Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri
page 42 of 307 (13%)
page 42 of 307 (13%)
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from childhood, and who continue to be so, but who are in a
special degree a product of physical and social environment, which has persistently driven them into the criminal life, by their abandonment before and after the first offence, and which, especially in the great towns, is very often forced upon them by the actual incitement of their parents. Amongst occasional criminals, again, a special category is created by a kind of exaggeration of the characteristics, mainly psychological, of the type itself. In the case of all occasional criminals, the crime is brought about rather by the effects of environment than by the active tendencies of the individual; but whilst in most of these individuals the deciding cause is only a circumstance affecting all alike, with a few it is an exceptional constraint of passion, a sort of psychological tempest, which drives them into crime. Thus, then, the entire body of criminals may be classed in five categories, which as early as 1880 I described as criminal madmen, born criminals, criminals by contracted habits, occasional criminals, and criminals of passion. As already observed, criminal anthropology will not finally establish itself until it has been developed by biological, psychological, and statistical monographs on each of these categories, in such a manner as to present their anthropological characteristics with greater precision than they have hitherto attained. So far, observers continue to give us the same characteristics for a large aggregate of criminals, classifying them according to the form of their crime rather than according to |
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