It seems fairly certain that with time and opportunity, it will not much
longer be a marked family.

Quite aside from the history, it seems certain that no results such as
shown by Dugdale could have followed from inheritance. Defectiveness is
a recessive factor; normality a dominant one. If such were not true,
this would be a world of feeble-minded. If the Mendelian law held good
in this regard, from a union of a defective and a normal person, three
out of four would be normal, but as a matter of fact, the percentage of
normal is no doubt much greater. It is only when both father and mother
are feeble-minded that feeble-mindedness is sure to show in the
offspring. With the modern care of this sort of defectives, the chance
of breeding is growing rapidly less.

The Kallikak family is cited as another illustration showing the
possible inheritance of criminality and poverty through a defective
strain. This family, so far as shown, makes it still clearer that what
some authors have charged to heredity is simply due to environment.
These investigations do not show the need of controlling birth but do
prove the necessity of improving environment. It is not possible to
speak with certainty as to heredity and environment. The thorough
investigation of these two factors which make up life is still in its
infancy, but scientists are working out the problem, and we may be
confident that with the right attitude toward crime, a remedy will be
found for such cases as result from environment.

XXXIII

CRIME, DISEASE AND ACCIDENT

The criminologist has always looked for the cause of crime in some other
direction than in the inherent wickedness of the criminal. Only those
who make and enforce the law believe that men commit crimes because they
choose the wrong.

Different writers have made their catalogues of causes that are
responsible for crime, and most of these lists are more or less correct.
There can be no doubt that more crimes against property are committed in
cold weather than in warm weather; more in hard times than in good
times; more by the unemployed than the employed; more during strikes and
lockouts than in times of industrial peace; more when food is expensive
and scarce than when it is cheap and plenty; more, in short, when it is
harder to live. There is no doubt that there are more crimes of violence
in extreme hot weather than in cold weather. That is, heat affects
crimes as it affects disease and ins