"ENGLISH CONVICT."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 23 October 1913, Page 7

"ENGLISH CONVICT."

NO CRIMINAL TYPE INVOLVED

Under the title of "Tins English Convict: A Statistical Study," Dr. Charles Goring, for twelve years deputy medical officer at Parkhurst Prison, has just published,, in a voluminous. Blue Book, the results of his investigations. Briefly, the first question Dr Goring sets out 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 Lombroeo 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 this 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, stature, intelligence, and class, etc., these differences tend entirely td disappear." The broad general truth revealed by the mass of figures and calculations of Dr Goring is that the "criminal" man is to a large extent a "defective" man, cither physically or mentally, or, in the words of Sir B. Donkin,* "is unable to acquire the complex characters which aie essentia! 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'; admitting that he is drunken/impulsive, obstinate, dirty and without control—despite all this we maintain he is not an abnormal man. He may represent a selected class of normal Men; manv of his qualities may present extreme degrees from the normal average; yet the fact remains that in the"pattern' of his mind and body, in his feelings, thoughts, desires, and recognition of right and wrong, and in his behaviour, however outrageous it may be, he ex- . ists by the same nature, and is moved by the game springs of action that affect the conduct, and constitute the quality, of normal human beings."

WHAT DIAGRAMS SHOW. Diagrams included in Dr Goring's survey indicate that the mean head contours of 102 convicts and lt)8 engineers hardly vary by a hair's breadth in the medium contour, while the horizontal contours are almost identical. "In mean , head-length there is no difference between criminals and Cambridge students, in mean breadth x there is only 1 mm. difference, and in head-height there is no difference between convicts and the University College staff; in mean head 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 siniilarly close 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 English 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 investigation is, that all kinds of criminals show a decadence in general intelligence v*ery similar to the increasing physical defectiveness they exhibit as you pasy down the social scale, and Dr Goring asserts that probably the chief source of relationship between weak-mindedness and crime resides in the fact that the criminal thing which w« call criminality, which leads to the perpetration of many, if not most anti-social offences ijo-day, is not inherent wickedness but natural stupidity. Dealing with the influence of prison life on the physical and mental well-being of prisoners, Dr Goring finds that imprisonment on the whole has no apparent effect on physique, as measured by body weight, or on mentality 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 hand, mortality! from suicide greatly exceeds the general population standard. The preparation of Dr Goring's valuable report has, it is stated, involved the personal examination of no fewer than 3000, convicts.