Hence the influence of the race cannot be ignored in the study
of nations and personalities, although it is not the exclusive factor
which would suffice to explain the criminality of a nation or an
individual. Study, for instance, manslaughter in Italy, and, although
you will find it difficult to isolate one of the factors of criminality
from the network of the other circumstances and conditions that produce
it, yet there are such eloquent instances of the influence of racial
character, that it would be like denying the existence of daylight if
one tried to ignore the influence of the ethnical factor on
criminality.
In Italy there are two currents of criminality, two tendencies which are
almost diametrically opposed to one another. The crimes due to hot blood
and muscle grow in intensity from northern to southern Italy, while the
crimes against property increase from south to north. In northern Italy,
where movable property is more developed, the crime of theft assumes a
greater intensity, while crimes due to conditions of the blood are
decreasing on account of the lesser poverty and the resulting lesser
degeneration of the people. In the south, on the other hand, crimes
against property are less frequent and crimes of blood more frequent.
Still there also are in southern Italy certain cases where criminality
of the blood is less frequent, and you cannot explain this in any other
way than by the influence of racial character.
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