The Criminal Man; 6; Weather Maps, Calendars and Crime

Does a full moon arouse pyromaniac, does a north wind make people sullen or violent? Here are answers to these and other questions about criminality. The Criminal Man, the series of television studies of how and why people commit crimes and of what to do about it. Your guide for these studies of the criminal man is Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, professor of criminology at the University of California. In the sixth session of our series, Dr. Kelly will study whether, season, wind and other

natural phenomena in relation to criminal behavior. He calls this study whether maps, calendars and crime. Can you see anything in these items related to homicide and larceny, arson, barometer, gadget to measure wind speed, a clock, a weather vane, calendar, a weather map, to most people in relation between this sort of thing and crime would be incredible. And yet there are a number of people who right away will say that one or the other of these is directly related to criminal behavior. Some people would say, for example, that the weather, the barometric pressure, the temperature, the humidity, would directly related to crime. And other people will tell you the time of day bears a specific relationship.

Then some people would say that the direction of wind is one of the major causes and other people will tell you from the calendar that the full moon in its varying phases as it waxes and wanes is one of the major causes of crime. None of these beliefs is new. All of them date from a considerable period in the past and many people base their belief on the fact that they go so far back into our history. In this program, we're particularly interested with evaluating the causes of crime, with trying to determine what actually is practical and what is obsolete, with evaluating those things that seem to be important in the determination of the criminal man and his behavior. And now, to these beliefs relating to natural phenomena and crime, are they real, are they obsolete?

Or are they practical? Are they substantiated by fact? Will they help us in better understanding the behavior of the criminal man and in reaching some knowledge of how he works? Let's find out. For many centuries, the moon has been linked in literature, poetry, and music with romance, red roses in June, with all thoughts, all passions, all delights, whatever stirs this mortal frame. But for even more centuries, it's been linked in literature and folklore with evil, with misfortune, with insanity. Around the moon has grown an ominous vocabulary, lunatic, monster, moon-shiner, moon-struck, and scores of other words with unpleasant connotations. A great many people, some of them in important places, believe in the relationship of

moon, for example, Pyramanian. When we consider the moon, we have in this cabinet any number of articles about it, to the astronomer, it's essentially a hemisphere, a globe that waxes and wains. And if he looks at a full picture of it, he's able to map it and find out on it various mountain ranges, various craters, and large, flat areas that he calls seeds. It's a heavenly body with definite effect upon the tides and other physical behavior. But doesn't have any relationship to crime. We take in this cabinet where we've collected hundreds of examples, for example, here is one which refers to Pyramanian. When this points out that fire chief Marshal Thomas Brophy says, we're especially busy during the full moon period, although few psychiatrists or anybody else can say why, but

in that period we keep a special lookout for Pyramanians. This idea goes through many other of the examples we have, and many books on moons and nets, and if we take a look at the newspapers, for example, the old Sunday supplements and some years back, we find that murder's petting couples when the moon are full, is a typical headline, or if we turn to the news stands of today, we find killer by the next full moon, a typical example of the current belief in the relationship of the full moon to crime. Why is this? In our research reports which we've prepared, there are all sorts of examples. And in a study as a matter of fact, I did some years back. We find very definitely the relationship of the moon to evil. It symbolizes the second symbol and the Jewish alphabet.

Again, an evil symbol, the Talmud, the writings of ancient Persians, all are solid on the idea that anything which happens under men of evil is the work of the moon. A fellow is made to say by Shakespeare, it is the very error of the moon, she comes more near the earth than she was one, she makes men mad. The relationship between moon sicknesses shown in the term lunacy, from Luna, or in the French, the word for insanities of Warde luned to have the moon sickness. And so we find that throughout men's minds in folklore, the attachment of the moon, criminality, to evil, to mental disease, to epilepsy, and to madness, actually, the moon bears no relation whatsoever to any of these things. It's a handy symbol, glowing there in the night sky, easy to pin your case of one statistically upon.

Of course, if it happens in the dark, there's nothing to tag it with and you forget. And so we find the moon bears no more relationship to crime than to do another thing it's tied in with the weather. We speak of a ring around the moon, which again bears no relation to the moon describing honest, serious clouds in the highest atmosphere. Let's see about the weather and crime. Many people, including responsible law enforcement officers, hold steadfastly to the theory that weather causes criminal behavior. They can produce statistics indicating a strong relationship between heat and crime, or cold and crime, or humidity and crime, or snowfall and crime, or season. The relationship of season to various types of human behavior is, I think, fairly obvious. There are a number of studies done along this line in this cabinet where we have hundreds of them.

There's a study, for example, a recent one climate and the energy of nations, a study in which the author, quite rightly points out, that in those cold climates, people spend much of their time simply staying alive, whereas in warmer climates, they're prostrate with the heat. And that the better function of people really turns out to be in the temperate areas. I think it's important, then, to recognize a relationship between season or climate and energy, or the amount of capacity to do things. But the question we have is its relationship to crime. Does it bear any relation? Let's take some actual examples. Hello there. Let's go.

What actually happened in these rather typical cases, in the first, of course, was hot. The individual was probably irritated by the heat and hot weather, but did weather really cause the crime? No, the constant irritation of the heat plus is white, plus other factors. And in the second one, the individual couldn't get out because of the rain and probably

more important, he couldn't get the kids outside because of the rain. Did the rain cause the crime? No, it's kind of a second hand crime. The sort of thing we see on holidays are weekends, we call weekend crime. The fact that a husband and wife have to be together too long, so they irritate one another, and the one blows up. I don't think you can blame a holiday anymore for crime, then you could blame the weather or the rain in this case. Actually, there's no real relation between the weather and crime. Another relationship that commonly is brought up is the relation of the wind and the crime. Let's see what happens here. The wind, like the moon and the weather, often has been described as the real villain in the scheme of skullduggery or an outburst of violence. The Bible, Shakespearean drama, countless other bits of literature and folklore, recount stories of an ill wind blowing up tragedy and misfortune. Even today, winds

from every direction of blame for a wide variety of misbehavior. Is this fantasy or fact? This relationship of wind and the crime has again been handed down through the edges. We study the folklore of wind, and we've got many relations in our cabinet here. We find all the authors throughout the ages quoting the evil structure of wind, like even a hawthorn apologizes by saying, we must not think too unkindly of the east wind. Fuller in his famous nomology says, no weather is ill if the wind to be still, or the devil sends the wicked wind. An ill wind that blows no one any good is a common part. Again, we have a statement when the wind is in the west, evil souls will never rest. When the wind is in the north, only names will salate for. This sound sort of stupid, and yet, and only

a reason to fight him of the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology in 1948, we have a study by one curry, which has to do with the structure of body-billed facial type and wind. It classified one group around faces as W types, and then it classified another group sort of long faces as C types. Then he postulated a substance called Aaron, which is a kind of ozone that nobody knows about except curry, really, and he believed that when there was a north wind, this affected the amount of Aaron and caused people of the C type to commit murder. Whereas when the wind came from the south, it changed the Aaron and caused people of a doubly tight to commit suicide. Another sort of thing is, as I say, not believed by most people, but it does give an idea of some of the curious notions postulated about the relationship

of wind to various crime. Here in San Francisco, where most of our winds are predominantly up from the south, we would expect a high suicide rate, an almost negligible homicide rate, and this is not true as a matter of fact, curry statistics have never been duplicated by anybody else. Another area of folklore and crime is the problem of time. The surprising number of people think the hour of the day has something to do with criminal behavior. There is a certain relationship, of course, between the hour of the day and the amount of light present, and this vignette will show you exactly what I mean. And here again, the relationship between the time

of day and crime is dependent not on the hour, but on the amount of light and darkness. A criminal planning of crime won't commit it in broad daylight unless it's a daylight crime. Obviously, bank robberies rarely take place at night because banks aren't open at night. It's again that kind of a second-hand relationship. We've seen this second-hand relationship all the way through our discussions about climate. Oddly enough, nobody's ever considered the problem of mountains causing crime, or seas causing crime, and a little surprise they have. Another factor, which is supposed to be related, urban and rural

living, will take up in another session. Today, then, we've pointed out pretty well that there's no relation between barometric pressure or humidity in a direct way than crime. The direction of the wind or the speed of the wind, again, does not affect criminal behavior except for the one study of curry which has never been duplicated. The time of day, the season of the year, have no specific relationship to crime. Any relation they might have is simply second-hand. Keep people from going where they want, causing people to be hot and humid, but no specific causal factor can be found. In these series of discussions on the criminal man, then, we've consistently attempted to look into some of the folklore. The ancient beliefs on the cause of crime and see whether or not they're truly related. And we've

looked over a number of interesting approaches. For example, one of the first was the problem of heredity, the relationship of the born criminal or the outivism of Lombroso. And we found that Lombroso had the curious idea that the more human beings' pussies or his bone structure looked like an ape, like the bones of an ape, the more apt he was to act like one. We also discovered that there was no such thing as the born criminal, that the individual who came from a criminal parentage wasn't necessarily doomed to be a potential criminal. But an individual who was outavistic in his appearance, that is, he had certain boney structures like apes, didn't behave like an ape, and hence wouldn't be expected necessarily to be a criminal type. The next thing we considered was a hereditary factor, the factor of a body

build or constitution. And here we studied a little bit of the structure of Sheldon's constitutional theory, the notion that there are generally three basic kinds of body structure, the tall, skinny individual whom Sheldon classified as the ectomorph, and the big husky person with lots of muscles whom Sheldon classified as the mesomorph. And finally, the roly-poly pudgy person who fundamentally was whiter in his dimensions all most sometimes than higher whom he called the endomorph. And then we found that Sheldon believed that the mesomorph, the athletic person tended to commit more crimes, but then we found that this individual actually has more energy, he has more drive, he has more push. With the result that he gets more things done and he also may get into more trouble. And so

we feel from our studies and others, that probably the relationship of body build to crime is again only second half, that the individual who is more active may get into more difficulty or he may be more useful, that he inherits his body build and his amount of drive, but the direction of his drive for good or for evil is undoubtedly acquired as he goes through life. And next we looked into some of the varying problems of folklore, some of the curious beliefs that people had. For example, the idea that you might be left-handed, with the result that you would be sinister from the Latin sinistrality meaning left-handiness. Next, we peered into the folklore approach of an individual who might have certain kinds of facial markings. For example, he might have pointed ears. And then we found that there

was a definite relationship between the fact if you looked like the devil, you might act like one of this, of course, came from the curious folklore approach that the devil was the cause of all crime. And so, obviously, if you've got pointed ears or a hook beat like nose, that looks like the devil. Well, then the general theory was somehow rather the devil must be in you, and so you'd probably have criminal patterns. In a way, this was pretty much like Lombroso, you look like an ape, so you're liable to act like one. Another approach along the way you might look was the appearance of various facial blemishes, moles of pigmented areas or humpback or clubfoot. And this, of course, was found to have no direct relation. Or, again, there was the notion that you might have various facial scars or some kinds of tattoos. And these were found not to be directly related to any kind

of actual criminality, but rather they were probably simply the results they're from. Then, of course, we had the whole fascinating pattern of glands and the curious notion that if an individual had various kinds of glandular deficiencies or overabundances, he might turn out to have certain kinds of criminal behavior. And we found that while the glands are important, medically, there's no particular relationship between gland structure and criminality. And so we found, generally, most of these folklore ideas could be discarded. And we also turned to race. And we discovered that there's no specific relation between race and crime, although we find this handed down over and over again in varying kinds of wanted flyers and folders. And as we look at these various flyers and folders, we keep finding racial descriptions, white male American, or American of Irish descent, or American

of Italian fossils, or we find them as a Negro, or a Mexican. And we find, again, that this is of no real value in enhancing the function of law enforcement, because race really is meaningless in a description, and it would probably be much, much sounder to simply describe varying kinds of skin color. But we did find a certain second-hand relationship as we have all the way through these various alleged causes. For example, a problem of a minority group, a group that's pushed around and not given the same rights and privileges of other groups, or a group that, when a member happens to commit a crime, is headlined in a flaring press. And we find that individuals who do have different racial patterns are not really different from the point of view of capacity or psychological structure, but

they do again react in a sort of second-hand way. They react as a reaction against the oppression of the majority, and then we find sometimes that it looks like we had a racial crime. In evaluating all of these different problems, then, we've considered certain specific things listed throughout the years by many people, as we cause, or once in a while, we cause of criminal behavior. The problem of heredity, the problem of constitution, the problem of race, and the problem of folklore, and the problem of various climatic things, the weather, the moon, and whatnot. Generally, we've found that any relation turns out to be second-hand. Actual subject under consideration doesn't cause crime, but sometimes as a reaction to the cultural attitude to the problem. That is, a person who's humpbacked gets irritated

at people who point and laugh at him. In a second-hand way, we get various crimes. If we evaluate this sort of thing from the viewpoint of the average individual who is uninformed, we find when he talks about a person who has committed a crime, first, he discusses these factors, heredity, physique, race, various physical defects, and folklore patterns, and the moon which represents the things we've discussed at this particular point, the problem of climate and whatnot. Then a large number of people, well, if they don't know about these, say, oh, well, he must be drunk. He probably was drunk. You hear this over and over again. If they can't pin it on race and they can't pin it on climate, they can't pin it on a physical defect. Well, it was something he took. He was drunk. And next, of course, he must have been crazy. The idea of mental disorder is very common.

The notion that normal people don't commit crime, really in the average scheme, the normal is considered to be only a tiny or a small part. These other factors, he must be nuts. He must be adult or it's the full moon or it's the race. These are the things people use. In this series, what we plan to do from here on out is to continue a discussion of the real causes of crime. We've studied the relation of heredity, race, and physique, which in a second-hand way, because it produces a certain amount of activity and drive, a certain amount of pressure and push may well be considered as a, again, second-hand approach to crime. Certainly in the physique, in the amount of pressure, in the amount of energy that we have, we have a beginning clue. And the next question is the direction of the energy, how it is pointed,

how it is trained, how it is developed, that we find some of our beginning further real causes of crime, and this part makes up some of the problems. In the succeeding sessions, we plan to fill in the blanks, and next we plan to discuss the relationship of culture to crime. And then in succeeding periods, we'll continue on with modern criminal logical thinking in our endeavor to uncover the actual basis for the criminal man. The Criminal Man, the series of television studies on the nature and patterns of criminal behavior. Your guide for these studies is Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, professor of criminology at the University of California.

This is National Educational Television. Thank you.