CRIME AND THE POLICE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 287, 31 August 1935, Page 8

CRIME AND THE POLICE

While .the members of the 33 Club in Wellington were congratulating the Commissioner of Police the other day on the efficiency of ins department, the Dominion Executive of the Farmers’ Union was passing a remit expressing alarm at “the increasing number of unsolve major crimes in recent years.” In justice to the Police Department the facts should be made known, and the peculiar difficulties involved in the detection of crime and the securing of convictions against those charged with offences emphasised. . The percentage of arrests or summonses resulting from offences reported in 1933 was 90.48. In 1932 the percentage was 90.49. That is a high figure, higher than in the Australian States. Moreover the undetected criminal is never “written off.” The proverbial “long arm ot the Law” not infrequently descends upon the shoulder of a malefactor months, even years, after the community has forgotten the crime foi which he has been arrested. The Law never gives up. Again, there arises the question of obtaining evidence that will convince the jury. If the evidence falls short of that it is useless to arrest and charge a suspect even if in the opinion of the police he is really guilty. It is not so much a question of the suspect’s guilt as whether a case can be made out for a jury. It has been mentioned above that the general percentage of arrests and summonses is high. But if minor offences are excluded, the percentage in respect of serious crimes drops to 71.59 on the figutes for 1933. There were, for example, 1348 cases of burglary, from which 875 arrests resulted; 160 arrests followed from 175 reported forgeries. On the other hand the police registered 100 per cent, success in dealing with receivers of stolen property. Within recent months there has been a somewhat alarming series of burglaries, but to expect that arrests should have followed immediately is to expect too much, for the reasons already stated. With the development of the fingerprint system of registering criminals, and the exchange of records between New Zealand and Australian police authorities, tlie scope of the activities of the regular criminal class should, become increasingly restricted. This system of registration has been in vogue in this country only since 1903. The records have risen from 3500 in 1904 to 48,545 in 1934, and since its inception 6109 suspected persons have been identified with their particular crimes. On the whole there is no reason to feel apprehensive about the efficiency of our police force, which on the allowance voted to it by Parliament does extraordinary well. However, it may be necessary in the future to devote serious attention to the development of a crime laboratory in order to cope with the activities of the real professional criminals; and the suggestion made. by the Farmers’. Union for an interchange of officers with the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard is one well worth the Government’s attention. JThe increasing and dangerous activities of criminals in the United Kingdom, who had turned to their advantage the facilities of the motorcar and other modern developments, demanded effective countermeasures on the police side, and during the term of Lord Trenchard s regime as chief commissioner many reforms were, instituted to. bring the methods of criminal-catching up to date. It. is all a question of money, of course, but where the interests of society are so seriously involved, it is short-sighted economy to stint, expenditure on the organisation which protects it.