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Page 24
CHAPTER IV.
DESTITUTION AND CRIME.
Under this heading I shall discuss some of the more important social
factors which either directly or indirectly tend to produce crime. It
will be impossible to discuss them all. The action of society upon the
individual is so complex, its effects are so varied, in many instances
so impalpable, that we must content ourselves with a survey of those
social phenomena which are most generally credited with leading up to
acts of delinquency.
It is very commonly believed that destitution is a powerful factor in
the production of crime; we shall therefore start upon this inquiry by
considering the extent to which destitution is responsible for
offences against person and property. A definition of what is meant by
destitution will assist in clearing the ground. It is a definition
which is not at all difficult to formulate; one destitute person is
remarkably like another, and what applies to one applies with a
considerable degree of accuracy to all. We shall, therefore, define a
destitute person as a person who is without house or home, who has no
work, who is able and willing to work but can get none, and has
nothing but starvation staring him in the face. Is any serious amount
of crime due to the desperation of people in a position such as this?
In order to answer this question it is necessary, in the first place,
to ask what kind of crime such persons will be most likely to commit.
It is most improbable that they will be crimes against the person,
such as homicide or assault; it will not be drunkenness, because, on
the assumption of their destitution, they will possess no money to
spend. In short, the offences a person in a state of destitution is
most likely to commit are begging and theft. What proportion of the
total volume of crime is due to these two offense? This is the first
question we shall have to answer. The second is, to what extent are
begging and theft the results of destitution? An adequate elucidation
of these two points will supply a satisfactory explanation of the part
played by destitution in the production of crime.
The total number of cases tried in England and Wales either summarily
or on indictment during the year 1887-88 amounted to 726,698. Out of
this total eight per cent. were cases of offences against property
excluding cases of malicious damage, and seven per cent. consisted of
offences against the Vagrancy Acts. Putting these two classes of
offences together we arrive at the result that out of a total number
of crimes of all kinds committed in England and Wales, 15 per cent.
may conceivably be due to destitution. This is a very serious
percentage, and if it actually represented the number of persons who
commit crime from sheer want of the elementary necessaries of life,
the confession would have to be made that the economic condition of
the country was deplorable. But is it a fact that destitution in the
sense we have been using the word is the cause of all these offences?
This is the next question we have to solve, and the answer springing
from it will reveal the true position of the case.
Let us deal first with offences against property. As has just been
pointed out these constitute eight per cent. of the annual amount of
crime. But according to inquiries which I have made, one half of the
annual number of offenders against property, so far from being in a
state of destitution, were actually at work, and earning wages at the
time of their arrest. Nor in this surprising. The daily newspapers
have only to be consulted to confirm it. In a very great number of
instances the records of criminal proceedings testify to the fact that
the person charged is in some way or other defrauding his employer,
and when these cases are deducted from the total of offences against
property, it considerably lessons the percentage of persons driven by
destitution into the ranks of crime. Add to these the great bulk of
juvenile offenders convicted of theft, and that peculiar class of
people who steal, not because they are in distress, but merely from a
thievish disposition, and it will he manifest that half the cases of
theft in England and Wales are not due to the pressure of absolute
want.
But what shall be said of the other half which still represents four
per cent. of the annual amount of crime. According to the calculations
just referred to, the offenders constituting this percentage were not
in work when the crimes charged against them were committed. Was it
destitution arising from want of employment which led them to break
the law? At first sight one may easily be inclined to say that it is.
These people, it will be argued, have no work and no money. What are
they to do but beg or steal? Before jumping at this conclusion it must
not be forgotten that there is such a person as the habitual criminal.
The habitual criminal, as he will very soon tell you if you possess
his confidence absolutely, declines to work. He never has worked, he
does not want work; he prefers living by his wits. With the
recollection of imprisonment fresh upon him an offender of this
description may in rare instances take employment for a short period,
but the regularity of life which work entails is more than he can
bear, and the old occupation of thieving is again resorted to. To live
by plundering the community is the trade of the habitual criminal; it
is the only business he truly cares for, and it is wonderful how long
and how often he will succeed in eluding the suspicion and vigilance
of the police. Of course, offenders of this class, when arrested, say
they are out of work, and will very readily make an unwary person
believe that it is destitution which drives them to desperation. But
as was truly remarked a short time ago by a judge in one of the London
courts, nearly all of these very men are able to pay high fees to
experienced counsel to defend them. After these observations, it will
be seen that the habitual criminal, the man who lives by burglary,
housebreaking, shoplifting, and theft of every description, is not to
be classed among the destitute. Criminals of this character constitute
at least two per cent. of the delinquents annually brought before the
courts.
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