WHAT THE CRIMINAL COSTS AMERICA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3380, 27 June 1927, Page 8

WHAT THE CRIMINAL COSTS AMERICA.

Criminal activities cost America at least £2,601,000,000 a year, declares Mark O. Prentiss, organiser of the National Crime Commission in 1925. This sum exceeds the total of the war debts, and is a yearly loss. One year of war with Germany cost no more. Here is a war in which 12,500 people die a year; in which an army of 500,000 police, judicial and enforcement officials combat the inert malevolence of 2,000,000 criminals, men and women. At present 200,000 prisoners are held. In Chicago six policemen are shot to every criminal executed.

The entire foreign trade of the United States, estimated at £184,600,000, does not bring in as much as the crime outlay. This £2,600,000,000 estimate is reached as follows:

Actual property destruction through crime is nut by the American Bankers’ Association at £0,000,000,000; William B. Joyce, Chairman of the National Surety Company, assigns an annual loss of £400,000,000 through commercial frauds alone. Secretary• Mellon has said £100,()00j000 at least is taken from the public through fraudulent securities. Other property losses through theft, mail robberies, arson, murders, etc., bring the total to that of the Bankers’ Association.

The cost of law enforcement, including Federal, State and Municipal police and prison budgets, and the cost of criminal justice and legal expenditures is - ' another £800,000,000. “The laws of America, as at present constituted, are protecting the criminal, they are not protecting the public,” says ex-Governor Charles S. Whitman, of the State of New Aork, famous lawyer and one of New York City’s most noteworthy District Attorneys. “We are trying to make the legal code of one hundred years ago apply to the conditions of a totally, changed world, and it can’t he done.” “The public is conceiving a deep and sullen distrust for our courts, which distrust is becoming a serious factor in our disregard for all law,” he writes in ‘Success Magazine.’ Partly the fault of the courts, it is also the fault of an antiquated system of criminal and equity procedure taken almost bodily from old English law. England, however, entirely revised these laws in 1873, while here they persist virtually unchanged; Mr Whitman numbers among the evils of our laws of procedure our antiquated system of indictment, all red tape and verbiage, many useless functions of the courts, the undue safeguarding of the criminal, i.e., the provision that he cannot he a witness against himself; our jury trial system; our inadequate judicial system controlling the selection and conduct of judges, and, reducing 1 lie conscientious to umpires in disputes of legal technicalities, rather than allowing them to function as examining magistrates: our system of prosecution, the lack of co-ordination of our criminal code; our absurd system of appeals. Mr Whitman suggests the following constructive remedies:

(1) A jury system incorporating the best in English and French criminal procedure, adapted to American conditions.

(2) An independent, co-ordinated judicial system, directly supervised by the Supreme Court; 110 Grand Juries; all warrants and indictments to he placed entirely in the hands of the Prosecuting Attorney’s office. (3) The prisoner should have a choice of trial by judge or jury. Jurors would he chosen by a specially trained body, for their qualifications. (4) The presiding judge and also individual jurors should have the right to question the defendant or the witnesses at any time. (o) The defendant should he required to answer as freely as any other witness. If ho is innocent ho has nolle ng to. fear. (G) A majority vote of the jury would constitute a verdict; sentence to he passed at once. Appeals must he sought immediately, and on the basis of the original records of the case; in the meantime the defendant would remain in gaol.

“Such an innovation in our court methods may seem simplified to the point of harshness, but it is this system which has reduced the crime of England and Franco —and it is the lack of such a system or any other system of court efficiency that is largely responsible for the increasing crime statistics of America.” Yet. says Mr Whitman’, “behind every defect in the enforcement of our laws, more dangerous than any fault in the machinery of the law, more powerful than any other factor in accounting for the crime conditions in this country is the complete apathy and indifference of the American people.” , “Prosecuting criminals to-day is like trying In catch a 1927 automobile with aii ox team.” District Attorney Banton of New York City said recently. Easy bails, repeatedly granted, allow the criminal to go on practising bis profession until the moment of trial, id organise a defence, often to escape bisfico entirely. Clever lawyers are to bo bad for a price; political pull mid bribery, tbo parole system, court traditions. sentiment arc all on the side of the offender, says William Johnston in “Good Housekeeping.” “Anv active alert young man.’’ said Chief Magistrate AfcAdoo of Now York recently, “who deliberately chooses to be a gunman is n good insurable risk' for a bonding company, because be has a good chance to escape .... even il be is caught.”

“In attempting to safeguard tin 1 precious liberty for which our ancestors fought in ’7G. wc have gone so far ( that the measures adopted have become a woeful absurdity.” says Air Johnston. Air Jobnsion is addressing a public of women and be voices a plea to them lo use their fifteen million votes to change these laws. The “reform school” for mischievous hoys graduates professional criminals; the coddling of prisoners has reached a point where gaol sentence is no crime deterrent; the probation system continues in favor in spite of repented abuse; for example, a recent investigation disclosed (bat 1!) out of 29 old offenders released on probation in New York returned promptly to their former pursuits. The Canadians do those things hotter than we do, it seems. Prisoners at Kingston Penitentiary. Ontario, are not under the delusion that thev arc guests of the people, as Justice William Howard Taft has said the American prisoner is. They are not pampered with radios, nightly moving pictures, sports, prison bands, as is the American custom. The only exception in tin- rule is an occasional movie, which therein- becomes an event of importance. and counts for something definite in prison discipline.

Kvcrybody works in every Canadian penitentiary, inside in the winter, outside in the summer on the hundreds of acres which surrounds each of the prisons. They oat in solitude, but as a mat Lor of majority preference. Amusements are only as rare as loafing. the great evil-brewer of American prisons. In the evenings, after a day of hard work, there is a study hour. A teacher walks the corridor, ready answer any (piestions put to him by in-

dividuals as lie passes their cells; most of the prisoners have enrolled in some correspondence school. In Canada, politicians do not pick the guards; indeed, all prison officials are now appointed by tne Civil Service Commission. Warden Ponsford of Kingston, told Mr ofiepherd that he looked upon this as the greatest ad vance made in the management of the Canadian penitentiaries. There is plenty of discipline, but no sign of cruelty. It is possible for good conduct men to gain a material reduction of their sentences. It has been recommended for many years that there' be also a’’small wage for'labor well performed, but it is hoped to do this out of the earnings of the penitentiary rather than the taxpayer’s pocket. The Canadian murder rate is one victim to every 200,000 persons per year. The American rate is seven victims out of every 100,000 per year. Yes, the system seems to wofk. While the police is being blamed for stupidity, venality, and: general incompetence it would be only kind to bal - ance against the salary of the patrolman, police lieutenant and police chief the qualifications demanded in return by the taxpayer. . The pay of a policeman in our cities averages about £4OO a year. In New York it is £SOO. Detectives and police lieutenants receive from £3BO to £640, police chiefs receive from £SOO to £2OOO. These incomes are to buy men with the necessary physical strength and courage to protect human life and property; sufficient intelligence and self-reliance to detect crime and act quickly and wisely in an emergency; incorruptible honesty; tart, courtesy and patience. Promotion is well-known to be bound up in political chicanery rather than by merit; the man who has the qualifications which make him a valuable puolic servant is apt to resign and become an executive in some private detective agency, where the average earning s £2OOO. At bottom prices a good patrolman should be worth £llOO to the community.