Criminal Sociology | Page 6

the rise of
a new school, whose object was to make an experimental study of
social pathology in respect of its criminal symptoms, in order to bring
theories of crime and punishment into harmony with everyday facts.
This is the positive school of criminal law, whereof the fundamental
purpose is to study the natural genesis of criminality in the criminal,
and in the physical and social conditions of his life, so as to apply the
most effectual remedies to the various causes of crime.
Thus we are not concerned merely with the construction of a theory of
anthropology or psychology, or a system of criminal statistics, nor
merely with the setting of abstract legal theories against other theories
which are still more abstract. Our task is to show that the basis of every
theory concerning the self-defence of the community against evil-doers
must be the observation of the individual and of society in their
criminal activity. In one word, our task is to construct a criminal
sociology.
For, as it seems to me, all that general sociology can do is to furnish the
more ordinary and universal inferences concerning the life of
communities; and upon this canvas the several sciences of sociology

are delineated by the specialised observation of each distinct order of
social facts. In this manner we may construct a political sociology, an
economic sociology, a legal sociology, by studying the special laws of
normal or social activity amongst human beings, after previously
studying the more general laws of individual and collective existence.
And thus we may construct a criminal sociology, by studying, with
such an aim and by such a method, the abnormal and anti-social actions
of human beings--or, in other words, by studying crime and criminals.
Neither the Romans, great exponents as they were of the civil law, nor
the practical spirits of the Middle Ages, had been able to lay down a
philosophic system of criminal law. It was Beccaria, influenced far
more by sentiment than by scientific precision, who gave a great
impetus to the doctrine of crimes and punishments by summarising the
ideas and sentiments of his age.[1] Out of the various germs contained
in his generous initiative there has been developed, to his well-deserved
credit, the classical school of criminal law.
[1] Desjardins, in the Introduction to his ``Cahiers des Etats Generaux
en 1789 et la Legislation Criminelle,'' Paris, 1883, gives a good
description of the state of public opinion in that age. He speaks also of
the charges which were brought against the advocates of the new
doctrines concerning crime, that they upset the moral and social order
of things. Nowadays, charges against the experimental school are cited
from these same advocates; for the revolutionary of yesterday is very
often the conservative of to-day.
This school had, and still has, a practical purpose, namely, to diminish
all punishments, and to abolish a certain number, by a magnanimous
reaction of humanity against the arbitrary harshness of mediaeval times.
It had also, and still has, a method of its own, namely, to study crime
from its first principles, as an abstract entity dependent upon law.
Here and there since the time of Beccaria another stream of theory has
made itself manifest. Thus there is the correctional school, which
Roeder brought into special prominence not many years ago. But
though it flourished in Germany, less in Italy and France, and
somewhat more in Spain, it had no long existence as an independent

school, for it was only too easily confuted by the close sequence of
inexorable facts. Moreover, it could do no more than oppose a few
humanitarian arguments on the reformation of offenders to the
traditional arguments of the theories of jurisprudence, of absolute and
relative justice, of intimidation, utility, and the like.
No doubt the principle that punishment ought to have a reforming
effect upon the criminal survives as a rudimentary organ in nearly all
the schools which concern themselves with crime. But this is only a
secondary principle, and as it were the indirect object of punishment;
and besides, the observations of anthropology, psychology, and
criminal statistics have finally disposed of it, having established the
fact that, under any system of punishment, with the most severe or the
most indulgent methods, there are always certain types of criminals,
representing a large number of individuals, in regard to whom
amendment is simply impossible, or very transitory, on account of their
organic and moral degeneration. Nor must we forget that, since the
natural roots of crime spring not only from the individual organism, but
also, in large measure, from its physical and social environment,
correction of the individual is not sufficient to prevent relapse if we do
not also, to the best of our ability, reform the social environment. The
utility and the duty of