Side by side with these, another class
challenges attention, of individuals who have also been criminals
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.
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