POVERTY AND GRIME.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18339, 27 May 1931, Page 8

POVERTY AND GRIME.

The generalisation that poverty breeds .crime (has become so trite that we are sometimes tempted to believe that it Is an untruth or, anyhow, an exaggeration. Convincing proof to the contrary is given in an article by Mr Arthur Locke, of the British Home Office, in, the current number of the Police Journal. The men over sixty, lie states, show since the war the greatest relative falling off In convictions for all classes of crime, which “without doubt is mainly due to old-age pensions.” In these days of economic depression, when the nation has to think twice about every penny spent on the social services, it Is good to be reminded so directly how remunerative this expenditure can be. But it is not only old-age pensions which Justify themselves by their results. It Is often said that England is bearing her terrible burden of unemployment uncommonly well. In the first place, of course, this is due to the provision of unemployment benefit, but there are other social services which play their part. In Rochdale, for example, the number of books issued to readers last year showed an Increase of nearly a third over the previous year—a direct consequence of the trade depression and of the workers’ enforced leisure. .It would probably be possible to go. through the whole list of social services—widows' pensions, parks and open spaces, swimming baths and housing, to name only a few—-and find a direct relation between .the money spent , on them and money saved on the prevention of crime and the losses caused by it. Poverty and the, despair which comes of having nothing to db .and riowhere to do it have before now driven, decent men not. only to theft and robbery but to riots and revolutions'. The money spent on seeing that people have suffl : cicnt food for mind and body is money well spent.