Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794974814

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-182133

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Place of publication:: Ottawa

Publisher:: Acland

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: 224 S.; Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter X. The relation of origins and nativity to crime

Collection:: Economics Books

CHAPTER X THE RELATION OF ORIGINS AND NATIVITY TO CRIME NATIVITY AND CONVICTIONS FOR INDICTABLE OFFENCES Indictable offences include serious breaches of the law. During the past few years convictions in Canada for such offences have fluctuated between 15,000 and 19,000 per annum. Of those, not more than 1,000 each year have resulted in penitentiary sentences, the number in Canadian penitentiaries at any given time being between 2,200 and 2,700. In addition to indictable offences there are misdemeanours of juveniles with which the juvenile courts deal and for which reformatory sentences are frequently given. The total convic- tions of juveniles on both major and minor charges number between 8,000 and 9000 yearly and the population of reformatories is usually about 2,500. The great majority of illegal acts, however, are committed by adults and are of a minor nature, coming in the “mnon- indictable ” class. They are dealt with by police magistrates and justices of the peace, and the number of summary convictions handed down each year ranges between 130,000 and 150,000, which is many times in excess of the number of other classes of convictions. A study of the different nativity and ‘origin’ groups from the point of view of respect for law is, of necessity, confined to the section of the population convieted of indictable offences, and to the inmates of reformatories and penitentiaries. Data as to birthplace and origin are not available for the large group of adults summarily convicted in police courts nor for juvenile delinquents who escape a reformatory sentence. The birthplace of those convicted of indictable offences, however, is recorded, and a complete analysis of census data dealing with the reformatory and penitentiary population has been made. Such data include only the more serious offenders both among juveniles and adults, but though such offenders are much fewer than adults convicted of minor infringements of the law, they constitute a much more satisfactory basis for the. study of criminal tendencies as exhibited by the various sections of a population. Reference has already been made to thie importance of age and sex distribution as factors in explaining differences in social behaviour. Such factors are especially important in comparisons between groups of a population in respect of criminality. As will be shown in the analysis of penitentiary population, crime is much mofe frequent among males than females, and occurs most frequently among young men. Consequently, when a section of the population is characterized by an abnormally large proportion of males below the age of thirty, a higher crime rate is to be expected. The significance of this fact in connection with immigration has been suggested in a previous chapter. Other things being equal, the normal expectation is for a larger proportion of criminals among immigrants, and especially among recent immigrants, because a migrating population ordinarily includes a dispropor- lionately large number of males in the prime of life. Immigration, thus, may tend to raise the crime rate in a country, merely because of age and sex distribution favourable to crime. In this connection, attention is again called to the fact that, other things being equal, the most desirable immigration is that in which the sexes are most nearly equal and among which the largest proportion takes up permanent residence in this country; the least desirable being that which is characterized by a large floating surplus of young unattached men who spend a few years here and then return to their native land or go to some other pars of the world. Table 35, Chapter III, shows the countries which have sent to Canada the largest proportions of males, and in the discussion on the extent and speed of naturalization certain inferences were made as to the differing proportions of immigrants from specified countries who contemplate permanent residence ijn Canada. Attention is again directed =e

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