INCREASE OF CRIME

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20550, 19 May 1932, Page 6

INCREASE OF CRIME

i'OUNG MEN OUT OP HAND, SMASH-AND-GRAB RAIDS IN BRITAIN] (FKOM. OUB OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, April 7. Oime is increasing. "Something must be done," the London newspapers say in chorus. Smash-and-grab car raids have followed eaoli other in quick succession during the "past weeks. The number/ of crimes of this kind during the past three months is nearly 200. Six years ago a New Zealander invented a device which made smash-and-grab raids impossible. For the outlay of about £IOO and a few shillings a month for upkeep, every -jeweller in London could have been definitely protected. Two or three iewellers fitted their windows with this excellent device, but one has heardnothing about it since. Possibly, the shopkeepers prefer the lusurance money to immunity from this form ot theft At least £IOO,OOO worth of jewellery Jias been stolen by car bandits within a radius of a quarter ot a mile in the West End during the last few months. . Shopkeepers, post office officials,- anu bank cashiers are alarmed (says the "News-Chronicle' J ). Jewellers are amine themselves and pleading for greater no licc protection. Underwriters, who are paying huge sums in insurance, •are considering tho formation of patrols of plain-clothed men as guards. Action for defensive measures is being taken by Mr E. 'Sinclair, whose iewellery shop in Burlington Gardens, London, has just been raided for the second time to the tune of £ISOO. He is to confer with fellow-jewellers m this area. The National Association of Goldsmiths also has the matter under consideration. , Borstal Training. The demand for more accommodation for young criminals in this country is officially stated to be the reason tor tho proposal of' the Prison Commissioners to retain Maidstone Gaol which ih was last year decided to sell to t&e Ken? County Council for £23,750 The council, at a specifll meeting, decided to continue negotiations with the commissioners as to the terms on which they would relinquish their vitrht to buy ths gaol . The Commissioners in a letter to tne council stated: "Since it was decided to sell tne prison the position has changed, fn consequence of the large increase m the number of youths committed for Borstal training. . "It lias been necessary to appropriate as a Borstal institution the establishment which it lias been intended to use for the accommodation of the prisoners of the class now detained in Maidstone prison. * - "Moreover, the necessity of reducing the number of prisoners confined in Dartmoor prison makes q. further demand on tho accommodation at the disposal of tho commissioners." Idle Youths. At tho Manchester sessions, Sir Walter Greaves-Lord, K. 0., M.P., expressed regret that the proportion of young persons in the calendar was, if anything, on tho increase. "While one realises that the state of the labour market has something to do with it," he continued, "at the same time there is not now quite such a shortage of work for young people as for persons who have reached adult age. Therefore, it is not entirely lack of work that accounts for it. One does not hear quite so much now of young people going to work and being discharged through slackness. Unfortunately, ,one does hear of a young person obtaining a situation and getting tired of it and then obtaining another and getting tired of that. "It looks as if there is a. tendency among youths of the present generation not to realise the necessity and dignity of work. If that does continue it is bound to have a very serious effect on succeeding generations. One can only hope that in the of time young ■people will realise, that it is work and not idleness that has built this country up." In the Blue Book just issued by the Home Office, the growth of crime was ascribed largely to two causes—industrial depression and the fact that "persons now under 30 were under 16 in 1917, the year in which the absence of parental and other supervision brought juvenile crime to its peak." Police Handicapped. Complaints that the police aro, handicapped in dealing with crime were made by the Chief Constable of Reading, Mr T. A. Burrows,' in an address to the Reading Rotary Club. The police, said Mr Burr owl, were to some extent hampered by what was known as tho Judges' Rules, and by the Royal Commission of 1928 on police procedure. Mr Burrows read the rules relating to the caution of suspected persons before they made a statement, and con-' tinued: Do you think these rules are

fair to the police 1 Are they necessary? No one has ever practised third degree in this country, and no suspect has ever been tortured into making admissions. "Supposing I am. interviewing a suspect, but just as I have got on good terms with him and he is going to say something useful, I have to stop an'd formally tell him that he need not say anything unless ho wants to, and I have to wr;te down what it says in longhand, i What chance have I of surprising iiim? Grime's detection must be carried out without too much regard for etiquette." A Matter of Seconds. What shopping crowds at first thought was a fantastic scene in Burlingtpn Gardens one morning last week was in reality one of the most audacious smash-and-grab' raids yet perpetrated in the West End of London. Three well-dressed young men operated with such swiftness, ease, and completeness that they escaped with £, 1000 worth of diamond and emerald rings; and baffled strenuous efforts to. arrest them. About 10.30 the men drove up in a car from the direction of New Bond streeit. They passed roadmen, taxicab drivers, and shoppers, and stopped in front of a jewellery shop. Two of them jumped out, and one of them, using a "jack" covered with .brown paper, smashed the double plate-glass window, then plunged the instrument through the glass of a case containing rings, grabbed a pad of these, and drove awav througlr Burlington street. The car % later was found'deserted tin Golden squafe. The affair occupied only a few seconds. When people f near realised what had happened some gave chase, but it was fruitless. Vicar and Watchman. The Bev. T. P. Stevens, vicar of Grove Park, near Bromley- (Kent), (says an "Evening Standard" correspondent). : is prepared to hire himself oilt at 5s ' a time as a house-watchman to raise £2500 for a new hall he contemplates building. » "It will take a long time to/collect the £2500," said the vicar, "but I am perfectly willing to try it. Recently there has been an epidemic" of burglaries in this district. It has become so serious that women iii the neighbourhood are afraid to go out alone or stay at home alone. My idea, therefore, is to act as sort of watchman. I am prepared to keep watch at the home of any of my parishioners while they are out visiting or at theatres or cinemas. I am pretty full up *'ith writing, but I could do a good deal of it while watching. There have been about 200 burglaries fit Grove Park since I have been here. Recently the vicarage was burgled; there has been one at th<j church, and one of my churchwardens has been a victim." Police Constable Oates, a • young man, with two years' service in the Metropolitan Force, tackled, singlehanded, tlroe me a who had broken into a wine and spirit shop in Bayswater Ho was knocked down in the fight, and received a severe kick in the chest, but was not seriously hurt. He srfw a man near ,i motor-car close to the shop, and as he approached the man. jumped into the car and drove off! During the fieht more than a dpssen bottles of whiskv and other SDirits were knocked off shelves and broken. The men escaped with so Die liquor. A man went into the sub-post .office in Pimlico road London, and pointed, a dummy revolver at the assistant. Miss Barbara Wain, aged 20. She laced the man and ''aid "You had better buZ7. off." and he ran ~ away without takincr anvthing, mounted a bicycle and rode off. •