The physical factors of crime are climate, the nature of the
soil, the relative length of day and night, the seasons, the
average temperature, meteoric conditions, agricultural pursuits.
The social factors comprise the density of population; public
opinion, manners and religion; family circumstances; the system of
education; industrial pursuits; alcoholism; economic and political
conditions; public administration, justice and police; and in
general, legislative, civil and penal institutions. We have
here a host of latent causes, commingling and combining in all
parts of the social organism, which generally escape the notice
both of theorists and of practical men, of criminologists and of
legislators.
This classification of the natural factors of crime, which has
indeed been accepted by almost all criminal anthropologists and
sociologists, seems to me more precise and complete than any other
which has been proposed.
In respect of this classification of the natural factors of crime,
it is necessary to make two final observations as to the practical
results which may be obtained in the struggle for just laws and
against the transgression of them.
In the first place, owing to ``the discovery of the unexpected
relation amongst the various forces of nature, which had
previously been thought to be independent,'' we must lay stress on
this positive deduction, that we cannot find an adequate reason
either for a single crime or for the aggregate criminality of a
nation if we do not take into account each and all of the
different natural factors, which we may isolate in the exigencies
of our studies, but which always act together in an indissoluble
union.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104