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I appreciate the opportunity to discuss Dr. Asch's succinctly stated ideas regarding the criminal's dynamics and society's system of punishments. Before launching into a discussion of the criminal and his acts, it is essential to recognize the distinction between the captured criminals, the inmates, and the vast majority of criminals who are never apprehended. I believe any discussion of the dynamics of criminals is almost meaningless without keeping this distinction in mind. The former, who constitute a small minority of offenders—only one is punished for every thousand crimes committed (Menninger, 1938)—are the unsuccessful criminals who are caught not only once but over and over, repeatedly. These recidivists (the recidivist rate is as high as 80 per cent) permit themselves to be apprehended because of their emotional disturbances and general ineffectualness. Their incarceration is often as much a result of their helpless ignorance of legal procedures and their poverty (inability to acquire competent legal counsel) as of the offense committed.
Distinguishing between the apprehended inmate and the “successful” offender may be one factor in explaining the high ratio of men to women in prison. Vice squads are less interested in arresting lesbians than male homosexuals: a man undressing in full view of passersby is arrested as an exhibitionist; when a woman is similarly engaged, it is usually the gaping male passerby who is picked up as a peeping torn. Such double standards (and there are of course others, favoring men) result in distorted statistics if we confuse the number apprehended with the frequency of any particular offense.
As for the successful offenders, we can only speculate on their dynamics, since their ego-syntonic success keeps them away from psychiatric scrutiny. Only those whose offenses are
ego-dystonic (some shop-lifters, sexual deviants, etc.) have been investigated and their dynamics described.
Another distinction to be kept in mind before we can