Das Wesen des Massenverbrechens by Albrecht LoewerReview by: Howard P. BeckerJournal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 19, No. 4, Part 1(Feb., 1929), pp. 647-648Published by: Northwestern UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41958892 .

Accessed: 18/06/2014 23:40

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Northwestern University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of theAmerican Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.28 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 23:40:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS 647

The method used, in general, has been to fit curves to annual data relating to economic and social phenomena running from about 1860 to 1913, to calculate deviations from the trend in terms of the stand- ard deviation, and to calculate, finally, the coefficient of correlation between the deviations from trend of the various social and economic series. Miss Thomas has no faith in a study of relationships by a visual study of the charts of two series of data. It leads, we learn, to optical illusions; in fact she states, "It is even possible for two persons with opposed biases to take the same series and each claim loudly that correspondence or non-correspondence is absolutely appar- ent" (p. 174). To this the review would reply that of course this would be possible for untrained observers, but if its truth be main- tained as regards competent statisticians it is pure nonsense. Co- efficients of correlation can never eliminate the need for rigorous, logical analyses. Particularly is this true in the present case where a coefficient as low as .20 (with 60 cases) is held to be significant. It would be difficult to name one single factor in the study of time series more helpful to sound conclusions than a study of the plotted data themselves.

For the reader of this Journal, chief interest doubtless centers upon Miss Thomas' treatment of crime. Numerous correlations of crime and economic conditions are given. Few of them are significant. Thus under the heading "Offenses against property without violence" (over 80% of the cases recorded) no important positive findings result.

If one holds that crime is intimately related to the entire fabric of social and economic life; that real wages and the regularity of employment affect crime rates, one is left in some doubt as to the reasons for the results herein obtained. It may be, of course, that there is little relation between theft and poverty. Or the low cor- relation may be due to the use of non-comparable data, criminal statistics being notoriously bad ; or there may be a blurring of results through faulty procedure. There is no evidence of this latter fault on a first examination of the book. Better results would be obtained by using monthly or quarterly data instead of the annual figures but unforunately the short term figures are rarely available. Miss Thomas has not spared effort to make her treatment comprehensive and it will doubtless be of interest to many readers.

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hugh Carter.

Das Wesen des Massenverbrechens. By Albrecht Loeiver. 127 pp. J. Bielefields Verlag, Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1927.

This little brochure on the crimes of the crowd is evidently by a jurist who dabbles in sociology and social philosophy as a side line, for he displays a much more thorough knowledge of Continental law than of Continental (or any other) sociology. It may be, however, that this dictum would be reversed if the reviewer were a jurist in- stead of a soi-disant sociologist.

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.28 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 23:40:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

648 REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS

The author has set himself the task of analyzing the crowd via the psychic forces that pervade it - imitation, suggestion, empathy, sympathy, etc. He arrives at the conclusion that the forces operative in the crowd are only those ordinarily resident in the human being. Truly a surprising discovery - does any one think otherwise? He then deals with the problem of leadership in the crowd, and here comes to the conclusion that many crowd leaders are individuals who in some way are maladjusted, mentally pathological. True enough, but when our author discusses the punishment to be meted out to such leaders, he seems to assume their complete mental responsibility! Next fol- lows a section on the strictly legal aspects of crowd crimes - what punishments in what countries. This is strictly formal, and is also pervaded by a marked contempt for the benighted Anglo-Saxon coun- tries which use the common law.

The fateful antithesis, Individualism v. Universalism, that runs like a red thread through so much German writing having to do with social matters, is very much in evidence, and is largely responsible for the futility of the brochure. The two poles of the antithesis are con- ceived as ethical opposites by our author, and are then applied as methodological postulates - with what thoroughly unscientific results! He strikes for the universalistic standpoint, and lets the scientific go glimmering.

American students would find the preachment of value in only one way - there is a fairly good bibliography, and also a surprising number of quotations in the text. Most of the material relating to crowd phenomena to be found in the works of Simmel, Vierkandt, Stieler, Jodl, Scheler, Sighele, et al. is here quoted, so that it may prove valuable to someone as a secondary source. For this purpose, and this only, it can be recommended.

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Howard P. Becker.

Die Brandlegungskriminalität. Eine Untersuchung über ihre Ausdehnung Bedingungen und Bekämpfung. By Roland Grassberger. xiii+253 pp. Julius Springer, Vienna, 1928. M. 12.60. (Kriminologische Abhandlungen, herausgeg. v. W. Gleispach, Heft 4.)

In late years arsons have increased greatly in Austria. Seeing in this phenomenon a possible effect of post war conditions, the author proposes to study it in detail. His monograph is divided into four parts, the first dealing with the extent of the problem, the second, with the conditions underlying the variability of the arson rate, the third with the difficulties and handicaps of the apprehension of the arsonist, and the last with the repression of arson. "The material for the first three parts was taken entirely from Austria." Limiting the field thus, was demanded by the circumstance that every investiga- tion where mass observation plays a role can be of value only when the investigator knows the material completely and is well acquainted

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.28 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 23:40:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions