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CRIME (Lat. crimen, accusation)
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See also:CRIME (See also:Lat. crimen, See also:accusation) , the See also:general See also:term for offences against the CRIMINAL See also:LAW (q.v.). Crime has been defined as " a failure or refusal to live up to the See also:standard of conduct deemed binding by the See also:rest of the community." See also:Sir See also: The combat with crime was See also:long waged with See also:great See also:cruelty. Extreme penalties were thought to constitute the best deterrent, and the principle of vengeance chiefly inspired the penal law. The harshness of See also:ancient codes makes a more humane age shudder. It was the custom to hang or decapitate, or otherwise take See also:life in some more or less barbarous See also:fashion, on the smallest excuse. The final act was preceded by hideous See also:torture. It was performed with the utmost barbarity. Victims were put to death by breaking on the See also:wheel, burning at the stake, by dismemberment and flaying or boiling alive. These were the aggravations of the See also:original See also:idea of riddance, of checking crime by the See also:absolute removal of the offender. Only slowly and gradually milder methods came into force. Revenge and See also:retaliation were no longer the See also:chief aims, the law had a larger See also:mission than to coerce the criminal and force him by severity to mend his ways. To withdraw him for a lengthened See also:period from the See also:sphere of his baneful activity was something; to subject him to more or less irksome processes, to solitary confinement upon See also:short See also:diet, deprived of all the solaces of life, with severe labour, were See also:sharp lessons limited in effect to those actually subjected to them, but too remote to deter the outside See also:crowd of potential wrongdoers. The higher duty of the See also:administrator is to utilize the period of detention by labouring to reform the criminal subjects and send them out from See also:gaol reformed characters. If no very remarkable success has been achieved in this direction, it is obviously the right aim, and it is being more and more steadfastly pursued. But it is generally accepted in principle that to eradicate criminal proclivities and cut off recruits from the permanent See also:army of crime the See also:work must be undertaken when the subject is of an age susceptible of reform; hence the extreme value attaching to the more enlightened treatment of crime in embryo, a principle becoming more and more largely accepted in practice among civilized nations. It may safely be asserted that the germ of crime is universally See also:present in mankind, ever ready to show under conditions favour-able to its growth. See also:Children show criminal tendencies in their earliest years. They exhibit evil traits, anger, resentment, mendacity; they are often intensely selfish, are strongly acquisitive, greedy of gain, ready to steal and secrete things at the first opportunity. Happily the fatal consequences that would other-See also:wise be inevitable are checked by the See also:gradual growth of inhibitory processes, such as prudence, reflection, a sense of moral duty, and in many cases the See also:absence of temptation. From this Dr See also:Nicholson deduces that " in proportion as this development is prevented or stifled, either owing to an original See also:brain defect or by lack of proper See also:education or training, so there is the See also:risk of the individual lapsing into criminal-mindedness or into actual crime." In the lowest strata of society this risk is largely increased from the conditions of life. The growth of criminals is greatly stimulated where people are badly fed, morally and physically unhealthy, infected with any forms of disease and See also:vice. In such circumstances, moreover, there is too often the evil See also:influence of See also:heredity and example. The offspring of criminals are constantly impelled to follow in their parents' footsteps by the See also:secret springs of nature and pressure of childish imitativeness. The See also:seed is thrown, so to speak, into a hot-See also:bed where it finds congenial See also:soil in which to take See also:root and flourish. Wherever crime shows itself it follows certain well-defined lines and has its See also:genesis in three dominant See also:mental processes, the result of marked propensities. These are malice, acquisitiveness and lust. Malicious crimes may be amplified into offences against the person originating in hatred, resentment, violent See also:temper, and rising from See also:mere assaults into See also:manslaughter and murder. Crimes of greed and acquisitiveness See also:cover the whole range of thefts, frauds and misappropriation; of larcenies of all sorts; obtaining by false pretences; receiving stolen goods; robberies; See also:house-breaking, See also:burglary, See also:forgery and coining. Crimes of lust embrace the whole range of illicit sexual relations, the result of ungovernable See also:passion and criminal depravity. The proportions in which these three categories are manifested have been worked out in See also:England and See also:Wales to give the following figures. The percentage in any roo,000 of the population is: Crimes of malice . . 15 % Crimes of greed 75 % Crimes of lust . . to % The members of these categories do not See also:form distinct classes; their crimes are interdependent and constantly overlap. Crime in many is progressive and passes through all the stages from See also:minor offences to the worst crimes. Murder—the culminating point of malice—is constantly preceded by See also:petty See also:larceny; See also:theft by forcible entry; and See also:robbery is associated with violence and armed resistance to.See also:capture. Criminality rising into its highest development shows itself under many forms. It is instinctive, passionate, accidental, deliberate and habitual, the outcome of abnormal appetite, of weak and disordered moral sense. The See also:causation of crime varies, but a predominating See also:motive is idleness, leading to the predatory instincts of gain easily acquired without the labour of continuous effort. To deprive the more industrious or more happily placed of their hard-won earnings or possessions, inspires the bulk of See also:modern serious crime. It no doubt has produced one See also:peculiar feature in modern crime: the extensive See also:scale on which it is carried out. The greatest frauds are now commonly perpetrated; great robberiesare planned in one See also:capital and executed in another. The whole is worked by wide associations of See also:cosmopolitan criminals. Other features of modern crime are especially interesting. It is extraordinarily precocious. Children of quite See also:tender years commit murders, and boys and girls are frequently to be met with as professional thieves. Again, the See also:comparative proportions of crime in the two sexes may be considered. Everywhere See also:women are less criminal than men. Naturally they have fewer facilities for committing crimes of violence, although they have offences peculiar to their See also:sex, such as See also:infanticide, and are more frequently guilty of poisoning than men by 70% against 30%. See also:Statistics presented to the See also:Prison See also:Congress at See also:Stockholm See also:fix the percentage of See also:female criminals at 3 % in See also:Japan, the See also:East generally, See also:South See also:America and some parts of See also:North America. In some states of the See also:American See also:Union it is ro %; in See also:China, 20 %; in See also:Europe generally it varies between ro % and 21 %. In See also:France the proportion of accused women is fifteen to eighty-five men. In Great See also:Britain it is now one in four, but has been less. The See also:total sentenced in 1905–1906 to penal See also:servitude and imprisonment was 139,389 men and 44,294 women, the See also:balance being made up by See also:summary convictions. The curious fact in female crime is that one-seventh of the women committed to prison had already been convicted from eleven to twenty times. It has been well said from the above proportions that women are less criminal according to the figures, because when a woman wants a crime committed she can generally find a See also:man to do it for her. It has often been debated whether or not prison methods react upon the criminality of the See also:country; whether, in other words, severity of treatment deters, while milder methods encourage the wrongdoers to despise the penalties imposed by the law. See also:Evidence for and against the See also:verdict may be See also:drawn from the whole civilized See also:world. In England, as judged by the increase or decrease of the prison population, it might be supposed that the prison See also:system was at one time effective in diminishing crime. Between 1878 and 1891 there was a steady decrease in See also:numbers because of it. More recently there has been an appreciable increase in the number of crimes and proportionately of those imprisoned. The figures for 1906 showed a distinct increase in criminality for that See also:year as compared with the years immediately preceding. The proportion of indictable offences had increased in 1906 from S9,079 as against 50,494 171 1899, or in the proportion of 171.01 per roo,000 of the population as against 158.97, a very marked increase over earlier years. Nevertheless the figures for 1906, although high, are by no means the highest, as on eight occasions during the fifty See also:odd years for which statistics were available in 1909 the total crimes exceeded 6o,000, and in the quinquennial period 186o–1864 the See also:annual See also:average was 280 per 100,000 as compared with 171.01 for 1906 and 175 for the quinquennial period 1902–1906. The quality of the crime varied, and while offences against property have increased, those against the person have constantly fallen. Quite See also:half the whole number of crimes were committed by old offenders (see See also:RECIDIVISM). Statistics have not been kept with the same care in all other countries, but some See also:authentic figures may be quoted for France, where the number of thefts increased while offences against the person diminished. In See also:Belgium there has been a satisfactory decrease in See also:recent years. In See also:Prussia the prison population has on the whole increased, but there has been a slight diminution in more serious crime. Some very noticeable figures are forth-coming from the See also:United States, and comparison is possible of the relative amount of crime in the two countries, America and England. Here the want of statistics covering a large period is much to be regretted. On the general question serious crime in the ten years between 188o and 1890 slightly increased, while petty crime was very considerably less during the period. Charges for See also:homicide have heen much more numerous. There were in 1880, 4608, or a ratio of 9.I to 100,000 of the population; but in 1890 these offences See also:rose t0 7351, or a ratio of 11.7. Comparing America with England, it has been calculated in See also:round numbers that the proportion of prisoners to the general population was in the United States as r to every 759, and in England r to every 1764 persons. As regards the more serious crimes the number in See also:English convict prisons was as 1 to 10,000, and in the American See also:state prisons (the corresponding institutions) the ratio was r to every 1358. In the lesser prisons, i.e. the English See also:local prisons and the American See also:city or See also:county gaols, the numbers more nearly approximate, being in England 1 to 2143 and in America 1 to 1721. It has been argued that much of the crime in America is attributable to the preponderance of See also:foreign immigrants, but the ratio of native See also:born prisoners is that of 1237 to the million, of foreign born prisoners 1777 to the million. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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