INCREASE IN CRIME.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 1695, 25 November 1920, Page 5

INCREASE IN CRIME.

AUSTRALIA'S POSITION. During 1 the past week the value i) property recovered or accounted fo; by reason of many arrests, totals in value just on £3OOO. says the "Sydne: Morning Herald" of November Sth At one divisional station alone, tin property thus accounted for is valuej at. £452. Special night patrols havi been organised. Nearly 100 arrest! have been effected recently. The increase in crime, held to b« due to all the abnormal conditions t< which the war has given rise, is not b; i'.ny means peculiar to Australia; it i world-wide. It knows practically n< geographical bounds. That crime-, especially the more ser ious classes of it, is prevalent in thi S:a*e needs, unfortunately, no era I ha-is. The fact that Vue Governmen v,•.',.-• faced with the necessity for doub ling the facilities for dealing with serfous crimes in the metropolitan dis II let. by'the passing of an Act only re eently vo »et up a second Court c Quavler Sessions, bears sufficient wit iie-is to its prevalence. This Court hai l)een set up to relieve the position gexi erally, including the accumulation o cases that have been standing' over some of them for many weeks some of them for several months. Oi men of formerly good character stray ing from the path of moral rectitude there a.re only isolated cases. Fq the most part it is tho criminal clas who are exorcising the minds of thosf whose duty it is to protect the publi and their property. The re-arrest o persons on bail pending the trial o their cases'by the higher Court i pointed to, for instance, as some evi deuce of this. Garrotting is not what the polic* call a fashionable crime at present Criminals just now are concentrating largely on house-breaking and or warehouses. Criminals look to Syd ney, above all other cities in Australia as* an illimitable field, because of Iti flourishing conditions and the fac that hj is* a great shipping port, permitting, incidentally, better opportunities for a quick "get away" than thi other cities. This all makes the tasl of the police here heavier and mor< responsible. The increase in crime generally It this Staie is strikingly reflected in th< statistics. The figures for 1918 show ed an increase on those for 1917 o ."23 2 cases, and the 1919 figures indi cr'Aert an increase of 2447 over 1918 Taking the total number of more sericms classes of offences recorded in thf police gazette, the figures show ai increase of ir.Tf! cases for 1919. com pared with 1918; the increase in 1915 contrasted with 1917 -was only out case. Comparing 1919 with 191S th< bigerest increase was in offence! against property without violence: these numbered 6834 in 191 S. an< 7541 in 1919, or an increase of 1007