WAR ON CRIMINALS.

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

WAR ON CRIMINALS.

CHICAGO’S MENTAL TEST. Fearing the humiliation of being publicly branded as mentally incompetent by the new sanity tests administered by the police, many Chicago criminals have had their intelligence tested by their own physicians or .psychiatrists, and have forwarded to. the police headquarters bills of clean mental health. Mental tests for criminals were inaugurated in order to enable the police to put mental defectives in institutions for the rest of their lives instead of for a short term in prison, from which they emerge ready to turn to crime again. Justice had frequently been outwitted by the procedure of the habeas corpus writ, which was often seived before the suspect had reached police headquarters. The decision to apply the mental test of war-time was made as the result of a series of conferences between, the Chicago chief or police, chief of detectives, chief of the Criminal Court, and the physician in charge of the municipal psychopathic laboraAlthough an order has been; issued to all police stations to subject habitual criminals to the test, lack ol accommodation prevents any large-scale test There have been, no commitments to the asylum as yet, but tho mere prospect of such confinement, it, is said, lias struck greater terror to the heart ot the gunmen than any punishment or threat heretofore devised. Some opposition* has arisen, however, and the wav of tho mental testers will apparently not be easy. One Chicago Judge dismissed an habitual criminal charge! with the comment that “we are not vet in Russia.” Some of the problems set are to. count backward from 2 to 1, to define “soporific.” and make simple computations :n algebra.