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Page 8
[9] _American Prisons_, 1888.
These formidable figures afford ample food for reflection. Apart from
its danger to the community, the annual loss of money which the
existence of crime entails is a most serious consideration. It is
equal to a tenth of the national expenditure, and every few years
amounts to as much as the cost of a big European war. It is tempting
to speculate on the admirable uses to which the capital consumed by
crime might be devoted, if it were free for beneficent purposes. How
easy it would be for many a scheme, which is now in the region of
dreamland, to be immediately realised. Unhappily, it is almost as vain
to look forward to the abolition of crime as it is to look forward to
the cessation of war. At the present moment the latter event, however
improbable, is more likely to happen than the former. War has ceased
to be a normal condition of things in the comity of nations; it has
become a transitory incident; but crime, which means war within the
nation, is still far from being a passing incident; on the contrary, a
conflict between the forces of moral order and social anarchy is going
on continually; and, at present, there is not the faintest prospect of
its coming to an end.
What is the cause of this state of warfare within society? Which of the
combatants is to blame? Or is the blame to be laid equally on the
shoulders of both? In other words, are the conditions in which men live
together in society of such a nature that crime is certain to flow from
them; and is crime simply a reaction against the iniquity of existing
social arrangements? Or, on the other hand, does crime spring from the
individual and his cosmical surroundings; and is it the product of
forces over which society has little or no control? These are questions
which cannot be answered off-hand, they involve considerations of a
most complicated character, and it is only after a careful examination
of all the factors responsible for crime that a true solution can
possibly be arrived at. These factors are divisible into three great
categories--cosmical, social, and individual.[10] The cosmical factors
of crime are climate and the variations of temperature; the social
factors are the political, economic and moral conditions in the midst
of which man lives as a member of society; the individual factors are a
class of attributes inherent in the individual, such as descent, sex,
age, bodily and mental characteristics. These factors, it will be seen,
can easily be reduced to two, the organism and its environment; but it
will be more convenient to consider them under the three-fold division
which has just been mentioned. Before proceeding to do so, it may be as
well to remark that in each case the several factors operate with
different degrees of intensity. It is often extremely difficult to
disentangle them; and the more complex the society is in which a crime
takes place, the greater is the combination and intricacy of the causes
leading up to it.
[10] Cf. E. Ferri. I _Nuovi Orizzonti del Diritto e della Procedura
Penale_.
CHAPTER II.
CLIMATE AND CRIME.
Man's existence depends upon physical surroundings; these surroundings
have exercised an immense influence in modifying his organism, in
shaping his social development, in moulding his character. To enumerate
all the external factors operating upon individual and social life is
outside our present purpose, but they may be briefly summed up as
climate, moisture, soil, the configuration of the earth's surface, and
the nature of its products. These natural phenomena, either singly or
in varying degrees of combination, have unquestionably played a most
prominent part in making the different races of mankind what they at
present are. We have only to look at the low type of life exhibited by
the primitive inhabitants of certain inhospitable regions of the globe
to see how profoundly the physical structure of man is affected by his
natural surroundings. Even a comparatively slight difference of
environment is not without effect upon the population subjected to its
influence. According to M. de Quatrefages, the bodily structure of the
English race has been distinctly modified by residence in the United
States of America. It is not more than two and a half centuries since
Englishmen began to emigrate in any considerable numbers to the
American Continent, but in that comparatively short period the
Anglo-American has ceased to resemble his ancestors in physical
appearance. Alterations have taken place in the skin, the hair, the
neck, and the head; the lower jaw has become bigger; the bones of the
arms and legs have lengthened, and the American of to-day requires a
different kind of glove from the Englishman. Structural changes of a
similar character have taken place in the negroes transplanted to
America. M. Elis�e Reclus considers that in a century and a half they
have traversed a good quarter of the distance which separates them from
the whites. Another important point, as showing the influence of
habitat upon race, is the fact that the modifications of human
structure resulting from residence in America are in the direction of
assimilating the European type to that of the red man.[11] In short, it
may be taken as a well-established principle that external nature
destroys all organisms that cannot adapt themselves to its action, and
physiologically modifies all organisms that can.
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