sixteen are more mature and have more
experience of life than others of twenty. Most laws provide that below
sixteen one cannot give consent and that a sexual act is then rape. It
is doubtful if there should be any intermediate age between sixteen and
eighteen, where an act is not rape but still a minor offence.

XII

ROBBERY AND BURGLARY

Robbery and burglary are generally counted as crimes of violence, but
they should be properly classed under property crimes. Every motive that
leads to getting property in illegal ways applies to these crimes. There
is added to the regular causes of property crimes the element of danger
and adventure which makes a strong appeal to boys and men. I am inclined
to think that few mature men have committed one of these crimes, unless
they began criminal careers as boys. Such crimes especially appeal to
the activity and love of adventure which inhere in every boy. They are
committed for the most part by youths who have had almost no chance to
get the needed sport and physical experience incident to boyhood. The
foot-ball, base-ball, polo or golf player very seldom becomes a robber
or a burglar. Almost no rich man or rich man's son becomes a robber or a
burglar. Those who fall under this lure are mainly the denizens of the
streets, the railroad yards, the vacant lots, the casual workers who are
stimulated by a variety of conditions to get property unlawfully. Added
to this are almost invariably a defective heredity, vicious environment,
little education, and a total want of direction in the building up of
habits and inhibitions.

The robber or burglar who kills in the commission of crime is more
dangerous and harder to cure than the one who kills from passion or
malice. There is always the element of an occupation, for getting
property, and generally a love of adventure that is difficult to
overcome, except by a substantial change of social relations which makes
acquiring property easier for the class from which all these criminals
develop. The murder that comes from passion and feeling implies
situations and circumstances that are rarely strong enough to overcome
the restrictions against killing.

XIII

MAN AS A PREDATORY ANIMAL

Not less than eighty per cent of all crimes are property crimes, and it
seems probable that, of the rest, most arise from the same motives. If
we look at civilization as the result of that seesaw trend of the race
from "Naturalism to Artif