Recidivism regarded from the Environmental and Psychopathological Standpoints

Extract

Recidivism is the French coined term most appropriate to express the persistent, reiterated lapses of the same individual, in that small section of habituais found in every country, both among criminals engaged in serious crimes against the person and property, and among petty offenders, whose delinquencies or misdemeanours are drunkenness, public disorder, prostitution, and vagrancy. The former are aggressive, noxious, anti-social, and, to a slight extent, industrious and productive; the latter, as a rule, are passive, idle, debauched, parasitic, and unproductive. The two types are quite distinct, and there is little or no inter mingling; that is to say, the recidivist engaging in the major crimes in the criminal calendar does not forsake the ranks of that class to become a recruit in the ranks of the minor and petty offender class, and vice-versâ.