Passing from the question of sex and crime we shall now consider the proportions which crime bears to age.  According to the calculations of the late Mr. Clay, chaplain of Preston prison, the practice of dishonesty among persons, who afterwards find their way into prisons, begins at a very early age.  In a communication addressed to Lord Shaftesbury, in 1853, he said that 58 per cent. of criminals were dishonest under 15 years of age; 14 per cent. became dishonest between 15 and 16; 8 per cent. became dishonest between 17 and 19; 20 per cent. became dishonest under 20.

I have little doubt that these proportions are still in the main correct, and that the criminal instinct begins to show itself at a very early period in life.  In Staffordshire “it is an ascertained fact, that there is scarcely an habitual criminal in the county who has not been imprisoned as a child."[28] But it is after the age of twenty has been reached that the criminality of a people attains its highest point.  A glance at the subjoined table will make this clear:—­

Population of England and | Prisoners in Local Gaols
    Wales in 1871—­ | in 1888—­

Under 5              13.52   |   Under 12                 0.1
5 and under 15       22.58   |   12 and under 16          2.8
15   "      20        9.59   |   16    "      21         16.1
20   "      30       16.66   |   21    "      30         30.2
30   "      40       12.80   |   30    "      40         24.3
40   "      50       10.05   |   40    "      50         14.7
50   "      60        7.32   |   50    "      60          6.4
60 and upwards        7.48   |   60 and upwards           5.4

    [28] Reformatory and Refuge Journal, July, 1890.

These figures show that in proportion to the population, crime is, as we should expect, at its lowest level from infancy till the age of sixteen.  From that age it goes on steadily increasing in volume till it reaches a maximum between thirty and forty.  After forty has been passed the criminal population begins rapidly to descend, but never touches the same low point in old age as in early youth.

Females do not enter upon a criminal career so early in life as males;[29] in the year 1888, while 20 per cent. of the male population of our local prisons in England and Wales were under 21, only 12 per cent. of the female prison population were under that age.  On the other hand, women between 21 and 50, form a larger proportion of the female prison population, than men between the same ages do of the male prison population.  The criminal age among women is later in its commencement, and earlier in coming to a close than in the case of men.  It is later in commencing because of the greater care and watchfulness exercised over girls than boys; but it is more persistent while it lasts, because a plunge into crime is a more irreparable thing in a woman than in a man.  A woman’s past has a far worse effect on her future than a man’s.