Mysteries of Police and Crime

Produktdetails

Verlag

anboco

Erschienen

2016

Sprache

English

Seiten

500

Infos

500 Seiten

ISBN

978-3-7364-0673-5

Kurztext / Annotation

Arthur George Frederick Griffiths was a British military officer, prison administrator and author who published more than 60 books during his lifetime. He was also a military historian who wrote extensively about the wars of the 19th century, and was for a time military correspondent for The Times newspaper. This ebook contains three parts: Judicial Errors, Police - Past and Present, Captains of Crime.

Textauszug

Part I.

A GENERAL SURVEY OF CRIME AND ITS DETECTION.

Crime Distinguished from Law-breaking-The General Liability to Crime-Preventive Agencies-Plan of the Work-Different Types of Murders and Robberies-Crime Developed by Civilisation-The Police the Shield and Buckler of Society-Difficulty of Disappearing under Modern Conditions-The Press an Aid to the Police: the Cases of Courvoisier, Müller, and Lefroy-The Importance of Small Clues-"Man Measurement" and Finger-Prints-Strong Scents as Clues-Victims of Blind Chance: the Cases of Troppmann and Peace-Superstitions of Criminals-Dogs and other Animals as Adjuncts to the Police-Australian Blacks as Trackers: Instances of their Almost Superhuman Skill-How Criminals give themselves Away: the Murder of M. Delahache, the Stepney Murder, and other Instances-Cases in which there is Strong but not Sufficient Evidence: the Burdell and Various Other Murders: the Probable Identity of "Jack the Ripper"-Undiscovered Murders: the Rupprecht, Mary Rogers, Nathan, and other Cases: Similar Cases in India: the Burton Crescent Murder: the Murder of Lieutenant Roper-The Balance in Favour of the Police.

CRIME is the transgression by individuals of rules made by the community. Wrong-doing may be either intentional or accidental-a wilful revolt against law, or a lapse through ignorance of it. Both are punishable by all codes alike, but the latter is not necessarily a crime. To constitute a really criminal act the offence must be wilful, perverse, malicious; the offender then becomes the general enemy, to be combated by all good citizens, through their chosen defenders, the police. This warfare has existed from the earliest times; it is in constant progress around us to-day, and it will continue to be waged until the advent of that Millennium in which there is to be no more evil passion to agitate mankind.

TYPES OF MALE CRIMINALS.
(From Photographs preserved at the Black Museum, New Scotland Yard.)

It may be said that society itself creates the crimes that most beset it. If the good things of life were more evenly distributed, if everyone had his rights, if there were no injustice, no oppression, there would be no attempts to readjust an unequal balance by violent or flagitious means. There is some force in this, but it is very far from covering the whole ground, and it cannot excuse many forms of crime. Crime, indeed, is the birthmark of humanity, a fatal inheritance known to the theologians as original sin. Crime, then, must be constantly present in the community, and every son of Adam may, under certain conditions, be drawn into it. To paraphrase a great saying, some achieve crime, some have it thrust upon them; but most of us (we may make the statement without subscribing to all the doctrines of the criminal anthropologists) are born to crime. The assertion is as old as the hills; it was echoed in the fervent cry of pious John Bradford when he pointed to the man led out to execution, "There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God!"

Criminals are manufactured both by social cross-purposes and by the domestic neglect which fosters the first fatal predisposition. "Assuredly external factors and circumstances count for much in the causation of crime," says Maudsley. The preventive agencies are all the more necessary where heredity emphasises the universal natural tendency. The taint of crime is all the more potent in those whose parentage is evil. The germ is far more likely to flourish into baleful vitality if planted by congenital depravity. This is constantly seen with the offspring of criminals. But it is equally certain that the poison may be eradicated, the evil stamped out, if better influences supervene betimes. Even the most ardent supporters of the theory of the "born criminal" admit that this, as some think, imaginary monste

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