Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1909-07-02
CHRONOLOGY.
Some of the Causes Of Crime from Which
Deductions May Be Drawn. Pre- Natal
ns-Invironment-Is it Disease?
EY BYRON MIIIETr

tagIouS diseases, smallpox, typhOId
fever. cholera and diphtheria. have
yeloed in malignity to the remedies
and methods applied in the domain
discovered during that period that
the transmission of yellow fever and
certain malarial germs, was caused
! hy moSuuitocs that abounded in
swampy localities in the Southern
latitude. 1t is also claimed, that the
mentality OF the people is being CON
tinuously enlightened on this subject
Of physical ailments, that disease is
only Il form of thought expressed
upon the body. which, if corrected by
a proper understanding of Infinite
Truth will disappear.
Notwithstanding this favorable
showing from physical standpoint,
it would seem to be self evident that
moral diseases are on the increase
Enrico Fcrri, the Italian scholar,
observes:
While typhoid fever, smallpox,
cholera and diphtheria rctreated be
fnre the remedies which enlightened
science applied by means of the ex-
perimental method, removing their
concrete causes, we see on the other
hand that insanity, suicide and
| crime, that powerful trinity. grow
apace."
During the Middle ages the insane
were punished as criminals. In the
beginning of the nineteenth CEN
tury Henroth, a physician. wrote:
No one becomes insane unless he
forsakes the straight path of virtue
and the fear of the Lord On the
assumption that insanity was their
own fault, mentally unbalanced per
sons were loaded with chains and
tortured in the most horrible manner.
The French revolution was the
cause of aoolishing this brutal treat
ment of those unfortunate individu-
ais. Pinel assumed the position.
that insanity was not a sin, but a
disease" Two years before the de-
struction of the Bastile he freed from
their chains the insane individuals
confined at the Salpetriere. 1t took
many centuries to educate the pub
lie conscience that a man did not be-
come crazy through choice, that it
was wrong and the height of folly to
hold him responsible as u free moral
agent. On the eve of the French
kevOlutiun, the C,a,,,C .,nOOl Of
Criminology was born which main
tanned that the normal individual be-
ing possessed of free will with suf-
fcient intelligence to discriminate
between right and wrong. should be
held accountable for his criminal
acts, and punished accordingly.
| This position has remained as the
current conception of crime ever
since; has found expression in our
statutory and common or unwritten
law.
Within the past forty years, about
the year 1877, in Italy, there was in
augurated the Positive School of
Criminology. Italian professors ard
scholars had for a long time recOg
nized the fact of the increasing vol
ume of criminality in their own
country, particularly homicide cases;
that England and Italy, wherein
the population of these two countries
was relatively the same, according to
statistics there were annually in the
latter country three thousand cases
of homicide, while in England there
were about three hundred of such
cases. Those students also found
that the inhabitants of Italy prac-
ticed temperance in more pro
nounced manner than the population
of the other country, the predisposi-
tion of the people of their own land
to certain kinds of criminality was
not attributable to the drinking
habit, that there must be some un-
derlying cause. Therefore those
men of learning claimed that crimi-
nology was peculiarly an Italian sci
ence.
This new school of criminoogy
came into being through the efforts
of CeSare LombrOso, whose funda-
mental postulate was that we must
first understand the malefactor before
studying and considering his crime.
Between the years 1872 and 1876 he
studied the characteristics of the
prisoners confined in the peniten-
tiaries of Italy from the standpoint
of anthropology. His first work
along this line was entitled "Crimi-
nal Man., was issued in 1876, sec
ond edition appeared in 1873. In
that same year of 1873, Enrico Ferrl
issued a monograph in which he de
MED the doctrine of free will and per
sonal responsibility, contended The
science of crime and punishment
must look for the fundamental facts
of science of social defence against
cri me inthe human and social life it
-lf." This author also took the DO