The Criminal Man; 5; Left Hands, Red Hair and Crime

Today the criminal is society's most baffling problem. Here in Frank Clear language are some of the answers to the puzzle. The criminal man, a series of television studies of the causes and patterns of criminality. Your guide for these studies is Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, professor of criminology at the University of California. This fifth session of the series, Dr. Kelly will study several popular and traditional beliefs about the causes of criminal behavior. He calls the study, left hands, red hair, and crime.

There are some people who, after a casual glance at this child, will level or a bad one, a potential criminal. Because she has a characteristic which they believe to be classic of criminality, left handedness. This, of course, is utter nonsense. There is no more relationship between left handedness and crime than there is between crime and sedamating habits of an Alaskan walrus. Yet this is typical of the mythology and superstition which surround the problem of crime and criminals. In addition, this mythology and superstition also make it much more difficult to carry on our fight against crime. Our criminal players and a little vignette will show you just what I mean. I noticed him when I went to write a deposit slip. He was writing with his left hand. I always noticed left handed people.

Did you see him actually commit to crime? No. I started writing out my deposit slip. He went up to the other end of the bank so I didn't watch him. How do you know that he was the man that held up the teller? Well, I just told you. He was left handed. All right, madam. Did you notice anything else suspicious about it? Well, isn't that enough? I mean, really, what I heard about the robbery, I knew he was the one who did it. All right. Did you notice, or could you give me a description of it? Well, he was... I don't know. But I did notice that he was left handed. All right, madam. Thank you. Honestly, if they just took all of the left handed people in the world and round them up, put them off somewhere, there'd be lots less crime. That sounds silly, doesn't it? Actually, though, it isn't. That sort of thing happens every day. Left handedness, red hairedness, thick lips, facial blemishes. All of these things are considered by many people to be the cause of criminality. One of the purposes of this study is to see if we can't find out what are some of the true causes of criminality and the real why of crime.

And if we look through the literature to find out what causes crime, we can find an amazing list of things through the ages that people have claimed to be the cause of fact. For example, over the century, many answers have been put out. Many people simply give all of blame to the devil, and then conversely instead of blaming the devil other people, blame the worship of the wrong kind of God. Things like earthquakes, too much sunshine, feeble mindedness, all of these are considered by some people to be a cause of crime. And then some people have said, quite frankly, that criminal behavior can be ascribed to a disease, unspecified but virulent and contagious. And then there's one small group of people who have blamed all crime on reading too many books. Actually, of course, nowadays, a great many people are beginning to say the H-bomb will cause crime.

I'm sure you're all aware that some people think television is one of the primary causal factors. Today, society as a whole doesn't subscribe very much to most of these ideas. But they have rubbed off a little over the years and still persist in our thinking. The whole subject of criminal behavior is shrouded in this mysticism and mythology. One of the things we would like to do is to get away from some of these obsolete beliefs. Before we can, however, finally study and understand crime, we have to rid our minds of the tissue of fabrication and all of these ideas and others I've described. In the earlier sessions, we already have disposed to some of them. We've gotten rid of some of the popular notions, like we've learned that there's no such thing as a born criminal or hereditary criminality. And then we've learned that notwithstanding the television and emotion picture and various types of stereotype which are put out, there's no such thing as a facial characteristic of crime.

There are no such things as facial characters associated with criminality. And then we've learned that there's no relation between bodybuild and physical constitution. And we found that race and nationality are not directly responsible for illegal attacks upon the property and bodies and rights of other human beings. At this present session, I'd like to discuss some of the other problems that people erroneously feel are considered causal factors of crime. And then to begin with, let's get rid of this problem of handiness. In a research monograph, the master hand, Blau, has written up pretty well. Some of the general beliefs of why people commit crimes, beginning with, for example, umbroso, finding a parent lay large percentage of left-handedness among criminals. And other workers finding that left-handedness is more common in neurotic, unstable, defective persons and also criminal types.

Actually, when we finish the book, when we study handiness as it is in the modern pattern, we find that handiness is not hereditary but probably acquired. And the left-handed person is just the same as the right-handed person, except the left-handed person frequently is called different. And so he feels resentful or the left-handed person is forced to become right-handed, and so he struggles against the change. The handling of the left-handed person may be what causes the criminal action, but there's no specific relationship between handiness and crime. Now, here's another old idea, which is hung on persistently throughout the years. You know, the police have been there twice this week already. I think we ought to get the neighbors and do something about her. You know, when she moved in, I just knew there was going to be trouble. You know, you just look at her and you can see she's no good. That red hair.

Oh, it's a dead-giver one. You can tell it every time. Do you know I read somewhere that more people with red hair are arrested than any other? And not only that, but most of them are over-sex. You know, I told my daughter I said, Cynthia, stay away from redheads. They mean just one thing, trouble. I know exactly what you mean why I remember a time when I... These ideas of red hair, signifying criminality and sexuality, probably as old as man. If we do some research on this subject in the Miss Cabinet, we have 100 examples of the alleged relation of redheadedness to crime. We find it goes way back. For example, in the Bible, we find many illustrations that I have here a picture of Judas. Judas, of course, a great criminal, had a red hair and a red beard. And then, of course, in the Bible, too, another famous problem, child. Absalom. And he also was redheaded and red beard.

Now, of course, you not only find these things in the Bible, but you find them in other cultures, equally old, for example, the Greeks. And here we have a picture of an old Greek play. And we find that the Greeks dressed their various characters in two ways, white, to indicate what we'd call nowadays the Goodens and red for the badans. And all the persons who represented evil or anything that was wrong was dressed in a red costume. Actually, if we go through ancient literature of any country, we can find this. And in a research study, which we've prepared, we find all sorts of information. For example, in Europe, red hair is associated with deceit and treachery. And Thomas Hughes in England says, I know many people who on the count alone of hair color never admit into their service anyone whose hair is objectionable, that is red, and an old French proverb reads,

salute no red-headed man, nor red bearded person, nor woman, nearer than 30 feet off, with three stones already in thy fist to defend thee from what will be thy lot. Ancient Egyptians also disliked red hair. This was, I suppose, because a red-headed person obviously would be a foreigner, and then also red in Egypt, as in Greece, was the symbolic color of evil. Then in Ireland, of course, North Ireland, a red-headed girl, as brings bad luck, and an old American saying goes, unfortunate lady, how sad is your lot to have your ringlets red? Not only in these areas, but in text-on criminology, we find long discussions on the subject. For example, in this one, it quotes, if an American superstition red hair is a sign of a fierce temper and increased sexuality. Again, red is supposed to be the sign of heat, and hence related to the devil.

And we know, of course, that this indicates a bad thing. Oddly enough, if you check this with the statistics, and this author has done that, it quotes an English study, in which a skilled worker found that 3.4 percent about 3.5 percent of all English convicts had red hair. Whereas 4.8 percent of top Scotty students had red hair, and 5.5 percent of Scottish schoolboys had red hair. I suppose you could interpret this to mean that if you have red hair, you've got a much better chance of being a Scottish schoolboy than being a criminal. Actually, the whole thing has been pretty well demonstrated to show no relationship between hair color and criminality. Now, these data prove it conclusively. Another popular bit of superstition relates, of course, to our friend we mentioned before, the devil.

In the devil, of course, as a character, old in history, an individual who naturally is the source of all evil, and an individual who, if he gets into you, can give you a great difficulty. I have here an old book on the devil, fascinating thing, because it was written many years ago by Defol, it's a history of the devil. Defol in this text was apparently so concerned with what he wrote about the devil, and his relation to criminality, that when he finally had the book bound in ancient leather, he bound in some extra pages, pasted down. And if we look at these extra pages, hold them up against a good light, we find that we can see the writing. And if we peer at the writing through the light and read it, we find it to be a set of pages taken from the Bible in this case, Genesis.

You know and I know that it's a bad thing to tear up a Bible, but apparently the author of this ancient volume felt the power of the devil so great, that even words written about him might cause danger, and so he bound in the Bible in order to contain the devil between the covers. Of course, the devil also got into a lot of other trouble. For example, if we take some of these books, and in this file we have many examples of the relationship with the devil to crime, and these books written in the 1500s on various kinds of demonology, we find adequate descriptions of how the devil causes evil work and mischief working through people to cause crime. Of course, if you got into it too close, you became bewitched, and in the ancient text, the examine of witches and the malice, we find any number of examples of witchcraft brought about by contact with the devil, for which of course you were executed as a criminal. And so we find that the devil himself causes no end of trouble when he contacts you. In the near sense, we've gotten over this idea, but the tradition is hung on.

But if you have the pointed ears, or the hooked nose, or the pointed chin, the facial characteristics of the devil, you will act like it. And so we find, if you look like the devil, you'll be considered a criminal. Imagine. She accused me of taking a bottle of perfume. She accused me of being a shoplifter. Oh, look crazy things, why you? Imagine me, a shoplifter. Why that woman, she stopped me right at the door and treated me like a common thief. I nearly died. I have never been so humiliated by all my life. I don't understand why I accused you. Because I have this mole on my face. She said, people with moles are criminals. That was the only reason. Imagine. Because I have a mole on my face. I'm going to sue. Our friend is getting some of our own medicine, but it really isn't very funny because it happens so often.

Over and over again, persons who have facial blemishes are considered to be potential criminals. And the same goes for physical defects like clubfoot, or a humpback, or some kind of a birth deformity. And so we find that a great many people tend to believe that this sort of thing is a forerunner of criminality. Then of course there are other factors which may cause people to believe that you're perhaps a criminal. Other kinds of blemishes. For example, you may have a blemish you put on yourself like a tattoo. Great many people will say that tattooed persons are undoubtedly more apt to be criminal. If for example I have a small tattoo on an arm when they're picked up, they may well be more suspect. Of course some kinds of tattoos are marks of criminal groups. For example, the Puchuka has this little type of mark. And this mark is put on, of course, after you've become a member of the gang for recognition purposes.

If for example you run across somebody with a Puchuka tattoo like this, it's perfectly silly to say that because he was tattooed, he became a criminal. The criminal simply is the trademark of his juvenile gang group. It's pretty stupid, but they don't. Of course other kinds of blemishes will do that. For example, facial scars or Mars are also considered to be something. I've got here an excellent picture. I'm going to follow with some pretty serious facial scars. As a matter of fact his face was so badly scarred, they call him Scarface Al Capone. Right away somebody else say, well that proves the point. That shows that scars are marks of the criminal. As a matter of fact he doesn't, Capone was a criminal for a long time before he got the scars as a resultant to his nefarious activity. So we find that this sort of thing, facial blemishes, scars and whatnot, are nowhere near the mark of a person being a criminal.

Finally there's one other problem that's been handed down for years, again a physical disorder. This is the problem of epilepsy. Epilepsy of course is a very old disease. People have known about it for years. If you read the Rig Veda, ancient Hindu medicine, or you read the ancient various Egyptian manuscripts of the old Greeks, you'll find they described epilepsy very well. Epilepsy is also spectacular. An individual is struck like a bolt from the blue, suddenly develops a convulsion. And if a person so marked because of his difficulty, then commits a crime. A great many people assume cause and effect. Lambroso fell into this trap. First you'll remember he postulated hereditary criminality. And then he found a lot of people who didn't seem to be born criminals, but a few of them had fets. Remember again he worked in a mental institution. And then he postulated that epilepsy was the major single cause of crime.

Of course he was confronted in no time at all with a number of people who didn't have fets. And so he solved the point by calling these people epilepsy or persons who might be epileptics but really weren't. Actually we know in modern criminology today that studies of epileptics who commit crimes show conclusively. Epileptics are less apt commit crimes than non-epileptics. We can say this definitely because epilepsy is a reportable disease. And so we have a pretty accurate record of how many persons in the United States have epilepsy and our statistics on this point I think are quite sound. We can then I think this disperse completely with Lambroso's ancient notion that epilepsy is a fundamental basic cause of any type of criminal behavior. Some years ago however a brand new medical problem developed and was immediately hailed as the source or root of all criminal pattern. It has its roots deep in folklore I'll show you an example of what can happen.

You mean you haven't found him yet? Oh honestly I don't know what you policemen do to solve crime. Been a week since it happened. We've traced down every lead you were able to give us. We've questioned 50 people. We've alerted the whole nation for a man answering the description that you gave us. We've checked fingerprints. There's a lot of work to a job like this. I don't know why there should be. It's really quite simple. Don't you know that the police don't like simple cases. They like to make a big show out of everything. Actually with a little common sense this case could be solved in no time. Madam what would you suggest that we do? Well. The actions of the man who committed this crime were obviously not normal indicating of course that he had either parathymer saw a thyroid trouble or both. As a matter of fact I would say that he probably had a hyperthyroid condition of the thyroid gland.

And from your description of him I would also say that he was probably a pre-petuitary thymus person maybe even a genuine actual pre-petuitary thymus. Now it seems to me that any policeman worth his salary should be able to spot a man with this condition. It isn't exactly common you know people just don't go walking down the street of him. This sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo but actually the great many people still believe it. The number of individuals who are disciples to the glandular theory of the causes of crime are most numerous. It all started back of course when glands were found to be fundamentally important in the function of human physiology. If we take this rubber model we'll find some of those glands for example in the youngster the thymus lies right under the breast bone. And then if we take him apart we can take a look at some of the other more important glands for example deep here underneath behind the liver and back of the stomach.

We find the kidneys and over the kidneys two glands they adrenals with the adrenal cortex and so we find that these two glands are particularly important. Then as we move up the neck we find the thyroid gland in the neck and finally when we get to the brain we find the so-called master gland or pituitary deep in the center of the brain itself. Now from a medical point of view we know what these glands are for. We know pretty well most of their functions there are still some unfamiliar but generally we know how they affect body physiology. We know that none of their effect on body physiology produces crime. But early in the game before much was known was believed they produced marked changes in personality and of course in major cases of deviation they do. And so authors for example like Dr. Schlapp hit up on the eye there that you can explain all criminology because of glandular difficulty and in a thick book he describes it.

A pupil of his lay person wrote a simply fascinating study every man his own detective in which he takes the various ideas of Schlapp and he works through them and describes the individual. For example a thymus can be diagnosed by a receding chin a subparathyroid by a space between the teeth a hypothyroid by large placid face and it renaled by lots of curly hair. Now these don't make good sense but then he goes further and says if he's the thymus he'll be childish but and too imaginative and commit fiendish crimes. Parathyroid crime a quick nervous brutal assault. Hypothyroid crimes are modern crimes whatever they are and pre-petuitary crimes are intelligent crimes. Then he gets to it renal crimes and the adrenal crime of course is a drunken one or a quick assault and finally the so called subthyroid this strange individual tends to commit crime by poison.

Actually this is the purest nonsense we know that the physical features described in this text are not diagnostic and secondly there's no connection whatsoever between wide spaces in your teeth and a tendency to have glandular disturbance or a tendency for any kind of criminal behavior. So I think it essential to recognize that while a glandular theory was a particularly fascinating one while medicine is still seeking some kind of a physiological cause and while glands can produce various physical and mental changes there's no known relationship whatsoever between glandular dysfunction of any type and criminal behavior. These things left handed us red hairedness physical defect glandular problem various kinds of humpback structure all through the ages have forced people to believe in some kind of a causal relationship.

Actually there may be a second hand the kind of relationship the reason this may occur is the individual who has a birth injury or a pigmented mole or some kind of a deformity is pointed out as different people say he's on and so he tends to react against society who is ostracizing for his strangeness. This kind of an individual then as a minority type person may suddenly erupt in violence against a culture which is banding because it is different from their own and so in a sort of second hand way perhaps various facial blemishes left handedness which is different the presence of physical disability which is different or glandular disability which may produce secondary physical defects or for that matter pointed ears and an appearance like devil these things may get you pointed out and in retaliation you attack society and become a criminal but it's only in this sort of second hand way that these things have any known connection with criminal books like this of course are pure trash and puppy cut.

In the past sessions then we've discussed a number of the problems which we think people feel are concerned with the causes of crime by a process of elimination we are perhaps getting closer to some of the true causes because most of the things we've talked about haven't had any but a mystical or folklore relationship. So far we've confined ourselves pretty much to discussing simply physical traits but at our next session we plan to discuss the environment the weather the temperature and the climatic effects upon possible criminality. To sum up for today we found that there is no such thing as hereditary crime there's no such thing as a born criminal and that these fate features and characteristics facial blemishes and whatnot there are no relationship to crime there are no physical features or traits which can be directly related in any way to criminal behavior.

Getting along let's see what you've got here. The Criminal Man, a series of television studies on the nature and patterns of criminality. Dr. Douglas M. Kelly is professor of criminology at the University of California.

Appearing in the cast for this session with the Criminal Man were Bobby Lyons, Wanda Baker, Edward O'Brien and Deborah Waldeer. This is National Educational Television.