Parenthood and Race Culture by C. W. (Caleb Williams) Saleeby

Author:C. W. (Caleb Williams) Saleeby [Saleeby, C. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783752428742
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Outlook Verlag
Published: 2020-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

The criminal.—When we come to consider the question of crime the cautious and responsible eugenist is bound to be wary—chiefly, perhaps, because such a vast amount of sheer nonsense has been written on this subject. The whole question, of course, is the old one, Is it heredity or environment that produces the criminal? If and when it is the environment, race-culture has nothing to do with the question, since the merely acquired criminality is, as we know, not in any degree transmissible. If the criminal, however, is always or ever a “born criminal,” then the eugenist is intimately concerned. At the one extreme are those who tell us that the idea of crime is a purely conventional one, that the criminal is the product of circumstances or environment, and that we, in his case, would have done likewise. The remedy for crime, then, is education. It is pointed out, however, that education merely modifies the variety of crime. There is less murder but more swindling, and so forth. Then, on the other hand, there are those who declare that criminality is innate, and that if we are to make an end of crime we must attach surgeons to our gaols; or at any rate must extend the principle of the life-sentence.

Doubtless, the truth lies between these two extremes. In the face of the work of Lombroso and his school, exaggerated though their conclusions often be, we cannot dispute the existence of the born criminal, and the criminal type. There are undoubtedly many such persons in modern society. There is an abundance of crime which no education, practised or imaginable, would eliminate. Present-day psychology and medicine, and, for the matter of that, ordinary common-sense, can readily distinguish cases at both extremes—the mattoid or semi-insane criminal at one end, and the decent citizen who yields to exceptional temptation at the other end. Thus, even though there remain a vast number of cases where our knowledge is insufficient, we could accomplish great things already if the born criminal, the habitual criminal and his like were rationally treated by society, on the lines of the reformatory, the labour colony, indeterminate sentences, and such other methods as aim, successfully or unsuccessfully, at the reform of the individual, whilst incidentally protecting the race. Here, as in some other cases, the nature of the environment provided for their children by certain sections of the community may be taken into account when we decide whether they are to be prohibited from parenthood. Heredity or no heredity, we cannot desire to have children born into the alcoholic home; heredity or no heredity, we cannot desire to have children born into the criminal environment. In Great Britain we are no longer to manufacture criminals in hundreds by sending children to prison. It remains to be seen, after the practical disappearance of the made criminal, what proportion of crime is really due to the born criminal. He, when found, must certainly be dealt with on the lines indicated by our principles.[47]

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