CRIME AMONG THE RICH

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11239, 7 December 1899, Page 3

CRIME AMONG THE RICH

Tro; great criminologist, Professor Cesare Lombroso, writes: —Thoso who assert as a matter of course that criminality is always an effect of poverty have not studied the other side of the question—that in which crime is an effect of wealth. Wealth may conduce to either vice or virtue, ncording to the character of its possessors, and this is especially true of great wealth, which, like great power and too much education, may become natural instruments of desperatism. In America some of the States mostprone to crimes are rich. In the richest, for instance, Khode Island (200 dollars to each inhabitant), there is a large number of crimes, 0.11; in Massachusetts, with, almost equal wealth (190 dollars), there is double the amount of crime, 0.20, about the same proportion as that of the district of Columbia, where the wealth is only 100 dollars. Some poor countries, liko Dakota (30 dollars per individual), Alabama (20 dollars). New Mexico (20 dollars), show the very lowest amount of criminality. In France and Italy criminality increases in proportion to the increaso of industrial wealth. Poverty may and does often impel to certain crimes, especially theft: but wealth in its ton is a. source of.degeneration on account of many causes. It urges to crime through vanity, through that terrible desire to " cut a figure in the world," which is one of the greatest causes of crime against poverty. i Another point that should not be. forgotten in comparing this crimes committed by the rich and poor is that the poor are far more numerous than the rich, and, bosides, which i« more to the purpose, the rich purchase immunity from punishment, especially in political life. When the Ministers in Italy, for instance, were found guilty of crimes, it was not at all difficult for them to escape the penalty.