Criminal Psychology A MANUAL FOR JUDGES, PRACTITIONERS, AND STUDENTS -HANS GROSS. TVE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE
MODERN CRIMINAL SCIENCE SERIES.

AT the National Conference of Criminal Law and Criminology,
held in Chicago, at Northwestern University, in June, 1909,
the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology was
organized; and, as a part of its work, the following resolution was
passed:

``_Whereas_, it is exceedingly desirable that important treatises
on criminology in foreign languages be made readily accessible in
the English language, _Resolved_, that the president appoint a committee
of five with power to select such treatises as in their judgment
should be translated, and to arrange for their publication.''
The Committee appointed under this Resolution has made careful
investigation of the literature of the subject, and has consulted
by frequent correspondence. It has selected several works from
among the mass of material. It has arranged with publisher, with
authors, and with translators, for the immediate undertaking and
rapid progress of the task. It realizes the necessity of educating
the professions and the public by the wide diffusion of information
on this subject. It desires here to explain the considerations which
have moved it in seeking to select the treatises best adapted to the
purpose.
For the community at large, it is important to recognize that
criminal science is a larger thing than criminal law. The legal
profession in particular has a duty to familiarize itself with the
principles of that science, as the sole means for intelligent and
systematic improvement of the criminal law.
Two centuries ago, while modern medical science was still young,
medical practitioners proceeded upon two general assumptions:
one as to the cause of disease, the other as to its treatment. As
to the cause of disease,--disease was sent by the inscrutable will
of God. No man could fathom that will, nor its arbitrary operation.
As to the treatment of disease, there were believed to be
a few remedial agents of universal efficacy. Calomel and bloodletting,
for example, were two of the principal ones. A larger or
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smaller dose of calomel, a greater or less quantity of bloodletting,
--this blindly indiscriminate mode of treatment was regarded as
orthodox for all common varieties of ailment. And so his calomel
pill and his bloodletting lances were carried everywhere with him
by the doctor.
Nowadays, all this is past, in medical science. As to the causes
of disease, we know that they are facts of nature,--various, but
distinguishable by diagnosis and research, and more or less capable
of prevention or control or counter-action. As to the treatment,
we now know that there are various specific modes of treatment
for specific causes or symptoms, and that the treatment must
be adapted to the cause. In short, the individualization of disease,
in cause and in treatment, is the dominant truth of modern medical
science.
The same truth is now known about crime; but the understanding
and the application of it are just opening upon us. The old
and still dominant thought is, as to cause, that a crime is caused
by the inscrutable moral free will of the human being, doing or
not doing the crime, just as it pleases; absolutely free in advance,
at any moment of time, to choose or not to choose the criminal act,
and therefore in itself the sole and ultimate cause of crime. As to
treatment, there still are just two traditional measures, used in
varying doses for all kinds of crime and all kinds of persons,--
jail, or a fine (for death is now employed in rare cases only). But
modern science, here as in medicine, recognizes that crime also
(like disease) has natural causes. It need not be asserted for one
moment that crime is a disease. But it does have natural causes,--
that is, circumstances which work to produce it in a given case.
And as to treatment, modern science recognizes that penal or remedial
treatment cannot possibly be indiscriminate and machine-
like, but must be adapted to the causes, and to the man as affected
by those causes. Common sense and logic alike require, inevitably,
that the moment we predicate a specific cause for an undesirable
effect, the remedial treatment must be specifically adapted to that
cause.
Thus the great truth of the present and the future, for criminal
science, is the individualization of penal treatment,--for that man,
Now this truth opens up a vast field for re-examination. It
means that we must study all the possible data that can be causes
of crime,--the man's heredity, the man's physical and moral
make-up, his emotional temperament, the surroundings of his
youth, his present home, and other conditions,--all the influencing
circumstances. And it means that the effect of different methods
of treatment, old or new, for different kinds of men and of causes,
must be studied, experimented, and compared. Only in this way
can accurate knowledge be reached, and new efficient measures
be adopted.
All this has been going on in Europe for forty years past, and in
limited fields in this country. All the branches of science that can
help have been working,--anthropology, medicine, psychology,
economics, sociology, philanthropy, penology. The law alone has
abstained. The science of law is the one to be served by all this.
But the public in general and the legal profession in particular
have remained either ignorant of the entire subject or indifferent
to the entire scientific movement. And this ignorance or indifference
has blocked the way to progress in administration.
The Institute therefore takes upon itself, as one of its aims, to
inculcate the study of modern criminal science, as a pressing duty
for the legal profession and for the thoughtful community at large.
One of its principal modes of stimulating and aiding this study is
to make available in the English language the most useful treatises
now extant in the Continental languages. Our country has started
late. There is much to catch up with, in the results reached elsewhere.
We shall, to be sure, profit by the long period of argument
and theorizing and experimentation which European thinkers and
workers have passed through. But to reap that profit, the results of
their experience must be made accessible in the English language.
The effort, in selecting this series of translations, has been to
choose those works which best represent the various schools of
thought in criminal science, the general results reached, the points
of contact or of controversy, and the contrasts of method--having
always in view that class of works which have a more than local
value and could best be serviceable to criminal science in our country.
As the science has various aspects and emphases--the anthropological,
psychological, sociological, legal, statistical, economic,
pathological--due regard was paid, in the selection, to a representation
of all these aspects. And as the several Continental countries
have contributed in different ways to these various aspects,--France,
Germany, Italy, most abundantly, but the others each its share,--
the effort was made also to recognize the different contributions as
far as feasible.

The selection made by the Committee, then, represents its
judgment of the works that are most useful and most instructive for
the purpose of translation. It is its conviction that this Series,
when completed, will furnish the American student of criminal
science a systematic and sufficient acquaintance with the controlling
doctrines and methods that now hold the stage of thought in Continental
Europe. Which of the various principles and methods
will prove best adapted to help our problems can only be told after
our students and workers have tested them in our own experience.
But it is certain that we must first acquaint ourselves with these
results of a generation of European thought.
In closing, the Committee thinks it desirable to refer the members
of the Institute, for purposes of further investigation of the
literature, to the ``Preliminary Bibliography of Modern Criminal
Law and Criminology'' (Bulletin No. 1 of the Gary Library of
Law of Northwestern University), already issued to members of
the Conference. The Committee believes that some of the Anglo-
American works listed therein will be found useful.
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