Southern Workman, March 1910, pages 137–142. PDF
137 Much has been said and written upon the crime of Negroes, and especially the Negroes of the North. It is important therefore that a careful and somewhat detailed Study of this subject be made. To introduce the subject properly, it is necessary first to consider a few fundamental questions of criminal sociology. The same principles which affect crime in general must affect crime when committed by Negroes. Therefore we shall attempt to answer briefly the following questions: What is crime? How can crime be measured? What is the basis of a statistical measurement of crime? What is the social meaning of crime: its effect ? What are its causes? Are they individual or personal? Are they social and economic? No attempt is made here to discuss anything except the fundamental principles.
What is crime? A crime is an infraction of any legal enactment whose purpose is to preserve the peace, common order and decency, as interpreted by the social group. There is no uniformity as to what acts constitute crimes in all countries or parts of the same country. It is a crime in Georgia punishable by heavy fine and imprisonment for Negroes and whites to marry, but it is no crime in Pennsylvania or New York. It is a crime in Pennsylvania to employ a child under fourteen years, but it is not in Mississippi. In a highly developed community there are more possible crimes than in a less developed or primitive community. In Palestine, in the days of Jesus, men might go through the fields and pluck corn, and eat at will, but in New York, for taking a single ear of corn, one is liable to sentence. Many laws are necessary in complex communities which would be superfluous in a simple country community. In such a community few persons are interferred with in constructing their houses, while in cities like Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and New York, many details of construction are laid down by law. Street regulations, sanitary regulations, regulations regarding bicycles, automobiles, saloons, gambling, prostitution, trade, dance-halls, etc., abound in the complex community 138 which are almost unknown in simpler environments. It is therefore clear that a person living in rural districts may commit many of the same acts without offense, which, if committed in a city, would be criminal. The chances therefore of a person becoming a criminal are often increased by the mere change from country to city, without any change whatever in his moral character.
Further, as it is apparent that what constitutes a crime is not a uniformity, it is also true that crime, or the mere number of crimes committed does not represent, with any accuracy, the moral status of a people. For, in a complex community, it is harder to escape crime than in a simple community. If the man in his simple environment commits one crime, while the man of the complex environment, with four or five times as many possible crimes as the other man, commits four crimes, it is not a proper measure of the criminality of each, to say that the latter is four times as criminal as the former.
In judging criminality, the environment as to complexity and simplicity must be taken into consideration: the criminality of one community, other things being equal, being to the criminality of another, about as the proportion between the possible crimes and actual crimes in the respective communities.
How we shall measure crime is a most baffling question. In popular writings the number of arrests is frequently assured to be a proper indication of crime and writers often base sweeping generalizations upon such figures. Arrests, however, do not give an accurate picture of crime, and especially for purposes of comparison. In the first place we have to consider that annually hundreds of persons are arrested who have not committed any crime whatever. For example, according to the Statistics of the Pennsylvania Board of Public Charities, although hundreds of thousands were arrested in that State in 1907, only 29,005 persons appeared before grand juries, only 22,230 persons were tried, of these 1,730 were discharged without even coming to trial, while 9,308 were acquitted, showing clearly, that a large percentage of those arrested were not criminals at all.
Not only are thousands arrested who have never committed any crime, but also thousands are not arrested, who probably have committed crimes, often serious crimes. If they are not arrested, they cannot be counted and cannot therefore figure in the statistics of crime. The strength and efficiency of the police force, the general attitude of the administrative powers, and the state of public opinion in the respective periods of time, or cities, or districts must be considered and compared.
A better method of comparison is between convictions; and yet this is not accurate. For as a large number of criminals are never arrested, they cannot be convicted; also some guilty persons who 139 are arrested escape conviction. But with this admitted inaccuracy in this method of measurement—by convictions—it is yet true that, as far as we have been able to test criminality by police statistics, convictions are the best measure we have as to the amount of crime.
We may compare the amount of crime by comparing the complexity of the environment, the density of population, the complexity and comprehensiveness of the criminal code, the strength and efficiency of the police force, with the number of arrests and convictions in the respective localities, or periods. Even here we would be apt to make a grievous error.
It is conceivable that one place may be much more criminal than another, though the latter has proportionately more convictions. In the first place, each arrest and conviction lessens the criminality. For example, when Philadelphia’s “Tenderloin” was “wide open,” it was conceded that there was much crime: liquor was sold freely on Sunday, and without license, bawdy houses flourished and prostitutes openly plied their trade in the streets before the very eyes of the policeman; pickpockets, sneak thieves, hold-up men, petty gamblers were practically undisturbed; and policy shops did a large business among the ignorant poor. There were fewer arrests and fewer convictions than at a following time when the laws were more vigorously enforced. Indeed there may have been more, rather than less crime. When the city suppressed this crime, and, in the popular phrase, “cleaned up” these districts, the criminal character of the community decreased, but the arrests and convictions, for a while at least, increased. The real change was in the enforcing of law against crime, and not in the increase of crime; crime was really on the decrease. Only therefore, when there is uniformity of administration, judicial and executive, both as to arrests and convictions, can these above factors be taken as guides of comparison with any degree of accuracy. This we have not yet attained, and are far from it.
Even if there is uniform enforcement, mere numbers would not mean very much. An analysis of the offenses must be made. For general conveniences the division into petty offenses or misdemeanors, and gross offenses or felonies is frequently used. It may be that a dozen petty offenses may not be as far-reaching in the social harm done, as one gross offence. For example, if forty men are taken in a crap game and sentenced to five days in the county prison, there are forty arrests and forty convictions; but the amount of criminality represented is comparatively small. Crap shooting is not a very great crime; it does not affect many more people, than those engaged in it; few fortunes are lost at it; comparatively few families suffer because of it, and society is but little affected. On the other hand, a bank official or political boss may misuse the funds of his institution, or government, and be arrested and convicted. He counts 140 for only one. Mere statistics of arrest and convictions in comparison, would be misleading; for this last criminal may have operated systematically for years, ruining many people; debauching society as well as corrupting finance, causing public confidence to decrease with harm to himself, his own family and many other families. The social injury done by the forty crap-shooters is not to be compared with that of the bank defalcator, except in statistics.
Not only must an analysis and classification of the crimes be made but a study of the social situation, and the physical make-up of the so-called criminals. First, we must take into account the sex of the criminals, so as to see what differences there are in tendencies; secondly, occupations, to find what crimes seem to be associated with the occupations of persons; or in what occupations most crimes are committed; then a study of the ages of criminals; and also a study of general social environments, education, religious training, home life, family life, morals, etc. . The physical condition, as determined by under-feeding, clothing, abnormalities and a dozen other factors, enter and must be disposed of before we are able to handle intelligently the question of the causes of crime in a particular group.
It is difficult to estimate the criminality of a given community, and far more difficult to compare the criminality of different groups, for example that of cities; or of minor groups included in the same larger group, for example the nationalities or races of a great city or state; in order to find the comparative criminal tendencies of the several groups. For in the case of cities, or states, or nations, there are different standards of crime determined by laws, customs, efficiency of policemen; politics entering into the question of arrests and conviction in varying degrees, etc. Professor H.T. Kealing, in his paper on “Crime among Negroes,” has pointed out some of the difficulties in comparing different groups.
When it comes to a comparison of crime among Negroes with the larger community, there are even greater difficulties. Historically, Negroes have had to prove their innocence and not their prosecutors prove their guilt. Under the laws of slavery, T.R.R. Cobb, an eminent Southern jurist, wrote in The Law of Negro Slavery: “Reasons of policy and necessity, require that so long as two races of men live together, the one as master and the other as dependents and slaves, to a certain extent all of the superior race shall exercise a controlling power over the inferior, … Hence have arisen in the states, the various police and patrol regulations, giving to white persons, other than the master, under certain circumstances, the right of controlling, and in some cases, correcting slaves.”Thus in most of the Southern states, the police system was primarily and often only 141 for Negroes and not for whites. Another historical factor relates to the crimes for which Negroes may be arrested. Historically, any word of protest against a white man by a Negro was insolence or disorderly conduct; and it was a serious crime for a Negro to strike or “presume to strike a white person” (as the New Jersey law puts it) in the South, and in some Northern states; but a white man was simply exercising his right as a member of the “superior” caste in abusing the Negro, and could strike him with impunity, only some laws prohibited maiming and killing. A box of the ears was no crime when given by a white to a black, but the reverse was punishable by flogging. This was true by law or custom in every Southern state, and by law in many Northern states, such as New Jersey by a law of 1713, New York by an act of 1706, Massachusetts by an act of 1707, and in Connecticut by acts of 1708 and 1730.
A further and most important historical factor is that of the credibility of the witness. By law in most Southern states and some Northern states, a Negro could not testify against a white man even for himself; as for example, in the States of New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, and Indiana, in some cases a dozen Negroes to the contrary, would not, according to the law, be strong enough to outweigh the testimony of two whites. Furthermore, no Negro was permitted to serve on a jury, not only in the Southern states, but in many states of the North.
It cannot be doubted that these historical factors have a very decided influence in the cases of Negroes in our courts to-day, even in the North. ## Poverty as a Factor in Crime
The crimes of the poor are generally their vices, which affect them more than they affect the other part of the community. The vices of the well-to-do, on the other hand, are seldom called criminal, unless they become of great social concern. A fashionable set may give euchre or bridge parties and hundreds of dollars may change hands and women may earn their “pin money” thereby, but they are rarely ever disturbed. The fashionable gentleman who gets drunk at a fashionable club, or the student on a “lark,” is sent home in a carriage, undisturbed; often the shoplifter of wealth and good family is merely a “kleptomaniac.” These facts should be considered when it is remembered that “craps” and “drunks” and “disorderlies” are chief causes for the large number of arrests and convictions among the poor. Negroes of the great Northern cities, being largely among the poor, must be affected by the differences which poverty makes in these matters.
Then there is the matter of the trial after arrests. Even before justice, poverty suffers. On this point, The Independent of February 1, 1905, under the title of “The Law’s Delays,” said:
The Tribune of Chicago remarks that the fact that one-fourth the male convicts 142 at Joliet (a state penitentiary) and one-half of the female convicts there are Negroes, does not argue for the criminality of the race, but its poverty. Negroes do not profit by the maladministration of criminal justice in Chicago, because they have not the money to hire the right kind of shyster lawyers to defend them. The criminal laws of Illinois were not made by the people for their protection.