CRIME IN DOMINION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19448, 6 November 1925, Page 5

CRIME IN DOMINION

GENERAL DECREASE NOTED. MR. JUSTICE REED’S VIEWS. The comparative brevity of the criminal calendar presented at the Supreme Court criminal sessions in Auckland last week evoked some comments by Mr. Justice Reed upon the tone of the Dominion with respect to crime, 1 f From my recent observations of the criminal work of other centres,” said His Honor. “I think we are entitled to congratulate ourselves on the general decrease of crime throughout the Dominion. The rate of crime is still far too high for a community such as New Zealand. Very little of the crime in this country is attributable to want or to the pressure of economic conditions. In the calendar before me there is not a single case that can bo said to be due directly or indirectly to hard necessities of life or financial pressure through inability to obtain employment, “If I were asked to what should be attributed crimes of dishonesty in this I country, I should say, without hesita-1 tion, primarily a distaste for honest i work and a love of pleasure and excitement, the crime being induced by the one and at the same time providing the means of enjoying the other. Into a certain class of crime, that of breaking and entering, there also enters the spirit of adventure. There are a number of charges of this class, including a series of cases against three comparatively young men of wholesale breaking and entering of shops, and incidentally stealing motor-cars for the purpose of helping them to carry out; this work. Each of these men is in possession of a trade and well able to earn an honest living. If they are guilty of the offence * for which they have been committed for trial they must have indulged in it largely for the excitement incidental to such crime. It is a pity their energies could not be directed into some channel where they would be less detrimental to the general public. 4 ‘ln connection with that class of crime we can sincerely congratulate ourselves that there is one phase noticeable in other countries that we do not have here. New Zealand is singularly free from the class of criminal who resorts to personal violence, and does not hesitate to kill or main in order to carry out his object.’’