INADEQUATE LAWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 37, 13 February 1931, Page 8

INADEQUATE LAWS.

CRIME AN " INSTITUTION." CONDITIONS IN AMERICA. WEAKNESS OF PUBLIC. OPINION. Inadequate laws, rather, than prohibition, or gangsters, or political "pull," are at the root of .crime in America, in the opinion of Mr. Stanley E. Flanders, of the University of California, who arrived with his wife and child by the- Mirrabooka' this morning. He said that too many people forgot that the factors which controlled, or did not control, these things, were the • laws themselves. They were the elements inAmerican life that needed readjusting. The Constitution of the United States jvas. rigid, and for that reason it was difficult to amend it. Laws that wcie once useful and sufficient were'Ho longer so. More laws were needivl, laws to meet the situations existing at present, tie thought that there were too many lawyers. Each'of them had to make a living,> and the. criminal cases' afforded therr'the opportunity.: For • that, reason they did not wish crime to be lessened, because witii that "happening would - pass their means of livelihood. "Yet .it is to. lawyers that wc look, for* tlie improvement in our code," added Mr. Flanders. ' Most people..wore amazed at the numbers of gangsters in America. They were allowed only- - because public opinion' was not strong enough to -wipe tliern out. A strong police force was possible only where there was a powerful demand for it; and the demand could coiiie only from the. people. The outcry, was coming • soon, lie thought. .Sober ; -thinking Americans were beginning to realise the terrible, grip which crime' had on the community. He "considered that crime at present was an institution,- and- as well organised, as politics.- Crime had also a voice .in politics. , : ; : V - 7 • h''. -Mr. Fla'nders . is stationed at the Citrus Experimental S.tation, Riverside, California, and is' on his way to New South Wales. He is to take back to California an insect to • counteract a disease : which lias developed in the citrus trees.- Twice - before Australia has been'able to save ■ the Calif ortolan industry some hundreds of thousands of pounds.-T ■ 7 ; ' .