Note 13 — Chapter IV · THE FRENCH SCHOOL (THE SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT).
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
In the domain of criminality also imitation plays a great part. Children brought up in a vicious environment, easily contract bad habits by imitation; the harmful influence of prison is proverbial; a sensational crime often leads to analogous crimes. It is also by imitation that we can explain, in part at least, the existence of the Mafia and the Camorra, of which Professor Lombroso says, among other things: “The long persistence and obstinacy of such associations as the Mafia, the Camorra, and brigandage, seem to proceed in the first place from the antiquity of their existence, for the long repetition of the same acts transforms them into a habit, and consequently into a law. History teaches us that ethnic phenomena of long duration are not to be eradicated easily at a stroke.”13