The Lure of Crime

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17738, 7 January 1926, Page 8

The Lure of Crime

Love, Luxury and Thrills .

Baffling Forces at Work.

SO many women have been adopting careers of adventurous crime that the stir of inquiry as to \vhys and wherefores comes from all parts of the country, says a New York writer. Bobbed-hair bandits in skirts ply their callings in our large cities; “gun girls” are found on main travelled ways, and feminine sharpers appear at hotels and on steamship decks. Here in New York the “Cowboy Teassler gang.” learned in the classics, had their Helen to help them launch a thousand, thefts. When “ hold-up ” men move from store to store often some hardeyed young woman acts as chauffeur for their “get-away” automobile. Card parties in the Bronx are interrupted by . businesslike feminine bandits, equipped with automatics, who enter at the head of a quintet of men, give their directions, and help collect the loot. Over in the Raymond Street Gaol in placid Brooklyn, interviewing herself at intervals, is a supposedly college-bred amazon first name Jacqueline, known also as “Jack,” who, it is said, has helped more than one hundred automobiles to disappear from the kerb and to reappear in some unlawful garage. To analyse the reasons for this all-too-evident activity among the avowedly gentle .sex since 1917—for it had its beginnings then—requires a general survey of crime. Police and prison statistics tell only part of the story. This new freedom, grown out of the World War and the coming of the daughters of Eve into unprecedented relations, has produced an upheaval. There are changes in criminal circles in New York City, for instance, which astonish those who always regarded woman as a minor factor in criminol-

Ratio of Arrests Made.

Of the 8000 mentioned, only a little more than 400 bore feminine names, although there had been a steady increase in women prisoners for two or three years. Lest the gentler sex declare that all such comparisons as these are not to be endured, it should be said in the outset that there are in most large cities at least ten times as many men arrested for crime as there are women. Now that women and girls are taking part in so many activities of all kinds and are throwing aside so many restraints, it is not to be expected that the proportion will remain static. There are, furthermore, more females than males in the population of the United States. The last official count, that of 1920, showed one hundred of the masculine gender to every 104 of the distaff line. This fact indicates that if woman falls in with the lawless trend of the ages, she had considerable leeway under the new order of things. Here and there among the prisoners of the “gentler gender” appear criminals of unusual ability and force, but they are not many. This generation so far has not produced any such evil genius as Sophie Lyons, “the Confidence Queen,” nor has it presented such consummate jugglers of high and low finance as Mrs Cassie Chadwick. It can show no such colossal and allaround fraud as Mme. Humbert, who once had much of Paris in her train. The prisoners are for the most young and inexperienced and unseasoned. Many who have attempted the boldest deeds of violence are from twenty to twenty-five 3-ears of age. They are

They Must Dress Well.

“ There are many young girls,” she said, “ who, coming to the city, find themselves in a position in which they believe they must dress well. They want the most stylish gowns, and they long for silk stockings and for all those things which go to make them attractive. Sometimes they incur obligations greater than they can afford. They disappear from their places, seek other employment, and begin to drift about until they fall an easy' prey to a designing criminal. Probably in a dance hall or some such resort, where girls go unescorted, they meet well dressed and agreeable young men who are mere drifters or criminals. What is the next result? Before they realise it they have fallen in love. Perhaps they may marry a man of this criminal or semi-criminal type. Then they are induced to enter a scheme of robbery or burglary, largely on account of the love

ogy. Chicago, Boston. Philadelphia, and other municipalities have the same problem. One of the signs of the times in the arrests of women and girls at present is that, while the feminine part of the population has been obeying minor ordinances and rules more closely, it has, at the same time, been showing an increasing penchant for acts of violence or downright crime. There were, in 1919, for example, 998 women arrested in this city accused of crime against the person, as compared with 1402 in 1920, and this, too, in a period in which offences of all kinds committed by women were recorded as growing less numerous. It is freely charged against the United States that it is the most criminal country in the world. This is no new characterisation, for years ago Cesare Lombroso, the noted Italian criminologist, in the preface of his book. “The Female Offender,” said this country held the palm for the number of criminals to the thousand of population. lie reminded us that whereas in 1850 our nation had only one criminal to 3442 persons of both sexes, in 1890 the ratio had risen to one in every 757 inhabitants. Just what it now is can be estimated by a glance at some of our prison censuses and a consideration of the multitudes of felons who are now at liberty after having been paroled. In 1923, when the population of this State was approximately 10,000,000, there -were a little more than 8000 persons who had ben convicted of crimes serious enough to send them to prison for considerable terms. That means at least one conviction for every 1250 persons in that period. Add to this all who have worn the grey garb of the convict and the number of criminals at large and the ratio per thousand of population might easily be two or three.

mere types compared with somp of the evil sisterhood who flourished like green bay trees in the past. That they are so seems largely due to their being associated with male criminals or dominated by such, who are little older or more experienced than they are. It is reported that most of the men criminals who are holding up banks and attacking and killing messengers are less than twenty-five years old. Lacking the patience of the clever rogues of the past, who called themselves “professional criminals,” they go about their work crudely and crassly. The increase in feminine crime is held to be due in large measure to the reflex of the masculine criminality, both as to quantity and quality. It will be noticed that although now and then a lone bob-haired girl bandit appears in some outskirt of a city, she usually has male confederates. Very often she is only one of a group of many, taking her orders from a man chief. Undoubtedly in some cases, judging from the statements of these prisoners after arrest, they were led into outlawry by a love of adventure which was stimulated by their association with masculine companions or by husbands no bolder or more conversant with the steady practice of robbery and burglary than they are themselves.

Miss Alice E. Smith, probation officer of the Women’s Court, in Sixth Avenue, who has had a long and varied experience in dealing with Lombroso’s “female offenders,” believes one of the compelling urges to their crimes is love of luxury and of fine clothes.

they bear to the men who have induced them to adopt a life of criminality. With the greater freedom of women such associations are likely to .be formed more readily than ever before. The control of parents is less than it was. Once the women and girls who have been involved in such schemes undertake anything, they stand by their men comrades like sports. That may account for many of them being arrested, while others may escape.

Not only the infatuation for men and the desire to have luxury contribute to crime among women and girls, but the stir for adventure has much to do with the plans they adopt. This spirit, too, is a result of the present age, and of less formal relations and of unrestrained speech; being young, they are determined to escape what they have come to regard as commonplace life.