NEW TYPE OF CRIMINAL

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15863, 7 July 1919, Page 7

NEW TYPE OF CRIMINAL

RESULT OF FOUR YEARS OF WAR. GLASGOW, May 25. Sir Nevil Macready, Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, is of the opinion that the war is responsible for increasing the amount of crime in the country and for changing tho type of criminal. Interviewed by a representative of the Press Association, recently, Sir Nevil said that freedom from tho restraint of ordinary law in battle lowered man’s respect for and fear of that institution, with the result that an increase of crime invariably followed war. In the present instance, there was a big rise in the number of robberies, and the robber of to-day, grown callous after four years’ experience of killing ,crmarked Sir Nevil, was indifferent alike to the taking of life and to his own personal safety. “In pre-war days,” said the Chief Commissioner, “if a burglar was met on the stairs by a householder in his pyjamas his first thought was to escape, but to-day, under similar circumstances, the thief would probably resort to violence and, if neccessary, to murder.”

Sir Nevil expressed the opinion that another result of the war would be an increase in the number of women murders. Before the war, ho said, when a man quarrelled with his wife—or the woman he lived with—• lie would “just clip her under the ear” and everything would he all right again the next day. “But, now. after four years of life taking, he would bib her over the head with an iron bar or anything that happened to bo handy, and there would ha no next day for her.”