inherited, or even that there is a criminal type. It means that with
certain physical and mental imperfections and with certain environment
the criminal will be the result.

Seldom does one begin a criminal life as a full-grown man. The origin
of the typical criminal is an imperfect child, suffering from some
defect. Usually he was born with a weak intellect, or an unstable
nervous system. He comes from poor parents. Often one or both of these
died or met misfortune while he was young. He comes from the crowded
part of a poor district. He has had little chance to go to school and
could not have been a scholar, no matter how regularly he attended
school. Some useful things he could have learned had society furnished
the right teachers, surroundings and opportunities to make the most of
an imperfect child. Early in life he does some desultory work in casual
occupations. This of course is not steady, but he picks up what he can
and keeps the job for a short time, sometimes quitting work because he
is discharged and sometimes because, like most boys and men, he does not
like to work. His playground is the street, the railroad yards or vacant
lots too small for real play, and fit only for a loafing place for boys
like himself. These gather nightly and talk of the incidents that
interest most people, mainly the abnormal things of life and generally
the crimes that the newspapers make so prominent to satisfy the public
demand. He learns to go into vacant buildings, steals the plumbing, and
he early learns where to sell it. From this it is only a short step to
visiting occupied buildings at night. In this way he learns to be a
burglar as other boys learn to play baseball or golf.

Naturally he has no strong sense of property rights. He has always had a
hard time to get enough to eat and wear, and he has grown up
unconsciously to see the inequality of distribution and to believe that
it is not fair and that there is little or no justice in the world. As a
child he learned to get things the best way he could, and to think
nothing about it. In short, his life, like all other lives, moves along
the lines of least resistance. He soon comes to feel that the police are
his natural enemies and his chief business is to keep from getting
caught. Inevitably he is brought into the Juvenile Court. He may be
reprimanded at first. He comes again and is placed on probation. The
next time he goes to a Juvenile Prison where he can learn all the