AGAINST “FENCES.”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 84, 19 January 1928, Page 7

AGAINST “FENCES.”

UNITED STATES MAY AMEND LAW “Every housewife and business man in the country helps to pay the 10,000,000,000 dollars (£2,000,000,000) annua crime bill of the United States,’said Mr Charles H. Tuttle, United States Attorney for the Southern; District of New York, before the National Conference on the Reduction of Crime, and the cc-operation of every citizen is necessary if the law is to perform its full function in the checking of The principal object of attack at this conference was the “fenice,” or[receiver of stolen goods (states the New York correspondent of the Melbourne “Argus”). If a strong and concerted assault can be made upon this stronghold of crime, and the market for stolen o-oocls thus practically abolished, it is believed that one of the chief incentives to crime will vanish, ffliese “fences” are well organised, and they constitute a challenge to peace and security by their illicit use cf the channeb of interstate commerce. The passage is urged of a Federal statute which “must condemn not only the theft of crooils in transit, but also the act of transporting goods in interstate or foreign commerce with the knowledge or reason for belief that they had been stolen.” Proof of knowledge of theft on the part of receivers should not be insisted upon, but rather the onus of explanation should be on the receivers. A Federal statute will also mean that prosecution will take place in the Federal Courts, where, it is believed, that Penalties may be heavier than in the State Courts. ■ The clearance from the statute books of all antiquated laws respecting receivers of stolen goods and the substitution of quick, certain legal piooedurc with heavier sentences, .are recommended to all States and municipalities hv Mr James E. Baum, deputy manager of the American Bankers’ Association. He advocates a “vigilante” system with private subsidies to town and country police deputies and prosecutors. This lie declares, together with tne -co-operation of alert bodies of business men ready to answer a: silent type of automatic alarm, aided by a decentralised force of trained marksmen, would soon put an end to the whole crime wave.”