The Criminal is a book by Havelock Ellis published in 1890. A third revised and enlarged edition was subsequently published in 1901. The book is a comprehensive English summary of the main results of criminal anthropology, a field of study which was scarcely known at the time of the publication of the volume. The criminal is the first book published by the author and helped establish his reputation in the scientific world.
Context Italian Cesare Lombroso is recognised worldwide as the founding father of criminal anthropology since he was the first to perceive the study of crime as a self-standing scientific field. Lombroso is credited to be the first to regard criminality as a physical anomaly that can be measured and weighted. Lombroso founded his own school of thought on criminal anthropology, which attracted support from fellow scientists across Europe. Ellis highly regarded the Italian criminal anthropologist and considered that Lombroso's book, , should have been considered as influential as On the Origin of Species. Havelock Ellis was one of Lombroso's followers and one of the few postulating the theory of the inborn criminal in the United Kingdom. The criminal was the only British book published between 1880 and 1918 based solely on Cesare Lombroso's theories on criminal anthropology.
Studies on criminals or criminality in general had been conducted in England prior to the publication of The criminal. These studies were conducted independently of the field of criminal anthropology, which was scarcely known in the second half of the nineteenth century. Regardless of the lack of enthusiasm in the British scientific community, Ellis found the topic relevant and important for society. When researching for his book, Ellis was disappointed that his peers did not share his enthusiasm and had little or no knowledge at all about criminal anthropology. He decided that The criminal could be a valuable contribution to the scarce British literature on criminal anthropology.
Ellis mentions Franz Joseph Gall as one of the founders of ''modern science of criminal anthropology''. Gall was convinced that intellectual capacities are influenced by the volume and the shape of the brain. The physical characteristics of the brain dictate the shape of the skull. The new study field established by Gall is known as phrenology. Gall applied his phrenological knowledge to criminal anthropology and concluded that physical characteristics of the skulls could predict criminal tendencies. His beliefs prove that, similar to Havelock Ellis, Gall was a follower of Cesare Lombroso.
Between 1886 and 1914, The Archives d’Anthropologie Criminelle, founded by doctor Alexandre Lacassagne, was published. It was the first French-language academic journal dedicated to the topic of criminology. It published theoretical and practical work regarding criminal anthropology and forensic medicine. Divided into four parts, The Archives are a comprehensive work. The last part of the journal addresses criminal anthropology studies from three different countries. The works of scientists from Italy, Spain, and Great Britain are contrasted with the French ones. The volume of literature on criminal anthropology from European countries, such as Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, Russia, is larger than the English one. Ellis ascribes it to criminal anthropology not being yet established, in the early 1880s, as an exact science.
Contents
Table of contents
Chapter I. Introduction Chapter II. The study of the criminal Chapter III. Criminal anthropology (physical) 1. Cranial and Cerebral characteristics 2. The face 3. Anomalies of the hair 4. Criminal physiognomy 5. The body and the viscera 6. Heredity 7. Motor activity 8. Physical sensibility Chapter IV. Criminal anthropology (physical)-continued 1. Moral insensibility 2. Dreaming in criminals 3. Intelligence 4. Vanity 5. Emotional instability 6. Sentiment 7. Religion 8. Tattooing 9. Thieves' slang 10. Prison inscriptions 11. Criminal literature and art 12. Criminal philosophy Chapter V. The results of criminal anthropology Chapter VI. The treatment of criminals Chapter VII. Conclusions Appendix A. Explanation of plates B. Criminality in children C. Elmira D. The investigation of criminals Index of authors Index of subjects
Book summary
The criminal consists of seven chapters preceded by a preface written by Ellis. An appendix with forty illustrations is provided at the end of the volume. The appendix is divided into four parts. Appendix A provides detailed explanations for all the plates. Appendix B summarises the study of criminality in children. A picture of the life and treatment applied to prisoners in Elmira Reformatory is depicted in part C. Criteria for the physical medical investigation of criminals and their descriptions are outlined in appendix D.
The preface lays out how the book came in to existence and what is its purpose. The author explains that he felt the need to fill in a knowledge gap in his contemporary scientific knowledge regarding criminal behaviour and punishment. Ellis outlines in the preface what are the questions that his book aims to address. They refer to the nature and the motives of criminals and the required methods of punishment to be employed. Ellis shares Lombroso's theory of the born criminal whose hereditary physical characteristics illustrate their criminal tendencies.
Ellis mentions his personal hypothesis regarding the nature of criminals. His opinion is biased and influenced his approach of the topic.
The introduction presents an overview of the existent chief varieties of criminals and makes reference to at least one case study for each category. Ellis mentions six different types of criminals: political, by passion, insane, instinctive, occasional, and habitual. Causes of crime are cosmic, biological, or societal. Ellis refers to the influences of diet, individual temperament, and the interactions with the external world. The author states that the criminal is a product of various influences, both internal (hereditary) and external. The second chapter summarises previously conducted anthropological studies on criminals all over the world. The cited literature belongs to Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, Antonio Marro, von Baer, Schwalbe, Rafael Salillas, Arthure McDonald, Eugene Talbot, and Douglas Morrison. The main part of the book is constituted by the third and fourth chapter. They give a detailed description of the physical, moral, social, emotional, and religious aspects of criminals and their lives. The criminal discusses various topics related to criminality. These are the peculiar criminal slang, the inmates' literary productions and views on religion, prison inscriptions, and criminality viewed from the perspective of the prisoners. The fifth book chapter aims to answer the questions Ellis formulated in the preface. This chapters is an overview of the author's perspective on the nature of criminals. All the anthropological evidence discussed throughout the volume are summarised and linked together.
The sixth chapter suggests possible methods of dealing with and punishing criminality. They are all based on the findings listed by Ellis. This book part opens by stating that no one can be classified as truly normal. The author refers to the Christian belief to support his claim that no society member is entitled to judge their peer. Since the idea of punishment for one's crime lays on the beliefs that one is normal and that a criminal act is a voluntary deviation, Ellis strongly opposes the reformatory system of his time. He condemns the capital punishment. At the end of the nineteenth century, the capital punishment was already abolished in Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Portugal, and some states in the U.S. In keeping with his affiliation with the Eugenics Society, Ellis refers to Seneca's and Galen's advocacy for "putting instinctive criminals to death" so as to ensure "the destruction of offenders against social life, regarding them as diseased members to be removed for the advantage of the whole social body". Ellis presents a brief historical overview of prisons worldwide. He concludes that prisons have definitely undergone reforms when it comes to their cleanliness, ingenuity, and routine standards. Reform has happened for the physical establishment but has not occurred in prisoners or their behaviour. Based on European prison reports and interviews with prison doctors and administrators, Ellis concludes that the prison system failed its purpose. Instead of being reformed, criminals are hardened, depressed, corrupted, or turned into brutes who will once again be sentenced to prison once released. Ellis proposes several reforms for the prison system, most of which are based on the treatment applied at Elmira Reformatory. He suggests the abolition of the definite and predetermined sentence, reorganisation of prison staff so that they are trained and qualified in caring for the criminals, and regulation of voluntary visitation. Criminal education should involve constant mental or physical activity with the aim that prisoners have no leisure time for reviving their criminal past or planning for the future. Criminals should be involved in industry (e.g. farming, fruit growing, carpentry, shoe-making, painting, tailoring, baking, laundering, housework, music, telegraphing). In this way they actively contribute to the society they will be released in. A prison should not only be a care and treatment facility, but also one for the advancement of knowledge in the field of criminology. Within the prison, the study of criminal anthropology should be able to expand its existent range of knowledge.
Towards the end of chapter six, Ellis refers back to Lombroso's definition of the criminal, which is "an inborn defect, idiotic, imbecile, and weak-minded class". In these cases, the example of the Bicêtre Institution should be followed. At Bicêtre, members of the congenitally anti-social class were recognised and trained at an early age so as to avert them from the path of criminality. Ellis supports interventions in the youth because it is a time when criminal behaviour has not been displayed yet. He believes that imprisonment should be avoided at all costs. In the case of petty crimes or young offenders, Ellis encourages the use of fines and communal work as a form of punishment.