MURDERS IN AMERICA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20202, 13 September 1927, Page 14

MURDERS IN AMERICA.

MANY DEATHS IN CITIES. LAWLESS SOUTHERN STATES. One person in every 10,000 met death by violence last year in 118 Olcs of the United States, whore a survey of crime conditions has just been concluded. There were 12,000 deaths —a rate of 10.1 per 100,000, as compared with 10.5 per 100,000 for the previous year. No distinction has been drawn in the figures between murder, manslaughter, and justifiable homicide. It is scareeß- possible to do so in the United States, because of differences in the State laws, the attitudes taken by juries towards those accused of murder, and the large number of crimes for which nobody is over brought to trial. A comparison made by one American paper states that there were only 17 murders in London last year, and that there wore arrests in 1G of the eases. Last year there were 510 eases of homicide in Chicago, which still leads the rest of American cities in aggregate number of murders. New York, with twice Chicago’s population, roporte ’ "10 cases. Chicago, however, is slowly getting better. The 1020 record worked out at 10.7 homicides per 100,000 of population, which was 2.1 fewer than in 1925. Judged by the rate per 100,000 of population, many smaller cities have an even higher rate than Chicago. The southern States are by far the worst offenders. With the exception of Kansas City, which is on the border line, all the twelve leading cities in the homicide table arc in the southern belt. Jacksonville -d 104 crimes of violence among its population of 137,000. Yet, in the northern city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, with a population of about 150.000, there ' re only two homicides in 1,020. Similar comparisons are made between other southern and northern cities, to the humiliation of the south. There is a tendency to point to America’s enormous increase " wraith as a basic reason for the national murder mania. This theory assumes that the temptations to gain big returns for human slaughter are much greater in the United States than elsewhere, and s - homicide is encouraged. But, unfoiinnately for this theory, it is in the north that riches have expanded most rapidly. In the southern States there is ..idospread economic backwardness. The worst poverty in America is among the southerners. Similarly the theory breaks down that attributes America’s criminal < 'io-.w-c to ils alien populate a. By far the majority of aliens reaching the United States disperse among the northern and more wealthy States. The •southern St: do nor. attract foreigners, and. indeed, arc Insing their own negro population, owing to the higher wages offered in the north. Can it be. the Evening Standard ask-;, that the widespread ignorance prev ’em in the South is the t rue reason . The southern States are notorious for their read ionary educattonal tendenchv.-.