CRIME IN UNITED STATES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16539, 5 January 1928, Page 10

CRIME IN UNITED STATES

BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY. GUN ME N BEG IN Ni N G TO SPECIALISE. TANGLES OF LEGAL SYSTEM BLAMED. WASHINGTON, Nov. 26. Crime lias become a. hilliuii-dollar industry in (lie United States. Never before in history have the professional gunman and ins allies enjoyed such a rich -harvest, in a civilised community than during' the post-war period in the richest country m the world. I Estimates of the value of tile aggregate loot of sale breakers, jewellery flueves, duck and railway pilferers, hank rubbers ami others engaged m holdup and thievery vary. A nationally known editorial writer recently stated that the Big Business of crime had an annual turnover of 5,tX10,000,000 dollars, of which one half was profit. MURDER. FOR BAY Specialisation has seized upon tins newest and richest American industry. There are gunmen who perform murder or lesser violence for pay, frequently acting as guards in labor disputes in the larger centres of population. Other gunmen engage to protect bootleggers and to prevent rival liquor .sellers from invading' their employers’ sales territory. Jewellery stores attract still another specialist type. Behind the operations of most of these active, criminals is the shadow of the “fence.” A “fence” is a man possessed of ready money to whom is disposed for cash the loot obtained in robberies of all kinds. Instances have been known, as was the ease with the Richard Reese Wliittemore gang m New York, where diamonds stolen at the point of a gun were disposed of to a “fence” within a few hours of the robbery and while the police search for the robbers barely bad begun. Machine guns, bombs thrown from automobiles and even from airplanes have figured in Hie battles between guards of rival bootleggers in and around Chicago. A popular practice is to locate the leader of the gang which is encroaching upon another's sales area. Discovering his habits and the streets in which lie is likely to appear, several gunmen drive through tho neighborhood until tho quarry is sighted. A fusillade of revolver or machine gun bullets from tho moving car creates panic in the neighborhood while it is killing the human game. The car speeds away and even if the shot man has enough life left to talk it rarely happens that he will tell police officers who his" assailants were. Revenge is exacted by tlic shot man's henchmen and the tend develops. From time to time gunmen are captured and often they sue hanged—us wore WhiU-emore, Gerald Chapman and others. For the most part these gunmen exterminate themselves, usually dying in their twenties, having embarked on their profession before reaching their majority. Such is the condition with which the United Stales is confronted. Tho National Crime Commission which met in Washington this month .sought a remedy. A number of contributory factors were cited, chief among them an appalling- tangle of technicalities and red tape in which the legal system of the United {States has become involved. NO FEAR, OF PUNISHMENT {Sharp lawyers, the commission was informed, could so weave the evidence of a criminal case that the trial judge almost invariably would be compelled to commit some minor error requiring a higher court to reverse him and thereby enable defendants to obtain a new trial in the event of conviction. Delay, the commission learned, had become so great that even murderers ■had no fear of immediate punishment. Court dockets were overcrowded. Technicalities defeated justice. Judges frequently were .powerless to lend adequate direction to trials because of the limitations placed upon their authority. Bondsmen and lawyers ofl a certain type infested court rooms exerting influence and a knowledge of technicalities, sometimes resorting to bribery, to relieve clients of tlic law’s exactions.

With these shortcomings m mind the commission exposed the structure of crime as a Big Business with an annual turnover of tremendous proportions.