Criminal Types

In Short

Vincent Myron Masten presents a scathing critique of American criminal justice, arguing that soft-headed sentimentality, lenient laws, and lax prison administration have turned the country into a playground for habitual offenders. Drawing on decades of institutional experience, Masten dissects the motives of various criminal classes—from organized foreign syndicates to home-grown thugs—and condemns the coddling of inmates. He contends that real reformation requires rigorous, marketable vocational training paired with firm, unyielding discipline. The book endures as a vivid, unvarnished period piece reflecting the fierce historical debates over social defense, immigration, and prison reform.

The Story

Masten opens his treatise with an urgent warning: American society is drifting into chaos because it refuses to meet predatory crime with decisive force. He argues that while primitive criminals act on basic, brute impulses, modern society faces a far more complex threat due to rapid social changes and fluid economic conditions. He quickly targets what he views as primary sources of the crisis, pointing to unchecked immigration and the proliferation of foreign crime syndicates like the Camorra and Mafia. According to Masten, these groups exploit America's lenient legal framework, operating with an impunity they never enjoyed in their homelands. Alongside them, he places second-generation delinquents, pool-room habitués, and social parasites who prey on honest citizens while affecting a flashy, low-grade style.

Moving beyond simple street crime, Masten expands his definition to include "moral criminals"—corrupting influences such as sensationalist newspapers that profit from detailing lurid crimes and exploitative promoters who glorify brutal sports like prize-fighting. He severely criticizes pseudo-scientific trends in sociology and psychiatry, cautioning against armchair experts and "faking" convicts who feign mental defects to game the system. Masten insists that most habitual felons are not intellectual "morons" unable to choose the right, but rather clever, morally defective opportunists who deliberately choose a life of crooked cunning because society makes crime a high-reward, low-risk venture.

To restore order, Masten presents a structured blueprint for comprehensive penal reform. He advocates for the complete segregation of hardened, habitual felons from first-time or young offenders to prevent prisons from acting as academies of vice. He outlines concrete administrative changes, including the creation of a non-partisan Inspector-General of State Correctional Institutions to root out waste, hypocrisy, and amateurish management. He demands that prison life strip away unearned luxuries, soft perquisites, and distracting entertainments like boxing exhibitions, replacing them with strict, steady labor aimed at imparting marketable trade skills. Furthermore, Masten insists that justice must include financial and physical restitution, forcing predatory felons to pay back their victims dollar for dollar or compensate them for personal injuries. For those who flatly refuse to reform and insist on living by the gun, he prescribes permanent isolation from free society to ensure the public safety.

How It Unfolds

The social crisis diagnosed Masten establishes that American society is undergoing a turbulent transition, leaving the public vulnerable to increasingly bold, predatory criminals who exploit the nation's weak legal enforcement.

Alien syndicates and local parasites The narrative examines foreign organized crime and domestic street hoodlums, highlighting how loose laws and easy money attract foreign brigands while fostering a generation of idle, unproductive domestic delinquents.

The corruption of public morals Masten attacks broader societal vices, condemning press sensationalism for poisoning young minds and denouncing the prize-fighting industry for elevating brutal, non-productive brawlers into public heroes.

Exposing pseudo-psychiatry and inmate trickery The author challenges contemporary psychiatric theories, arguing that clever convicts routinely malinger and fake mental deficiencies to manipulate sentimental reformers and evade firm prison discipline.

A blueprint for structural reform Masten details a rigorous program for correctional reform, proposing strict classification of prisoners, professionalized guard training, and the appointment of an independent Inspector-General to oversee state facilities.

Restitution and ultimate isolation The argument concludes with a call for absolute accountability, demanding that criminals make financial restitution to their victims and insisting that incorrigible felons be permanently isolated from society.

The People

• Vincent Myron Masten (The Author): A seasoned institutional expert who seeks to reform the justice system through practical experience rather than academic theories. He wants firm discipline and marketable vocational training in prisons, opposed by sentimental reformers, and ends up delivering a complete plan for penal restructuring.
• The Predatory Felon: The primary antagonist of social order, driven by crooked cunning and moral obliquity rather than genuine mental defect. Seeking easy wealth without honest labor, this type uses soft prison privileges to avoid real effort, ultimately requiring force and strict isolation when rehabilitation fails.
• The Pseudo-Scientist and Sentimental Reformer: Well-meaning but misguided academicians and lay critics who pamper habitual criminals. They seek to replace strict discipline with soft excuses, standing in the way of real public safety, and end up enabling the very lawlessness they intend to cure.

In Its Own Voice

"If a thief will have it no other way than to be a thief, then control of him, and not his social rehabilitation, must be the desideratum."

Masten establishes his foundational premise early in the introduction, making it clear that public safety takes absolute precedence over hopeless attempts at reforming incorrigible offenders.

"The average reader lends but casual eye to crime and sex-charged stuff."

Addressing the role of the media, the author argues that the general public is far less interested in sensationalized vice stories than profit-driven newspaper publishers assume.

"Not one in ten thousand digs to the deep meaning of the word 'discipline.'"

In his discussion of prison management, Masten clarifies that true discipline goes beyond passive obedience to enforced rules, aiming ultimately at self-controlled, productive effort.

What It's Really About

Underneath its detailed proposals for prison administration, Criminal Types is a fierce defense of traditional social order against what the author perceives as modern moral decay. Masten argues that crime is not an inevitable byproduct of mental defect or social misunderstanding, but a conscious moral choice fostered by a society that has grown overly prosperous, lax, and sentimental. He contends that true compassion requires protecting law-abiding citizens and holding wrongdoers strictly accountable for the harm they inflict. The text poses fundamental questions about the limits of rehabilitation, the purpose of punishment, and whether a democratic society can maintain order without exercising firm, unyielding authority over those who intentionally disrupt it.

Why Read It Today

Criminal Types offers a fascinating, unfiltered window into the early twentieth-century American debates surrounding criminology, immigration, and penology. Readers interested in legal history and social policy will appreciate Masten's direct, muscular prose and his unsparing insider view of the correctional system of his era. The book's style is intense, confident, and utterly free of modern sociological jargon, delivering an authentic taste of vintage polemical writing.

Modern readers must navigate period attitudes that are frankly difficult and controversial, including nativist rhetoric regarding European immigrants, rigid moralizing, and a sharp rejection of emerging psychiatric concepts. Yet these very elements make the text historically valuable. It exposes the raw tension between the punitive and reformative models of justice that continue to shape public discourse today. Masten’s uncompromising demand for personal responsibility, combined with his surprising call for practical inmate education and victim restitution, creates a complex, provocative reading experience that lingers long after the final page.