Women and Crime

Various

Description

While it is generally agreed amongst criminologists that the world of crime is predominantly the domain of men, women played a much larger role than they do today before the twentieth century. “Women and Crime” contains a fascinating collection of three classic essays by various authors on the subject of women and crime, examining the relationship between the two in the nineteenth century and looking at what differences there were in things like urbanisation and public lifestyles that caused women to be more involved in crime in the past. The essays include: “Criminal Woman, By Miss Helen Zimmern”, “The Relations of Women to Crime, By Ely Van De Warker, M. D.”, and “The Relations of Sex to Crime, By Ely Van De Warker, M. D.”. This volume offers fantastic insights into nineteenth-century attitudes towards crime and the sexes, making it highly recommended for those with an interest in criminology, sociology, and history. Read & Co. Great Essays is proudly publishing this brand new collection of classic articles now for the enjoyment of a new generation of readers.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 24 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528792301
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

WOMEN AND CRIME
THREE ESSAYS
By
VARIOUS



Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. Great Essays
This edition is published by Read & Co. Great Essays, an imprint of Read & Co.
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Contents
CR IMINAL WOMAN
By Miss H elen Zimmern
THE RELATIONS OF WO MEN TO CRIME
By Ely Van De W arker, M. D.
THE RELATIONS OF SEX TO CRIME
By Ely Van De W arker, M. D.





CRIMINAL WOMAN
By Miss Helen Zimmern
THE school of criminal anthropologists is making great strides in Italy. New works are continually pouring from the press which record the observations of students of this modern science, all of them striving to establish the data on which to base the phenomena of crime and degeneration. The world-famed name of Prof. Cesare Lombroso constantly appears on new works, which are fresh guides to science. La Donna Delinquente (Criminal Woman) is the title of his latest book, which is a joint work written together with one of his pupils, Prof. G. Ferrero. This book completes his previous admirable study entitled L'Uomo Delinquente (Criminal Man). This new study on abnormal woman is a very important work, which offered much greater difficulties in the way of research and observation than that on man. Indeed, Lombroso writes in his preface: "The chief results of our first investigations were in opposition to the usual premises; even individual and partial observations seemed to clash; so that if one wished to be logical one was obliged to hesitate as to definite conclusions. We were, however, faithful to the maxim that we have always pursued; we followed facts blindly, even when they appeared to contradict each other and seemed taking a false turning. And we were not wrong: in the end the facts which seemed most opposed, fitted into their places like the pieces of a mosaic and formed a uniform and perfect design, although at first it seemed as if we were groping in the dark and that it was difficult to collect them. When at last we reached the desired goal, we tasted the bitter delight of the hunter who seizes his prey after scouring rocks and precipices, and feels the joy of his success redoubled by the losses and fatigues his conquest ha s cost him."
In this quotation is given truly the keynote to the whole volume. It explains to the reader what difficulties the authors have had to surmount, in order to draw a precise and certain conclusion, and to determine the characteristics of female criminals, just as other similar works written by modern savants define those of male offenders. The work is divided into four principal parts: 1. Normal Woman. 2. Female Crime. 3. Pathological and Anthropometrical Anatomy of Female Criminals and Prostitutes. 4. Biology and Psychology of Female Delinquents and Prostitutes. The first part is full of observations on normal women, and is a contrast to the second, which treats of female criminals in all their different changes of organism and mental attitude. In the section devoted to normal women, Lombroso treats of the women of primitive nations and compares them with those of civilized peoples. The study is minute, subtle, and valuable. Nor does Lombroso hesitate even to make comparisons with female animals. This attitude, which might be called a want of respect, Lombroso explains in his preface, saying: "Those who, writing about women, are not content with the close logic of facts, but continue or rather counterfeit the traditions of the middle ages and use chivalry toward the gentle sex, will think that we have often been wanting in respect to them in our work. But if we have not respected our most cherished preconceived ideas, such as the idea of the 'reo nato' (born criminal), neither have we been afraid of the apparent contradictions which to ordinary eyes might have seemed deleterious to our work. How could we become followers of a conventional and unscientific untruth, which only acquired shape in order to lose i t directly?"
And truly science can not feed on rhetoric, and Lombroso's books are not those of a poet or novelist, but those of a scientific man, who believes in his work and who devotes himself seriously to its exigencies, no matter whither its necessary conclusions land him. In his study on criminal woman he brings before us women in every condition of life; he makes a minute study of their good qualities and of their defects, analyzing both, and only speaking when he can draw conclusions from what he has observed and studied. Hence his work is a powerful contribution to that affirmation of modern theories on crime which are destined to change entirely the theories of penal law which have ruled up to the p resent time.
The first portion of Lombroso's work is divided into chapters which treat of the females of the zoölogical world; of the anatomy and biology of women; of the senses and mind of women; of their cruelty, pity, and maternity; of their love, ethics, vanity, and intelligence. These chapters are so many monographs and present normal woman from every point of view. She is described as always inferior to man, because hey faculties are less developed. Strange to say, according to Lombroso, she has less feeling than man. This seems a direct contradiction of all legends and traditions. And is it not woman, rather than man, who is the most ardent opponent to all useless suffering; is it not women who have been the chief promoters of anti-cruelty societies, no matter if this cruelty be practiced on human beings or on animals? But the contradiction is explained, according to Lombroso, by the greater excitability of women and their lesser inhibition. As soon as the primitive barbarities of sexual selection began to be mitigated, men chose as wives the prettiest and gentlest instead of the strongest women, so paying tribute to beauty and the moral qualities that are associated with it. Thus women were perfected in gentleness, grace, and pleasing manners, and withdrew from those qualities that required strength and cruelty. Other influences, not least among which is the longer duration of maternity, cause civilized women to become more compassionate; but in every woman there is an undercurrent of cruelty, which appears either when her nature is wicked or when her strongest feelings, such as those of mother or wife, are attacked. Hence Lombroso adduces that woman's attitude with regard to cruelty and pity is a contradictory one, which will by evolution give way in favor of gentleness and mercy. In the second part of his work Lombroso compares the crimes of female animals with the crimes of primitive and savage women; and in the third chapter he gives a brief history of prostitution, which he considers as one of the great factors in the promotion of crime. Under the heading, "Crimes of Primitive Women," the writer discusses adultery, abortion, infanticide, witchcraft, and poisoning, and concludes thus: "In general, women savages, like other women, commit fewer crimes than men, although their nature is rather worse than better; and the crimes for which they are punished are in great part conventional, such as those contained in tabu and witchcraft. What corresponds to crime among men is for savage women pr ostitution."
In the Pathological and Anthropometrical Anatomy of Female Criminals and Prostitutes, which forms the third part of the book, all the measurements which serve to establish those irregularities from which the criminal school draws its conclusions have been taken with the greatest care. According to Lombroso, they are for women the following: Height, the length of the arms when opened, and the length of the limbs are inferior in criminals weight being, in relation to their stature, greater in prostitutes and assassins than in ordinary women. The hands are longer and more developed in prostitutes, the foot shorter, the fingers less developed than the rest of the hand. The size and circumference of the skull in female thieves, and even more so in prostitutes, are small; vice versa, the facial diameter and especially the jaw are more developed than in normal specimens. The hair and iris are apt to be darker in criminals, and up to a certain point in prostitutes, in whom, however, fair and red hair are often lighter or darker than the normal color. White hair, which is rare in ordinary women, is twice as frequent in criminals; vice versa, with them baldness is rarer during youth and middle age than among ordinary women, while wrinkles are more frequent only when they are middle-aged. It has been difficult to gather these facts with certainty about prostitutes, who are nearly all painted and made up even when quite young; but from the data Lombroso had to go upon, precocious white hair and baldness would be a common defect, as it is in those who are born delinquents. Irregularities of countenance are to be met with in a greater degree in female assassins and poisoners than in infanticides. The real criminal type is rarer among female than male delinquents; it is found more frequently among prostitutes, and according to a still more precise study made by Tarnowsky, there are more female murderers than thieves, while prostitutes are the most nume rous of all.
"In short," as our author writes, "female criminals have less typical faces, because they are less criminal than men, and women in every degeneration present fewer digressions than men, because women