,
nay a moral obligation, to remove from its midst because they are ever a
source of danger there are those who are afflicted with other forms of
epilepsy;—forms in which irritation is manifested in seizures exactly
similar to the typical convulsive fit, which they resemble also with
regard to variation in intensity and duration. Generally speaking, they
are likewise accompanied by complete loss of memory and consciousness,
but in some cases there may be partial or complete consciousness, and
yet the sufferer is not responsible for his actions. This variety of
epilepsy, termed by Samt psychic epilepsy (epilepsy with psychic
seizures), manifests itself at long intervals, sometimes only once, but
more frequently twice or thrice in the course of a lifetime, and during
the attack the personality of the individual undergoes a complete
change.
The attack is described by Samt as follows: During the seizure, the
individual behaves like a somnambulist. Sometimes he is dazed, mute, and
immovable; at others, he talks incessantly; at still others, he goes on
with his ordinary occupations, travelling, reading, and writing: but in
every case his personality suffers a complete metamorphosis, his habits,
actions, and even handwriting assume a different character. Sometimes he
is seized by a mania for walking and tramps for miles; at others, he
undertakes interminable railway journeys. Tissié (Les aliénés
voyageurs, 1887) cites cases of epileptics who travelled from Paris to
Bombay, who covered 71 kilometres on foot, and who wandered unconscious
for 31 months.
Sometimes epilepsy is manifested only by the tendency to undertake
purposeless journeys, as in the case of Ferretti and a certain M... who
visited the Mahdi in Africa and from thence travelled aimlessly to
Australia.
This ambulatory form of epilepsy is very common amongst lads of fourteen
or fifteen. Scarcely a week passes without the police receiving
information from parents that their son has disappeared from home with
only a few pence in his pocket. The wanderer is discovered later,
frequently in some small provincial town, which he has reached after
tramping aimlessly for days, sleeping in barns, and living on charity.
When questioned, the boy usually displays total ignorance regarding all
that has happened to him during the interval.
Dr. Maccabruni in his Notes on Hidden Forms of Epilepsy, 1886,
narrates the case of an epileptic, who during childhood received an
injury to his skull. Later, he started out on a series of wanderings to
Venice, Padua, Rome, Milan, Monaco, and Mentone. His journeys,
especially those to distant parts, were undertaken in a state of
unconsciousness and generally a short time before the commencement of a
fit.
These attacks may last any length of time, from a few minutes to several
months. In one of the cases observed by my father, the attack lasted a
fortnight. The patient, a young officer with whom we were personally
acquainted, was one of the quietest persons possible, but suddenly he
was seized with a mania for writing innumerable letters, especially on
stamped paper, in exaggeratedly large writing very different from his
usual style. These letters, which were full of absurdities, were posted
by the writer from the different towns he passed through on his aimless
journeyings, which lasted a whole fortnight. During one of these
seizures, he was arrested as a deserter and was unable to give any
explanation of his conduct.
In this particular patient, the disease assumed the mild form of absurd
letters and still more absurd journeys, but other individuals in the
same state may commit criminal acts like homicide, equally without
reason or gain to themselves. Once the fit is passed, these unfortunate
individuals have generally no recollection of their past actions, and
since in their normal state they are quiet, law-abiding persons, it is
extremely difficult to trace back the deed to the right source, or to
discover the disease, because they show no other symptoms of epilepsy,
apart from the particular criminal act.
Samt describes a still more complicated form of this psychic seizure, in
which the personality is altered without there being any loss of
consciousness. In a case of this kind, a servant, after forty years of
faithful service, murdered his old mistress during the night, having
previously cut all the bell-wires to prevent communication with the
other servants. He escaped with some valuables, but returned in a few
days and gave himself up to the police, to whom he gave a detailed
account of his crime without showing either horror or remorse. He was
tried and condemned, and a few months later was again seized with
epileptic fits during one of which he died. Samt, who saw him in this
state, came to the conclusion that the murder had been committed during
a similar seizure and he was able to prove that attacks of this kind are
not necessarily accompanied by loss of consciousness.
As in the above case, these psychic attacks are sometimes accompanied by
an insatiable thirst for blood, destruction and violence of all kinds,
as well as by an extraordinary development of muscular strength with
apparent lucidity of mind. They may last from a few minutes to half an
hour, after which the patient falls into a sound sleep and forgets
everything that has happened, or else retains only a vague recollection.
Such was the case of the epileptic Misdea, which first suggested to my
father the idea of a link between crime and epilepsy. As this case has
become famous in the annals of crime in Italy, it will perhaps be of
interest to the reader. Misdea, the son of degenerate parents,
manifested a series of typical epileptic anomalies—asymmetry,
vaso-motor disturbances, impulsiveness, ferocity, etc. At the age of
twenty, while serving in the army, for some trivial motive he suddenly
attacked and killed his superior officer and eight or ten soldiers who
tried to overpower him. Finally he was bound and placed in a cell, where
he fell into a sound slumber and on awaking had entirely forgotten what
he had done. He was condemned to death, but my father, who examined him
medically, was able to prove conclusively that the crime had been
committed during an attack of epilepsy.
The physical and psychic characters of this class of epileptic are those
common to all non-criminal epileptics, and indeed we are justified in
considering them insane rather than criminal, because, with the
exception of the attack, which assumes this terrible form, they do not
manifest criminal tendencies.
Hysteria is a disease allied to epilepsy, of which it appears to be a
milder form, and is much more common among women than men in the ratio
of twenty to one. The disease may frequently be traced to hereditary
influences, similar to those found in epilepsy, transmitted by
epileptic, neurotic, or inebriate parents, frequently also, to some
traumatic or toxic influence, such as typhus, meningitis, a blow, a
fall, or fright.
Physical Characteristics. These are fewer than in epileptics. The most
common peculiarities are small, obliquely-placed eyes of timid glance,
pale, elongated face, crowded or loosened teeth, nervous movements of
the face and hands, facial asymmetry, and black hair.
Functional Characteristics. These are of great importance. Hysterical
subjects manifest special sensibility to the contact of certain metals
such as magnetised iron, copper, and gold. Characteristic symptoms are
the insensibility of the larynx or the sensation of a foreign body in it
(globus hystericus), neuralgic pains, which disappear with extreme
suddenness, reappearing often on the side opposite that where they were
first felt, the prevalence of sensory and motor anomalies on one side
(hemianæsthesia), the confusion of different colours (dyschromatopsia);
greater sensibility in certain parts of the body, such as the ovary and
the breasts, which when subjected to pressure give rise to neuropathic
phenomena (hysterogenous points); a sense of pleasure in the presence
of pain, the abolition of pharyngeal reflex action, the absence of the
sensation of warmth in certain parts of the body and a tendency to the
so-called attacks of "hysterics." These characteristics, which are
closely allied, if not precisely similar to those of epilepsy, are
preceded by a number of premonitory symptoms—hallucinations, sudden
change of character, contractions, laryngeal spasms, strabismus,
frequent spitting, inordinate laughter or yawning, cardiac palpitations,
loss of strength, trembling, anæsthesia and (just before the attack,)
pains in some fixed spot, generally in the head, ovary, or nape of the
neck.
Psychology. The psychological manifestations of hysterical subjects
are of still greater interest and importance.
They show, on the whole, a fair amount of intelligence, although little
power of concentration. In disposition they are profoundly egotistical
and so preoccupied with their own persons that they will do anything to
arouse attention and obtain notoriety. They are exceedingly
impressionable, therefore easily roused to anger and cruelty, and are
prone to take sudden and unreasonable likes and dislikes. They are
fickle and easily swayed. They take special delight in slandering
others, and when unable to excite public notice by unfounded
accusations, to which they resort as a means of revenge, they embitter
the lives of those around them by continual quarrels and dissensions.
Susceptibility to Suggestion. Of still greater importance for the
criminologist is the facility with which hysterical women are dominated
by hypnotic suggestion. Their wills become entirely subordinated to that
of the hypnotiser, by whose influence they can be induced to believe
that they have changed their sex so that they forthwith adopt habits of
the opposite sex, or to entertain idées fixes—strange, impulsive, or
even criminal ideas. They are, in fact, obedient automatons when under
hypnotic influence, but they cannot be prevailed upon to perform acts
contrary to their nature, to commit crimes or reveal secrets entrusted
to them, if they are naturally upright.
Variability. Mobility of mood is a still more salient characteristic
of hysteria. The subject passes with extraordinary rapidity from
laughter to tears "like children," says Richet, "who laugh immoderately
before their tears are dry."
"For one hour," says Sydenham, "they will be irascible and discontented;
the next, they are cheerful and follow their friends about with all the
signs of the old attachment."
Their sensibility is affected by the most trifling causes. A word will
grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in
intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive
rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to
fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A
woman will be dumb or motionless for months, on the pretext that speech
or motion would injure her. But this is the only form of constancy they
exhibit, otherwise they are indolent by nature. Sometimes they will show
activity for a few days only to relapse again into idleness.
Erotomania. This is almost a pathognomonical symptom and is shown in
hallucinations and nightmares of an erotic character, preceded by
epigastric aura. This erotomania is so impulsive that hysterical women
frequently engage in a liaison, from a desire of adventure or of
experiencing sudden emotions. The criminality of the hysterical is
always connected with the sexual functions.
Of twenty-one women found guilty of slander, nine made false accusations
of rape, four accused their husbands of sexual violence, and one of
sodomy. Such accusations, when made by minors, are generally full of
disgusting details, which would be repugnant to any adult.
Mendacity. Another peculiarity of hysterical women is the
irresistible tendency to lie, which leads them to utter senseless
falsehoods just for the pleasure of deceiving and making believe. They
sham suicide and sickness or write anonymous letters full of inventions.
Many, from motives of spite or vanity, accuse servants of dishonesty, in
order to revel in their disgrace and imprisonment. The favourite
calumny, however, is always an accusation of indecent behaviour,
sometimes made against their fathers and brothers, but generally against
a priest or medical man. The accusations, in most cases, are so strange
and fantastic as to be quite unworthy of belief, but sometimes,
unfortunately, they obtain credence. The commonest method adopted for
spreading these calumnies is by means of anonymous letters. In one case,
a young girl of twenty-five belonging to a distinguished family,
pestered a respectable priest with love-letters and shortly afterwards
accused him of seduction. Another girl of eighteen informed the Attorney
for the State that she had frequently been the victim of immoral priests
and accused one of her female cousins of complicity. According to her
story, while praying at church, a certain Abbot R... took her into the
sacristy and entreated her to elope with him to Spain. She refused
indignantly, and hoping to soften her, he twice stabbed himself in her
presence, whereat she fainted, and on recovering consciousness, found
the priest at her feet, begging forgiveness. She further accused the
same cousin of having taken her to a convent, where she was seduced by a
priest, the nuns acting as accomplices. A subsequent medical examination
proved that no seduction had taken place and that she was suffering from
hysteria.
In another case, a girl of sixteen, the daughter of an Italian general,
complained to her father that a certain lieutenant, her neighbour at
table, had used indecent language to her. Shortly afterwards, a shower
of anonymous letters troubled the peace of the household—declarations
of love addressed to the girl's mother and threats to the daughter. It
was discovered that the girl herself was the writer of all these
letters.
Anonymous letter-writing is so common among hysterical persons, that it
may be considered a pathognomonical characteristic. The handwriting is
of a peculiar character, or rather it shows a peculiar tendency to vary
from excessive size to extreme smallness, a characteristic we have
noticed in epileptics.
Delirium. Hysterical, like epileptic, subjects often suffer from
melancholia or monomaniacal delirium. Indeed, according to Morel, this
symptom is more frequent when the other morbid phenomena are absent.
Psychic hysteria, like epilepsy, may exist unaccompanied by the
characteristic hysterical attack, and then, as is the case with
epilepsy, it is most dangerous to society.
In conclusion, although up to the present, medical men have been
disposed to consider hysteria as a disease distinct from epilepsy,
careful study of this malady inclined my father to class it as a
variation of epilepsy, prevalent among women, who in this disease, as in
many others, manifest an attenuated form.
We have seen how, owing to disease, alcoholism and epilepsy, physically
and psychically degenerate individuals make their appearance in a
community of normal persons. But a large proportion of the crimes
committed cannot be attributed to lunatics, epileptics, or the morally
insane, nor do all criminals show that aggregate of atavistic and morbid
characters,—the cruelty and bestial insensibility of the savage, the
impulsiveness of the epileptic, the licentiousness, delusions, and
impetuosity of the madman,—which we find united in the born criminal.
According to statistics obtained by my father, the share contributed to
the sum total of criminality by this latter type is only 33%, which
appears to be a magic figure for the criminal, since it corresponds to
the percentage of the histological anomaly discovered by Roncoroni and
to that of all important anomalies, including those of the field of
vision. But besides this percentage of born criminals, doomed even
before birth to a career of crime, whom all educational efforts fail to
redeem and who therefore should be segregated at once; besides the
epileptic, hysterical, and inebriate lunatics and those insane from
alcoholisation, of whom we have already spoken, there remain a number of
criminals, amounting to a full half, in whom the virus is, so to speak,
attenuated, who, although they are epileptoids, suffer from a milder
form of the disease, so that without some adequate cause (causa
criminis) criminality is not manifested. The inhibitory centres are
somewhat obtuse, but not altogether absent, so that a healthy
environment, careful training, habits of industry, the inculcation of
moral and humane sentiments may prevent these individuals from yielding
to dishonest impulses, provided always that no special temptation to sin
comes in their path.
We have said that education is not sufficient to convert a criminal into
an honest man. Conversely, trials and difficulties and the want of
education are powerless to make a criminal of an honest individual.
Hypnotism, the most powerful means of suggestion possible, cannot induce
a good man to commit a crime during the hypnotic sleep, but vicious
training has an enormous influence on weak natures, who are candidates
for good or evil according to circumstances. Such individuals were
classified by my father as criminaloids.
Physical Characteristics. Criminaloids have no special skeletal,
anatomical, or functional peculiarities. As the criminaloid represents a
milder type of the born criminal, he may possess the same physical
defects in the skull, hair, beard, ears, eyes, teeth, lips, joints,
hands, and feet, as well as all the sensory anomalies, lessened
sensibility to touch and pain, hyper-sensibility to the magnet and
barometrical variations, etc.; but all these anomalies are never found
in the same proportion as in born criminals; that is, criminaloids never
manifest the aggregate of physical and psychic peculiarities which
distinguish born criminals and the morally insane. On the other hand, we
find in criminaloids certain characteristics, such as premature greyness
and baldness, etc., which are never exhibited by the born criminal. The
real distinction between the criminaloid and the born criminal is
psychological rather than physical.
Psychological Characteristics. The difference between born criminals
and criminaloids becomes apparent directly on considering the age at
which the latter enter on their anti-social career and the motives which
cause them to adopt it. While the born criminal begins to perpetrate
crimes from the very cradle, so to speak, and always for very trivial
motives, the criminaloid commits his initial offence later in life and
always for some adequate reason.
A criminal of this attenuated type, a certain Salvador, without cranial
or facial anomalies, had led an honest life for many years, but on
returning home after a prolonged absence on business, he found his house
ransacked by his wife, who had deserted him. From that time he seems to
have deliberately adopted a career of dishonesty, as the leader of a
band of thieves.
In another case, an engraver who showed no pathological anomalies,
except excessive frontal sinuses, was ordered by a society to strike a
medal for them. This happened to be exactly similar to a coin current in
his country and the coincidence incited him to the making of counterfeit
coin.
But the most characteristic case, which aroused much interest in its
time, is that of Olivo. He was a man of handsome appearance, with normal
olfactory acuteness and sensibility to touch and pain. He had, however,
inherited from neurotic and insane forebears secondary epileptic
phenomena, which subsequently developed into convulsive epilepsy, and
certain indications of degeneracy (facial and cranial asymmetry,
abnormal capillary vortices and length of arm, scotoma in the field of
vision and exaggerated tendinous reflex action). Up to the age of
thirty he led an irreproachable life; in fact, he was scrupulous to
excess, and this, coupled with pronounced conceit and stinginess, was
his only fault. He married a woman of common origin, who was not really
depraved, but she was coarse and unfaithful, and, worst of all in his
eyes, unscrupulous and wasteful. These defects, and her habits of lying
and trickery embittered the poor man's existence. One night, feeling
very ill, probably owing to an approaching seizure, he appealed to his
wife for assistance and received an unfeeling reply, whereupon he sprang
out of bed, picked up a knife and stabbed her. Afterwards he fell into a
deep sleep. In order to obliterate all traces of the crime, he cut the
corpse into small pieces, packed it into a portmanteau and threw it into
the sea. Two months later, when he was arrested, he immediately made a
full confession, showing deep repentance and sincere attachment to his
victim, whose merits he celebrated in a poem of his own composition. At
the trial, he made no attempt to defend himself; during the hearing of
evidence, which appeared greatly to agitate him, he was seized with an
epileptic fit. He was absolved by the jury and returned to his former
peaceful occupation of bookkeeper, nor did he again come into conflict
with the law.
Reluctance to Commit Crimes. Another trait characteristic of
criminaloids is the hesitation they show before committing a crime,
especially the first time, when it is not done, as in the above
mentioned case, during an epileptic seizure.
Feuerbach's fine collection contains a description of the brothers
Kleinroth, whose father cruelly ill-treated and starved his wife and
family while lavishing his money on low women and their bastards. The
sons were unwilling to run away and leave the invalid mother to bear the
brunt of her husband's fury, and while they were in this terrible
situation, a certain individual offered to assassinate their tormentor.
After great hesitation this offer was accepted; when arrested, the
youths immediately confessed their complicity and manifested deep
repentance.
Confession. The criminaloid is easily induced to confess his misdeed.
A certain C... on returning from abroad, found his former mistress
married to his father. The pair resumed their liaison, but after a time,
fearing a scandal, the woman threatened to drown herself unless her
lover could find some means of adjusting matters on a satisfactory
basis. C..., who disliked his father, poisoned him and disappeared with
the widow taking with him a few valuables belonging to his father. A
year later, the woman having died meanwhile, he returned home and made
full confession, first to his sister and subsequently in court.
Moral Sense—Intelligence. In the place of a weak, clouded, or
unbalanced mind and that cynicism and absence of moral sense and natural
feelings which distinguish born criminals of the most elevated type and
even geniuses, criminaloids generally possess lucidity and balance of
mind and may show themselves worthy of guiding the destinies of a
nation. The men implicated in the French Panama Scandal and the case of
the Banca Romana (Bank of Rome) are instances. When under a cloud of
disgrace, instead of that insensibility, cynicism, or levity common to
true criminals, they show deep sorrow, shame, and remorse, which not
infrequently result in serious illness or death. Their natural
affections and other sentiments are normal.
It is notorious, too, that as soon as accusations were made against
those implicated in the French Panama Scandal and the affair of the Bank
of Rome, the greater number became ill and two died suddenly at the end
of the trial.
Unlike born criminals, criminaloids manifest deep repugnance towards
common offenders. They demand solitary confinement and forego exercise,
the only recreation prison life affords, in order to avoid all contact
with their fellow-prisoners.
Social Position and Culture of the Criminaloid. Criminaloids, as we
have seen, are recruited from all ranks of society and strike every note
in the scale of criminality, from petty larceny to complicated and
premeditated murder, from minting spurious coins to compassing gigantic
frauds, which inflict incalculable damage upon the community. The
magnitude of a crime does not imply greater criminality on the part of
its author, but rather that he is a man of brilliant endowments, whose
culture and talents multiply his opportunities and means for evil. In
all cases where opportunity plays an important part, the crime must
necessarily be committed by individuals exposed to special temptations:
cashiers who handle other people's money, which they may be tempted to
spend with the illusory idea of being able later to replace what they
have taken, officials and public men, who possess a certain amount of
power and an apparent impunity, and bankers who are entrusted with
wealth belonging to others, of which in that capacity they are
accustomed to make use. Thus is explained why men of great talent and
only slight criminal tendencies have taken part in gigantic frauds, such
as the affairs of the Bank of Rome and the French Panama Canal.
A characteristic case is that of Lord S——, First Lord of the Treasury,
who committed forgeries to the extent of half a million sterling. "No
torture," he writes, "would be an adequate punishment for my crime. Step
by step, I have become the author of innumerable misdeeds and ruined
more than ten thousand families. With less talent and greater
uprightness, I might be now what I once was, an honest man. Now remorse
is in vain."
In Lord S—— we find united all the characteristics of the criminaloid:
repentance, the desire to confess, irreproachable antecedents, a strong
incentive to dishonesty, and great intelligence.
Although the damage inflicted on society by this man was probably far
greater than any evil wrought by a vulgar born criminal could have been,
his criminality is nevertheless of an attenuated type. The mischief he
wrought owed its gravity, not to the intensity of his criminal
tendencies, but to his remarkable talents, which increased his power for
evil as for good.
In this category of criminals must be inscribed those clever swindlers,
who set the whole world talking of their exploits: Madame Humbert,
Lemoine, and the cobbler-captain of Köpenick.
Sometimes, especially in political or commercial criminals, we find
cases of an auto-illusion, of which the author of the crime is as much
a victim as the public. Sometimes it is some device or mechanism which
an inventor is convinced he has invented or is about to invent, an
enterprise, in which the promoter imagines he will gain enormous wealth.
Sometimes it is a trick in which the cupidity of the victims and their
readiness to swallow promises of large and immediate profits play as
important a part as the ability of the swindler. Sometimes it is a
gigantic hoax, in which the deviser himself becomes keenly interested
and for the carrying out of which he spends as much talent and energy as
would suffice, if employed honestly, to acquire considerable wealth; but
the swindler delights in his ingenious fraud as though he were taking
part in some thrilling drama.
A typical instance is that of a certain C... who was imprisoned about
twenty years ago for defrauding a woman. My father undertook to cure him
while in prison and was able to follow him in his subsequent career.
This C... was a young man of good family, intelligent, honest, and a
good linguist. His countenance was pleasing and bore no trace of
precocious criminality. At the age of twenty he developed an
unrestrained love of gambling and in order to indulge this vice,
promised to marry a rich woman considerably older than himself, from
whom he borrowed large sums, on the understanding that they should be
paid back. However, shortly afterwards, he fell in love with a young
girl and married her. His ex-fiancée brought legal action against him
and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. During this time he
shrank from seeing anybody and refused to exercise in order to avoid all
contact with his fellow-prisoners. He showed great affection for his
wife and declared his intention of turning over a new leaf. The offence
he had committed, however seemed to cause him little or no regret,
because, as he said, he would never have continued the deception had not
his victim shown such willingness to be gulled. From prison he went to
London, where lack of funds caused him to perpetrate another swindle,
but this time he was able to escape to Naples. Here for twelve years, he
worked honestly in a large hotel, but once again a pressing need of
money made him engage in a third fraud of considerable importance, for
which he is still undergoing imprisonment.
The degrading influence of prison life and contact with vulgar
criminals, or the abuse of alcohol, to which better natures frequently
have recourse in order to stifle the pangs of conscience, may cause
criminaloids who have committed their initial offences with repugnance
and hesitation, to develop later into habitual criminals,—that is,
individuals who regard systematic violation of the law in the light of
an ordinary trade or occupation and commit their offences with
indifference.
Physically, habitual criminals do not resemble born criminals, but they
exhibit some of the characteristics of those offenders from whom their
ranks are recruited, besides, in a more marked degree, certain acquired
characters, like sinister wrinkles and a shifty and sneaking look.
Psychologically, criminaloids tend to resemble born criminals, whose
habits, tastes, slang, tattooing, orgies, idleness, etc., they gradually
develop, in the same way as old couples, living isolated in the country,
adopt identical habits, gestures, and tone of voice.
The type of criminaloid, who develops into an habitual criminal is well
illustrated by the case of Eyraud, who in conjunction with Gabrielle
Bompard, murdered Gouffré and packed the corpse in a trunk. Through his
marked weakness for women, Eyraud became successively a deserter, a
thief, and a murderer. He certainly possessed a few of the
characteristics peculiar to degenerates—long, projecting ears,
excessive development, amounting to asymmetry, of the left frontal
sinus, prognathism, exaggerated brachycephaly, and the span of the arms
exceeding the total height, but he had not the general criminal type,
his teeth were regular, beard abundant, and hair scanty.
His psychology corresponds exactly to his physical individuality. During
infancy and youth, he showed nothing abnormal, except an unusual
predominance of the sexual instincts. He exhibited no signs of that love
of evil for its own sake, so characteristic of criminals, above all, of
murderers. According to all accounts, he was a jovial individual, fond
of making merry, but at the same time, brusque and violent and easily
roused to passionate fury. His extreme susceptibility to the attractions
of the opposite sex made him regardless of all moral considerations. In
order to gratify this weakness, he became a deserter, dissipated all the
money he had earned in a distillery and as a dealer in skins, and
finally committed murder. At his trial, it was shown that before his
escape to America, he had attempted to kill a woman who refused to leave
her husband for him. He became violently enamoured of his accomplice,
Gabrielle Bompard, to whom, like many criminaloids, he was attracted by
reason of her greater depravity.
The extreme levity displayed by Eyraud seems to be the strongest link
between him and the born criminal. He passed with extraordinary
facility from gaiety to melancholy. His intellect was well developed,
he spoke three or four languages, and was successful in most things he
undertook, though he seems to have been incapable of remaining constant
to anything for long. As a business man he wasted his capital, and even
in the execution of his crimes he showed frivolity and incoherence. At
Lyons, he hired a carriage, in which he placed the corpse of Gouffré and
after driving about the streets with Gabrielle Bompard like a madman,
left the body of his victim in a spot near which people were constantly
passing.
Eyraud appears to have been a dissolute criminaloid whose unbridled
passions and connection with Gabrielle Bompard caused him to develop
into an habitual criminal. This diagnosis is confirmed by the absence of
morbid heredity.
It would be futile to cite a long series of cases, in which, although
the details may vary, we always find the same phenomenon, the gradual
development of a criminaloid into a criminal. It will suffice to name a
large class of criminals, in whom this phenomenon may often be
observed—the brigands common to Spain and Italy.
These outlaws, and particularly their leaders, notwithstanding the
gravity of their offences, are seldom born criminals, nor do they
(except in rare cases) begin their career at a very early age. They
possess, moreover, good qualities[3] and are capable of affection,
generosity, and chivalry, which explains why their memories are
cherished by the common people long after good and law-abiding men have
been forgotten.
The brigand Mandrin, known as the "Smuggler General" is remembered with
love and affection in Dauphiné and other regions of France, Switzerland,
and Savoy; and this feeling is easy to understand, since he was the
enemy of the "fermiers généraux," who, in the eighteenth century, leased
from the French Government the right to levy excise duties, and sorely
oppressed the people.
Louis Mandrin, who in early life showed no signs of perversity nor
possessed criminal traits, became a bandit, because he had been unjustly
treated by these same "fermiers généraux" who refused him payment for
work done. He became the chief of a small band of smugglers and spread
terror among excise officers and gendarmes. He used to bring smuggled
goods openly into the vicinity of villages and towns and invite the
people to buy them, and the buying and selling went on without either
gendarmes' or excise officers' daring to interfere. The Administration
of the "fermiers généraux" promulgated a terrible edict against all
purchasers of contraband goods; whereupon Mandrin, who was not without a
sense of humour, declared he would force the Administration itself to
buy the merchandise, and from time to time he would oblige the excise
officers to buy smuggled wares at a fair price.
| Fig. 18 | Fig. 19 |
 |  |
| Criminal Girl | The Brigand Salomone |
The brigand Gasparone (Fig. 20), whose memory is still held in great
esteem by Sicilians, was an individual of much the same disposition.
This category comprises individuals who break the law, not because of
any natural depravity, nor owing to distressing circumstances, but by
mere accident. They may be divided into two classes:
First, the authors of accidental misdeeds, such as involuntary homicide
or arson, who are not considered criminal by public opinion or by
anthropologists, but who are obliged by the law to make compensation for
the damage caused. Naturally, this class of law-breaker is in no way
distinguishable, physically or psychically, from normal individuals,
except that he is generally lacking in prudence, care, and forethought.
Second, the authors of offences, which do not cause any damage socially,
nor are they considered criminal by the general public, but have been
deemed such by the law, in obedience to some dominating opinion or
prejudice. Bad language, seditious writings, atheism, drunkenness,
evasion of customs, and any violation of petty by-laws come under this
head. Instances of such offences are too well known to need citation.
They may best be summed up in the words of an American judge, who
pointed out how easy it would be to sentence the most honest citizen of
the Republic to imprisonment for a hundred years and fines exceeding a
thousand dollars for breaking a number of petty local regulations
against spitting, drinking, disrobing near a window, swearing, opening
places of amusement on Sunday, or employing persons on certain days or
under certain conditions prohibited by the law, etc.
Although persons who commit these acts are often in no wise
distinguishable from ordinary individuals, both criminals and
criminaloids are more often guilty of such offences than are normal
persons, who instinctively avoid coming into conflict with the law.
The difficulty of judging these misdeeds lies in the necessity for
careful weighing of the motive which gives rise to them, whether, that
is, they have been unwittingly committed by an honest individual, or
whether they are but an item in the long list of offences perpetrated by
a criminal. This differential diagnosis should be based principally on
the antecedents of the offender.
To this group belong also the authors of more serious infractions of the
law that are not generally considered such at the time, or in the
district in which they take place. Misdeeds of this nature are: thefts
of fuel in rural districts, poaching, the petty dishonesty current in
commerce and in certain professions, and in countries where secret
societies like the camorra at Naples and the mafia in Sicily, exist,
a connection with such organisations, which to a certain extent is
necessary in self-defence. Such, too, are theft and homicide during
revolutions, insurrections, wars, and the conquest and exploitation of
new territories and mines.
Rochefort and Whitman have pointed out that during the gold-fever in
Australia and California there was an enormous increase in crime.
Individuals of good antecedents engaged in deadly struggles for the
possession of the most valuable territories, and unbridled orgies
followed these bloody affrays.
During the expedition of Europeans to China in 1900, looting was carried
on by soldiers of previously blameless career.
This type of criminal, if indeed such he may be called, represents the
antithesis of the common offender, whose evil acts are the outcome of
his ferocious and egotistical impulses, whereas criminals from passion
are urged to violate the law by a pure spirit of altruism. In fact, they
stand in no relation whatsoever to ordinary delinquents, and it is only
by a legislative compromise that they are classed together. They
represent the ultra-violet ray of the criminal spectrum, of which the
vulgar criminal represents the ultra-red. Not only are they free from
the egotism, insensibility, laziness, and lack of moral sense peculiar
to the ordinary criminal, but their abnormality consists in the
excessive development of noble qualities, sensibility, altruism,
integrity, affection, which if carried to an extreme, may result in
actions forbidden by law, or worse still, dangerous to society.
Physical Characteristics. These, too, are in complete contrast to
those of the born criminal. The countenance is frequently handsome, with
lofty forehead, serene and gentle expression, and the beard is abundant.
The sensibility is extremely acute; there is a high degree of
excitability and exaggerated reflex action, all characteristics of the
normal (or rather hypernormal) individual, from whom nothing
distinguishes the criminal of passion except the anti-social effects of
his action.
Psychology. Here, as in all physical characteristics, criminals of
passion are scarcely distinguishable from their fellow-men, except that
we find in an excessive degree those qualities we consider peculiar to
good and holy persons—love, honour, noble ambitions, patriotism. In
fact, the motive of the crime is always adequate, frequently noble, and
sometimes sublime. Love prompts certain natures to kill those who insult
their beloved ones or are the cause of their dishonour and, in some
cases, even the object of their affection who proves unfaithful. Crimes
of this character are the murder by brothers of the man who dishonours
their sister, the murder of an infant by its unmarried mother, the
murder of an unfaithful wife by her husband. Sometimes the motive is a
patriotic one, as in the cases of Charlotte Corday, Orsini Sand, and
Caserio (Fig. 21) all of whom had been persons of gentle disposition and
blameless conduct up to the moment of their crimes.
This class of offender not infrequently commits suicide after his crime,
or, if this is prevented, he seeks to expiate it by long years of
remorse and self-inflicted martyrdom.
The deed is almost always unpremeditated and committed publicly, without
accomplices and with the simplest means at hand—be they nails, teeth,
scissors, or a stick. The previous career is always blameless.
Cumano, Verano, Guglielmotti, Harry, Curti, Milani, Brenner, Mari,
Zucca, Bechis, Bouley, Tacco, Berruto and Sand, and Camicia, Vinci, and
Leoni (these last three women), all attacked their victims single-handed
and in public.
In the case of Chalanton, the woman he had rescued by marriage from a
low life, not content with betraying her benefactor, covered him in
public with abuse and persecuted him with anonymous accusations. His
demand for a separation was unsuccessful and at last, finding himself,
in spite of his integrity, involved in a scandalous action, in which his
wife figured as a go-between, and tormented by public curiosity and the
implacable questionings of reporters, he murdered the cause of all his
misfortunes. Another murderer, Del Prete, was prompted to kill his
victim, an old woman with a reputation for witchcraft, because he
believed she had caused the illness of his mother, to whom he was
greatly attached.
The motive for the crime is generally a serious one and in most cases
immediately precedes it. Bouley committed his crime only a few hours
after receiving the news which prompted it; Bounin, Bechis, and Verano,
only a few minutes; Milani, twenty-four hours, Zucca eight hours;
Curti, a few days. Thus the crime is seldom premeditated, or if so, for
only a short space of time, never for months or years.
Fig. 21
Homicide forms 91% of the criminality of this group of offenders. There
is a certain proportion also of infanticide, owing to the prevailing
prejudice which condemns immorality more harshly when the results are
evident. Arson and theft form only 2%. Such cases are however possible.
A young girl, whom my father had under observation in prison, seeing her
family in dire poverty, committed arson in order to get the insurance
money.
In another case a woman of refinement, education, and of gentle
disposition, who had fallen from prosperity into extreme want, stole in
order to pay her son's school-fees. When arrested, she refused to give
her name so that the lad should not be dishonoured, and her identity
might never have been discovered had she not been recognised by a lawyer
in court. She died of a broken heart a few days after her trial.
