POST-WAR CRIME

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4675, 25 January 1945, Page 4

POST-WAR CRIME

UNEMPLOYMENT COULD CAUSE WAVE

Whether there will be a post-war crime wave in the United States depends on whether economic dislocations and a depression follow the peace, in the opinion of Lewis E. Lawes, prison consultant on the War Production Board and former warden of Sing Sing Prison. “There must be jobs,” he stressed, adding that “by jobs, I don’t mean jobs that pay wages' reduced to abnormally low levels. I mean jobs that will enable Americans to maintain a decent standard of living.” Mr Lawes was a speaker before the general session of the 74th Annual Congress of Correction, sponsored by the American Prison Association, meeting at the Pennsylvania Hotel, New York. The only way to prevent crime in the future is to eliminate crime breeders, Mr Lawes said, calling attention particularly to slum and other depressed areas. “And will we intelligently cope with another crop of potential criminals, to-day’s juvenile delinquents?” he asked. During the last few years many facilities that might have prevented delinquency were weakened rather than strengthened, he declared, recalling that in some areas schools were closed, due to shortage of teachers, and in others recreational facilities were either curtailed or eliminated, “thereby opening the door to trouble.” “Child labor laws were flagrantly violated,” he continued, “so that children worked in factories and farms when they should have been studying.” He questioned whether these children, most of whom received high wages, would be able to adjust themselves to vastly different conditions.. He scoffed at the fear that a murder wave would be started by veterans of World War 11. because “they have been so thoroughly trained in the art of slaughter.” He,held that “the urge to kill will disappear with the goad to kill—war.” Mr Lawes’ contention that good employment possibilities would prevent a post-war crime wave was supported by James B. Cary, secretary-treasurer of the Congress of Industrial Organisations. Stressing that 15,000,000 jobs more than were available before the war must be provided after the war, he warned that there was little indication that communities, States, or the Federal Government were doing much to correct the economic problems that result in crime and violence. Melving H. Baker, vice-president of the National Association of Manufacturers, likewise concurred that “the more jobs, the less inmates and the less anti-social persons you will have to rehabilitate.”