ENGLISH CONVICT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1165, 30 October 1913, Page 4

ENGLISH CONVICT.

NO CRIMINAL TYPE INVOLVED.

Under the title of “The English Convict : a Statistical Study.” Dr. Cbailes Goring, for twelve years deputy medical officer at Parkburst Prison, has just published, in a voluminous Blue Book, the result of his investigations. Briefly, the first question Dr. Goring sets to answer is : “Does a criminal type exist ?” and the verdict of twelve years’ study is “No.” “No evidence has emerged,” he says, confirming the existence of a physical criminal type, such as Lombroso and his disciples have described.”

It is not denied that physical differences exist between different kinds of criminals, ‘‘precisely as they exist between different kinds of law abiding people.” But—and Ibis is of the utmost importance —

“When allowance is made for a certain range of probable variation. and when they are reduced to a common standard of age, statute, intelligence and class, etc, these differences tend entirely to disappear.” The broad general truth re vealed by the mass of figures and calculations of Dr. Goring is that the '‘criminal” man is to a large extent a “defective” man, either physically or mentally, or, in the words of Sir B. Donkin “is unable to acquire the complex characters which are essential to the average man, and so is prone to follow the line of least resistance.” Dr, Goring contends that even admitting that the criminal does possess all the characters that have been attributed to him —

“Admitting that he is marked by a dome-shaped head, and by a face like a ‘bird of prey’ ; admitt ing that be is drunken, impulsive, obstinate, dirty andjj without control—despite all this we maintain he is not an abnormal man. He may represent a selected class of normal men ; many of bis qualities may present extreme degrees from the normal average ; yet the fact remains that in the pattern of his mind and body, in bis feeling-, thoughts, desires and recognition of right and wrong, and in bis behaviour, however outrageous it may be, be exists by the same nature, and is moved by the same springs of action that affect the conduct and constitute the quality of normal beings.” WHAT DIAGRAMS SHOW. Diagrams included in Dr. Goring’s survey indicate that the mean bead contours of convicts and engineers hardly vary by a bait’s bteadlh in the medium contour, and very slightly In the transverse contour, while the hori zoutal contours are almost identical, In mean head length there is no difference between criminals and Cambridge students, in mean bead breadth there is only r m.m. difference, and in head height there is no difference between convicts and the University College staff ; in mean bead index Oxford students as well as the University staff are almost identical with prisoners ; and in mean circumference of head criminals and Scottish students correspond in a similarly clove degree. In fact, from a knowledge only of an undergraduate’s cephalic measurements, a better judgment could be given as to whether he was studying at an Knglish or Scottish University than a prediction could be made as to whether he would eventually become a University professor or a convicted felon.” Another striking result of Dr. Goring’s investigations is that all kinds of criminals show a decadence in general intelligence very similar to the increasing physical defectiveness they exhibit as you pass down the social scale, and Dr. Goring asserts that probably the chief source of the high degree of relationship between weakmindedness and crime resides in the fact that the criminal thing which we call criminality, which leads to the perpetration of many, if not most anli-social offences today, is not inherrent wickedness but natural stupidity.

Dealing with the influence of prison life on the physical and mental well-being ot prisoners, Dr. Goring finds that imprisonment on the whole has no apparent effect on physique as measured by intelligence and that mortality from accidental negligence is pronouncedly diminished, and the prevalency of infectious fevers due to defective sanitation, taking enteric as a type, is lessened by prison environment. On the other baud, mortality from suicide greatly exceeds the general population standard. The preparation of Dr. Goriug’s valuable report, has, it is stated, involved the personal examination of no fewer than 3000 convicts.