THE CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS.

By Carl Muechison.

Miami University.

The writer, while serving in the dual capacity of Camp Morale Officer and Camp Psychological Examiner at Camp Sherman, Ohio, was asked to appear before a joint session of the House and Senate Finance Committee of the State of Ohio and present certain data in his possession bearing on the prevalence of feeble-mindedness in that state. In spite of a war-time budget already unprecedented in size, the members of the committee were so impressed with the

tragic seriousness of certain plain facts that they easily persuaded both branches of the legislature to appropriate $650,000 for the immediate construction of a new institution for the feeble-minded.

It was that experience, together with certain conferences with Doctor H. H. Goddard, that determined the writer to gather still further data and attempt a contribution of the statistics of psychology to the

problem of the causes of crime. The writer has given a mental test to the prisoners in the Ohio

State Penitentiary at Columbus, the Ohio State Reformatory at Mansfield, the Ohio State Farm at London, the Ohio Penitentiary for Women at Marysville, the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet, the Illinois State Reformatory at Pontiac, the Indiana State Peni-

tentiary at Michigan City, the Indiana State Reformatory at Jeffer-

sonville, and to hundreds of prostitutes and military prisoners in and around Camp Sherman. Data were also gathered on hundreds of insane criminals. In addition to the exact mental grade, the writer learned concerning each criminal his race, age, trade, previous economic condition, education, crime, sentence being served, and criminal history; while in the States of Illinois and Indiana each crim- inal was asked to name the three worst crimes and the least crime

from the moral point of view. In gathering these data, the writer received invaluable assistance

from the War Department, from the Commanding General at

Camp Sherman, from Doctor H. H. Goddard, from Doctors Adler and Rowley, from the Board of Control of Ohio and from the many highly efficient wardens and superintendents of prisons. The

results of the investigation will be published as rapidly as possible, this being the first paper to appear. This paper is not concerned

with negro criminals, with women, or with insane criminals, as those

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THE CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS. 67

three groups will be taken up in later papers. This paper will deal

with the classification of criminals in so far as such criminals are men

and are white. The total number of white criminal men to be classi-

fied in this paper is 3,328.

Many scientific men have met with sad experience in the presen- tation of their most far-reaching discoveries, because they wandered so far away from their own literature that their presentation lost its

significance for the scholarly and conservative. So the writer will

risk being didactic while he constructs rapidly what to some will be the very familiar history of attempts at criminal classification.

Polemon classifies criminals en masse as those who have narrow foreheads and are left-handed.1 There is recorded for us by Valerio the very interesting edict of the Middle Ages to the effect that in the case of two suspccts the one showing the most deformity is to be found guilty and tortured. A certain Medici, having reserved his judgment till after the physical examination, exclaimed to the prisoner: "Having seen your face and examined your head, we do not send you to prison but to the gallows." 2 Traces of these early forms of superstition and stupid ignorance are still alive in the far outskirts of the scientific world. There are pretentious books on

criminology published within the last ten years that exude from their pages nauseous winds out of the graveyards of dead centuries.

The first scientific theory of criminality was formulated by Morel in his treatise, "Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Degeneration of the Human Species," published in Paris in 1857. This theory of degeneration as the cause of crime was a meritorious attempt and would have exerted greater influence if Morel had not "played politics" with the religious world to the extent of explaining degenera- tion as the culminating effect in the individual of the original fall of Adam.

The second influential theory of criminality was advanced by Despine in his "Natural Psychology" published at Paris in 1868. According to Despine the outstanding characteristic of the criminal is the total absence of remorse. But this theory of moral insanity was developed to far greater significance by Maudsley in his "Mental Responsibility," published at London in 1873. Maudsley must have had a remarkable insight into human nature. According to him, there is a twilight zone between crime and insanity, and that zone is peopled with criminals. A given individual might be entirely insane and very little a criminal, he might be a complete criminal with perfectly sound intelligence, or he might occupy any point

1 De Quiros, "Modern Theories of Criminality," 1912, p. 4. ! Ibid., p. 5,

68 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC.

between the two extremes. Just how true this insight is will become clearer in the course of this and succeeding papers. Maudsley and Garofalo are the two most remarkable men in all the literature of

criminology, and no one who fails to appreciate their contribution, for many years to come, will go very far in solving the problem of the causes of crime.

But it remained for Quetelet to discover that peculiar group of criminals known as recidivists. Quetelet was the first social

criminologist and anticipated Compt by his statistical method. He

developed the Thermal Law of Delinquency, tracing the influence of climate on types of crime thus anticipating the form of the principle that is being worked out at the present time by Ellsworth Huntington at Yale. Quetelet also recognized that the man who commits a

crime against property is essentially influenced by different factors than is the man who commits a crime against the person anticipating the later contribution of Garofalo.

At this point in the development of criminology appeared the three great school-founders, Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri and

Raffaelle Garofalo. Lombroso was the founder of modern criminal

anthropology and was the first to formulate a classification of crim- inals as well as a theory of the causes of crime. He found the factors

that cause crime to be atavism, moral insanity, and epilepsy. Only the first of these three factors was largely discussed by him, as the last two were discovered as by accident late in his life. Atavism

is the tendency of living beings to return to a distant type that has been deviated from for many generations. The criminal is

merely an early type of man, stripped of all the accumulations of further generations of worldly experience and wisdom, a "repro- duction of the rude morphology of the savage." And as these

factors are present in lessorgreater degree, each criminal falls naturally into one of the following five classes: 1. Occasional criminal; 2. Emo-

tional criminal; 3. Born criminal; 4. Moral insane; 5. Masked

epileptic. Crime is from the Sanskrit word karman, which also means

action, to do, to execute. The study of root words in Sanskrit tends to point to murder and robbery as the early methods of acquiring property. The criminal of today, because of atavism, is one of these early types in every respect, having the narrow forehead, abnormal development of the cranial vault, disproportionate development of the mandibles and cheek-bones, obtuse sensibility, absence of vascular reactions, left-handedness, moral insensibility, absence of remorse, and tattooing.

The writer can only say that he would to God Lombroso were

THE CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS. 69

right. If every criminal bore the stigmata of Cain, if the stars in

their courses thus fought against Sisera, criminology would cease to be a science and would become an art of training dog-catchers to catch men. However, the devil does not roam the earth shaking his forked tail and showing his cloven hoof but disguised in fine raiment and wearing the face of piety. The writer, in many prisons, has passed along lines of fine-looking fellows, men of superior educa- tion and social advantages. Old experienced wardens have told of

men, who, having committed the worst crimes, have wept bitterly with remorse after being talked to kindly for a few' minutes. One

warden trusts the care of his entire family of little children to the

group of murderers who comprise his household servants. A visitor

in that home is dumfounded at the courtesy, gentleness, thought- fulness, and kindness of those servants.

Enrico Ferri also designated five categories of criminals:1 1.

Criminal insane; 2. Criminal born; 3. Habitual criminals; 4. Chance

criminals; 5. Criminals by passion. This classification differs from

Lombroso's in that room is allowed for the "chance criminal" who may be a mere accident or creature of circumstances. This kind of

criminal is made possible by Ferri's theory of crime, which is one of the best ever formulated. "Crime," says he, "is a phenomenon of complex origin and the result of biological, physical, and social conditions." According to this theory very few criminals need

necessarily be called confirmed criminals, as the biological, physical, and social conditions are ever changing.

Raffaelle Garofalo completed the trinity of great criminologists, he being a jurisconsult while Lombroso was an anthropologist and Ferri a sociologist. Garofalo falls back upon a kind of common-law

classification of crime and criminals and speaks of natural crime. Natural crime is that group of offenses that has been considered

worthy of punishment in all places and by all peoples since the beginning of social activity. All other crimes are the result of statu-

tory enactments. But in the last analysis, there are only two natural laws: "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not steal." As a result there can be only two groups of criminals, viz., the offenders against person and the offenders against property.2 In spite of the criticisms that have been hurled at this classification there is something about its simplicity that strikes one with conviction. The cause of crime Garofalo finds to be an anomaly of the moral sense which has degener- ated through retrogressive selection. One would do well to become well acquainted with the work of Garofalo as the statistics of present-

1 Enrico Ferri, "Criminal Sociology." 1917, p. 139. s De Quiros, "Modern Theories of Criminality," 1912, p. 30.

70 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC.

day psychology support it more than any other theory or classifi- cation so far considered.

Up to this point the various theories of causation have been biological, sociological or a combination of the two. However, the classifications of criminals have been neither biological, sociological or any combination of the two, but rather a mixture of psychological groups and numerical characteristics: "emotional," "chance," etc. What earthly relation there is between any of the theories and its

accompanying classification is not clear. Gustav Aschaffenburg criticises Lombroso unmercifully for this

seeming bungling and then gives as his own classification:1 1. Chance

criminals; 2. Criminals of passion; 3. Criminals of opportunity; 4. Deliberate criminals; 5. Recidivists; 6. Habitual criminals; 7. Professional criminals. A mere changing of the laws might make all of his criminals recidivists. Yet Aschaffenburg was a psychiatrist and worked with Kraepelin.

In the sociological school Tarde feels that the old classifications are rather fictitious and proceeds to group criminals according to the trade they worked at.2 Thus a "bootblack murderer" would be

quite a different proposition from a "ribbon-counter murderer."

And Saleilles distinguishes those delinquents who are not tainted with

criminality at all, those who are tainted to a certain extent, and those who are saturated with criminality.3 The trouble with the

latter classification is the fact that it can be increased indefinitely simply by decreasing the size of the unit on the scale.

On the continent of Europe the classification of criminals and the theory of causation began in childish absurdity and seems about to end in a nai've gesture. No theory of crime and no classification of criminals can have enduring practical value unless the laws of biology and of causation are considered. The anthropological criminologists have given us many data showing the uniform presence of certain stigmata among criminals. But not a single one has thus far compared that proportion of stigmata with the proportion of an equal unselected number of private citizens from the same strata of society. The anthropological school is on the right road in so far as it uses the data of biology in a biological manner. But when it

ignores all the laws of causality, it can only leave the entire field unoccupied for the forces of the sociological school. The data of the

sociological school can be true or have serious existence only in so far as certain biological laws are already true. Ferri's saturation

1 Gustav Aschaffenburg, "Crime and Its Repression," 1913, p. 207. 'Gabriel Tarde, "Penal Philosophy," 1912, p. 267. ?Raymond Saleilles, "The Individualization of Punishment," 1911, p. 282.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS. 71

theory is taken over from the very heart of the present tendency 111

biology?to find a chemical basis for biological laws. Yet Ferri

belongs more to the sociological than to the anthropological school.

Simply because the anthropological school is nearer the truth than is the sociological school, the causes of crime by necessity being biological and chemical, is reason enough for blushing with shame that the sociologists should break through the firing-line thus and steal the biological thunder. In the opinion of the writer it is time for the anthropological school to brush up in Maudsley and Garofalo, take a stiff course in logic and find out something about psycho- biology and physical chemistry.

In this country the attempt to formulate a theory of crime and a classification of criminals is organized at the present time into four very definite tendencies: the followers of Lombroso, as represented by the authorities of the Elmira Reformatory in the State of New York; the tendency to regard feeble-mindedness as the chief cause of delinquency, ably represented by Doctor H. H.

Goddard; those who hold that no classification is yet possible, repre- sented by Doctor William Healey; and the eugenics experts, repre- sented by Doctor Charles B. Davenport. The brilliant genius> ol Doctor Goddard is well known to all of us. He has ably shown us that feeble-mindedness is a thoroughgoing recessive factor in the opera- tion of the Mendelian law of heredity. No sane scientific man at the present time doubts Doctor Goddard's contribution.1 But Doctor Goddard is now attempting to explain crime as a phenomenon of feeble-mindedness. "Although we cannot determine at present just what the proportion is, probably from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the people in our prisons are mentally defective." 2 The writer is well acquainted with the work which Doctor Goddard is doing now as Director of Juvenile Research for the State of Ohio and the success and obstacles he is meeting with. When it is shown that his

figures published five years ago are somewhat large Doctor Goddard will know exactly where his mistake was.

Doctor Healey has studied one thousand young recidivists at the Psychopathic Institute in Chicago. He denies the possibility of classification.3 The whole effort of his office is to gather data, and the data are exceedingly valuable. But that same method was adopted by Bacon many centuries ago. That method of gather- ing knowledge can never discover any new law, for in the last analysis it is nothing but interpretation. The world of nature is dumb

1 The Editor of the Psychological Clinic will have to be put in the category of the insane if this remark be tnif.?The Editor.

3 H. H. Goddard, "Feeble-Mindedness," 1914, p. 7. * William Healey, "The Individual Delinquent," 1915, p. 160.

72 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC.

and tells no story. For example, the world is neither intrinsically- good nor intrinsically bad, bearing within it as much death as life and as much pleasure as pain. Only the unifying principle of inter- pretation makes it possible to attend only to the pleasure and laugh at the pain. However meritorious the data that Doctor Healey has

gathered, the method by which they were gathered would never formulate a theory or construct a classification even though the universe were filed safely away into pigeon-holes. Science cannot

be made too objective or all value and meaning vanish. But the

sane scientific spirit rings true when Doctor Healey says, "the

elders, who spoke so glibly of 'the criminal' as a born type, had not the means of investigating whether he was not rather a born defective and a criminal through accident of environment." 1

Doctor Charles B. Davenport is with the Carnegie Institution of Washington and is one of the best physiologists in the country. Yet his proof that crime has its roots in heredity is based on the statistics of seven cases,2 and he speaks of criminality as being equally a physical thing as the color of the eyes. According to Doctor Davenport's theory, from one's grandmother one might inherit blue eyes, from one's grandfather a shock of auburn hair, while from some great-grandfather one might at the same time inherit a kind of pink criminality. Doctor Davenport surely was jesting.

Now this is the field just as it was when the writer undertook to do his bit. How could one hope to succeed where so many eminent men have been able merely to start in the right direction?

The criminals were given the Alpha Group Examination?the same test that was used in the army. The test was given only to the criminals who could read and write English and under the same conditions used in the army testing. The papers were afterwards

sorted into groups according to crime, the criminals of each state

separately. It was then found that the states did not vary to any

great extent, so the criminals of the three states were thrown together. The negroes were then separated from the whites and the women from the men. This paper is concerned only with the white men. Then the papers of each crime were arranged in order of psychological numerical grade, which offers a possible range of 0 to 212. The

median grade of each crime-group was then found. Finally, the vari- ous crimes were arranged on a scale according to the median grades, with the following result:

1 William Heaiy, "The Individual Delinquent," 1915, p. 17. 1 Charles B. Davenport, "Heredity in Relation to Eugenics," 1911, p. 89.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS. 73

Number of Criminals Crime Median Psychological Grade

9 Having burglar tools 91

8 Conspiracy 84

19 Embezzlement 81

725 Larceny 80

6 Obtaining property under false pretense 79

25 Confidence game 79

35 Assault and battery to rob 73

178 Forgery 69

525 Robbery 68

15 Issuing fraudulent check 66

41 Burglary of inhabited dwelling 64

42 Entering to commit felony 63

773 Burglary 62

60 Vehicle taking 62 22 Horse stealing 61 46 Pocket picking 61 221 Murder, first degree 58 108 Assault and battery to kill or rob 55

48 v Abandonment 51

18 Bigamy 51 102 Rape 50

9 Indecent liberty with child 46

25 Sodomy 42

25 Incest 41

78 Manslaughter 36

98 Murder, second degree 34 51 Cut, stab, or shoot to kill or wound 34 16 Vagrancy 11

Even the casual reader will observe that the first sixteen crimes on the scale are crimes against property and that all the others are crimes against person, recalling the convictions of Garofalo. Similar crimes occur near each other on the scale, recalling the insight of Maudsley. The various crimes arrange themselves on the scale in as orderly a manner as the alphabet of a language. The only force that determines is intelligence, and intelligence is the world of mystery described as the ease with which connections in the synapses are formed and maintained.

Deception is the one factor necessary in all crime against prop- erty. It will be noticed in the group of property-crimes that the crimes requiring the greatest skill in deception occur at the top of the list, while crimes requiring the least skill in deception occur near the bottom.

Premeditation is the one factor present in crimes against the person. It will be noticed that the crimes requiring the most pre- meditation occur at the top of the person-group, while the crimes requiring the least premeditation occur at the bottom of that group.

74 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC.

The location of any crime in either group is in proportion to the

necessary presence of the required factor. The latter phenomenon merely proves that the classification is a normal and natural one.

The parallel variation of intelligence is the significant phenomenon. But the mere presence or absence of intelligence to a degree will not of necessity result in crime any more than it would result in Method- ism or Prohibition. The force that drives men to success and honor

is the same force that drives others to failure and disgrace. Only in so far as the science of criminology can succeed in learning some-

thing about the factors of intelligence can it hope to solve the problem of crime. Criminality is not a gnome that dances attendance upon the moral world. It is rather the purgatory where are gathered the blasted ambitions, blighted hopes and broken hearts from that

land that lies just along the border of the "promised land" of success The next chapter will tell that story.