“MADE A CRIMINAL”

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 19 September 1934, Page 3

“MADE A CRIMINAL”

DEFENCE OF DILLINGER LONG TERM FOR FIRST CRIME "A BAD SYSTEM” The John Dillinger case affords the most striking proof the American people- have had in a long time of the need of corrective reform measures in the penal system and criminal law procedure in the Unitedi States, leading New York lawyers and penologists declare, says the "Christian Science MonitdT.”

While in practically all quarters the shooting of Dillinger by Federal agents in the streets of Chicago was "justifiable homicide,” as the coroner’s jury held, lawyers with long experience in criminal cases declare that Dillinger was at least in part the product of a system which, as it works out, tends to make hardened criminals of youthful offenders.

"There is nothing surprising about Dillinger and the Dillinger case,” said Mr Arthur Garfield Hays, who is known throughout the United States and Europe as having been in the thick of nearly every liberal cause eelebre in recent years. Mr Hays has opposed censorship, the Ku Klux Klan, the death penalty, the power trust, labour injunctions, war, and fundamentalism, in the long array of cases in which he has been counsel. His last appedrance in international news was in connection with the defence of the men charged with the burning of the Reichstag in Berlin. More reecntly he represented the Civil Liberties Union in the labour case in Jersey City, in which Mr Corliss Lamofit, son of the banker, and Mr Alfred Bingham, son of the one-tiine senator from Connecticut, were defendants.

"Dillinger was the natural product of our criminal system,” Mr Hays continued. "He was not even necessarily a killer or a brave man. He was given no choice. Capture meant death.

"We probably cab attribute the death of brave officers killed in the 7)1111 rigor raids with the consequent suffering of their families to laws providing for capital punishment. There is another interesting consideration. Years ago, Dillinger was given a long term in gaol 1 , which naturally resulted, in view of our system, in making him an enemy of society. Long terms —in fact, brutal punishment of any kind — have that result. The way to prevent crime is quickness of trial and certainty of punishment. In fact the more brutal a punishment, the more difficult it is to bring out a quick trial or a certain result. ENGLAND KNOWS IT. "England has 'learned 1 this < lesson, and, in my judgment, one of the reasons for less crime there is that the terms in gaol meted out to criminals aTe perhaps half or a tenth as long as they are here. Yet we have this psychology which brings about laws like the Baumes laws with the idea that you can end crime through human terror. The terror does not last long, and the result is to make certain that the enemies w)ill :always be enemies of society. < ; Wafden Lewis K Lawes, of Sing Sing, also condemned the practice of giving long sentences to first offenders." “Some .people, following Dillinger’s crime record since he was freed dh parole from .the Michigan City peril;' tentiary on May 22, 1933, have ex j pressed the opinion that he was let out too soon,” Warden Lawes said. "It may be, however, that Dillinger was [held too long in punishment for his | first offence. | "Up to- the time he was twenty-two years old, he had apparently lived the life of an average small town boy and had shown no signs of delinquency.' But he lived in very restricted circumstances, and' when he was twenty-two, | in an effort to get money for some pur-1 pose of his owu, he joined a companion! ih ‘slugging’ a grocer in an attempted j robbery. The boys were caught, and Dillinger got a longer sentence than his companion who planned' the ciinie. He was sentenced to ten tc twenty-one years in a reformatory. "This long sentence may have occasioned Dillinger to develop a resentful, hopeless attitude towards society—and hopelessness is about the worst frame of mind a man can have. Since Dillinger was 22 years old, he has been at large only 14 months and during that time he took part in about 15 crimes Of violence.

"Tiie whole Dillinger episode shows the meed for very great care in imposing sentences on first offenders. The crime situation in this country is an increasingly serious problem. In my judgment, crime is an ever-lengthening shadow in our civilisation. All the methods we have found as yet have not succeeded in simplifying the crime problem.

“SOCIAL FACTORS” ‘ 'Social and economic factors are largely responsible for crime. Undoubtedly a widely-applied programme of social measures, such as unemployment insurance, old age benefits and relief, will help in reducing the pressure towards crime. Meanwhile, we should be particularly careful as to treatment first offenders get and their environment when they are in reformatories or prisons.” Mr Robert Daru, head of the Federal Bar Association Committee of Criminal Law, concurred in the view that long prison sentences made criminals. “1 am coming more and more to believe that a criminal should be sentenced for not more than six months to a year, if he is returning to society, l or that he should be committed for life,” Mr Daru said. I Mr Bernard Deutsch, president of the Board of Aldermen and lawyers, deprecated the tendency of law enforce-

ment officials to “bring Dillinger and his gang in dead.” ‘ ‘ This was not consonant with American traditions and principles of jurisprudence,” Mr Deutsch said. ‘ 1 This is still a Government of law and not of men, and it is more important that this principle be upheld than that one -criminal 1 be more easily . caught, however little sympathy the people have for Dillinger.” Mr Jacob H. Banton, one-time district attorney of New York County, defended the shooting of Dillinger on sight. “The-Federal officers who shot Dillinger acted as they should have done in shooting first, for Dillmger, according to Press reports, had already drawn his gun,” Mr Banton said. “Announcement of a reward for the apprehension of Dillinger, 'alive or dead,’ was worded in routine fashion and did not precipitate the shooting. The type represented? by Dillinger had to be dealt with by force for immediate action.” Mr Henry J. Crawford, Albany lawyer, praised the Department of Justice for its work in the Dillinger case and favoured Federal aid in tracking down dangerous criminals. “Relying on local justice is one of the weaknesses of our criminal procedure,” Mr Crawford said. “The Department of Justice gets its man, however, even though it may take years. That kind of work should be upheld by every citizen. “It is, to my way of thinking, a long step in the Tight direction towards ■solving our crime problem.”