CRIMINAL TYPES
BY
COL. V. M. MASTEN
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
Copyright, 1922, by Richard G. Badger
All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America
The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.
INTRODUCTION
Very much in the printed page has been aimed wide of the mark alike of theprevention, the deterrence, and the reclamation of the predal felon.
It is intended that this semi-technical volume shall help to call thetruly reformative turn. Also, the intention is that the subject matter ofthe book shall at once amplify and reënforce conclusions reached in TheCrime Problem and Stop Thief! the author’s previous publications.
A distinctively scientific treatise on crime and criminals is not essayedby the writer, for the very good reason that such a treatise is not, atthis moment, to any man’s hand. This, because human society seethes in themost fateful transitional state of all time up to this time; because humanexpression is more complex and varied than during any other period ofhuman history; because material values change with constantly changingconditions; and because the criminal picks his tools and plys themagreeably with the pressure upon him of objective influences germane inthose conditions of change.
The crass criminal presents no psychic problem.[Pg 4] He is much as he was,impelled much as he was, when cavemen carried clubs. Having, usually, butmediocre mental equipment, and being crowded out of the big games of life,he has recourse naturally either to individual force, or to crookedcunning with which to match the throws of his better-equipped brothers.
By and large, the issue with the low-grade habitual forager is a verysimple one; in the final analysis, he leaves society no choice other thanto fight him with the like of his chosen weapons.
There will be isolated and sporadic exceptions to the general rule given;but as to the grand majority of marauding criminals, they must be met,both in and out of prison, with force more impressive than that which theyemploy; palpably so, else penal codes might as well be pigeon-holed forcontaining meaningless proscriptions.
It is as all would like it when the force can be confined to educativemeasures so ordered for sustained averages as to encourage the imprisonedto help themselves; but when they won’t help, just won’t, then stepsmust be taken which will make it practically impossible for them furtherto filch from their fellowmen.
If a thief will have it no other way than to be a thief, then control ofhim, and not his social rehabilitation, must be the desideratum.
[Pg 5]Circumstantial felons there will be so long as social circumstance makesfor them. Always a certain percentage will go down under the pressure of aclosely competitive social scheme that recks but little of moralweaklings, and less of physical slackers; but such bear serious relationto criminal statistics in the sense only that they are dragged down tohabitual crime appreciably by criminal recidivists; by repeating felonswho forage on society by choice, who ma