The Overworked Force
By Sir CARLETON ALLEN, Q.C.
THE crime wave is not a matter of " panic " or "sensation." It is a hard fact which cannot be explained away by faith, hope and charity. I do not propose to load these lines with figures, but it can be stated without hesitation that, setting aside the multitudinous minor infrac- tions which can hardly be called "criminal," and making all allowance for growth of population, crime of a serious kind has increased alarmingly since the war and simply enormously since the previous post-war period, a generation ago. The " don't-panic " school reply that statistics are misleading, because records are now kept much better than formerly. That is true, but at the most it mitigates, without controverting, manifest facts. If the sceptic puts no faith in statistics, let him ask any judge, magistrate, policeman or prison authority. As for crimes of violence, it is only necessary to open one's newspaper any morning to realise the present situation. A disturbing feature of these atrocities is not only their fre- quency but their character. American gangster methods, not excluding torture, are creeping in. There have been several cases lately—unfortunately not brought to justice—of mal- treating victims to "make them talk," e.g., by lighted cigarettes, not to mention slashing and bicycle-chains. We shall doubt- less soon have the favourite hoodlum method of scorching the feet. Terrible things are done by youngsters who look as if they would not throw a stone at a cat. Recently a petty sessional court had to deal with a mild-looking young National Service soldier who came before it on a minor charge. His " antecedents " were that he had been interrupted by a police- man when burgling a house. He coshed the intruder and, when he lay insensible on the floor, shot him twice with a revolver. By a miracle, the victim survived, and this young brute was convicted at Assizes of attempted murder. He was sent to Borstal, and then released on licence to become a fit and proper member of Her Majesty's forces. Fantastic, you may say—but what else was the court to do with him in the present state of the law ? Let it be remembered that all the thieves, burglars, house- breakers, cosh-boys, gangsters and assassins are only that part of the iceberg which appears above the surface. Behind them is a large and highly organised body of professional criminals —the receivers and traffickers, national and international, who are the most difficult offenders to detect and convict. There may not be many Professor Moriartys among them, but they are not lacking in skill, cunning and organising ability, and they are completely ruthless enemies of society. The causes of all this lawlessness are doubtless Many and complex, and they have been so much discussed that they need not be repeated here.- I would only say in passing that I believe that the "brutalising effects of war" have been much exaggerated. War and peace exist in different compartments in most men's minds, and there is no convincing evidence that war experiences have turned soldiers into savages in peace- time conditions. A more relevant war-factor may be the number of men, including deserters, who have been left without prospects owing to interrupted-careers and who haye turned to what they think is easy money. There is one-cause which is seldom mentioned, because it is considered "tendentious," but it is obvious to anybody who is concerned with the administration of justice. The pop. dulum has swung violently from the former exaggerated sanctity of property, enforced by the most ferocious and capricious penaWes, to a complete contempt for it. This is well illustrated by the 'offence of housebreaking or shop. breaking, especially by juveniles. Even from Anglo-Saxon times housebreaking by day, and its more serious form of burglary by night, have been reckoned among the gravest offences, being attacks on the Englishman's castle. When the Criminal Justice- Act, 1925, was passed„ this indictable offence was excluded from those which could be dealt with summarily with the consent of the accused, and it is still triable only at Quarter Sessions or Assizes. Today it is a comnion. place, and all magistrates have to spend many hours taking depositions in cases 'of youths who want money or cigarettes or other things of their fancy and simply break in and take them, frequently arming themselves with lethal weapons.
Crime waves are nothing new; indeed, until about a hundred years ago, England lived in a chronic crime wave. It is our favourite boast that we are a law-abiding people by compari. son with all others, but the reputation, even if justified, is very recent. Right through the centuries, for as long as we have records, our rulers have made innumerable experiments in trying to make the community police itself by sureties, frank. pledge, tithings, hundreds, hue and cry, juries of presentm constables, headboroughs, watch and ward and many o er devices—all in addition to private efforts to preserve law id order, such as Peace Gilds of pre-Conquest days, Prosecut a Societies of the nineteenth century, Bow Street Runners and the like. None of these expedients, nor yet the fierce penalties for felony, succeeded in making England a safe and lawful country. Crime abounded in the Middle Ages, and even 150 years ago we had an ill name on the Continent for our highwaymen and footpads. Repeated commissions Old inquiries did little to abate the menace.
Peel's great experiment in 1829 met with violent oppositipn because most Englishmen, looking to the Continent, were convinced that a professional police force could not be efficient without becoming a Gestapo. The monumental achievement of Charles Rowan and his successors is.„that—not without severe discouragements.they' built up a Metropolitan 'Police Fora (soon to be copied throughout the country) on two masler principles: first, that the police were the friends and not the enemies of the public, and, second, that their primary purpose was to prevent rather than to detect crime. Since then, though it would be wrong to claim this as the sole reason for improve- ment, we have had some reason to congratulate ourselves oa the maintenance of the Queen's Peace.
The moral should be plain, and public attention is now _being directed to it. It cant& be directed too often or too strongly. In an age of social services, it is strange that self. protection against enemies at home as well as abroad is not regarded as worth a great deal .of effort and money: But material inducements for,the police are not the only considera- tion. They have been substantially enhanced of late, and yet the Force remains gravely under strength and recruit- ment is slow. The difficulty lies not only in quantity but in quality. A policeman must, to begin with, be- an intelligent man. He must "know his stuff," and know it well, for although the British public supports and admires him it has no mercy on him if he puts a foot wrong. He must also be a courageous man, a person of tact, good humour and quiet decision, and one who is prepared to submit to discipline. I am credibly informed - that among the inadequate supply of applicants it is not easy to- find men with these qualities, and many are rejected. Discipline, it seems, is particularly distasteful, and there is much unfavourable comparison with the five-day week, high wages and go-as-you-please. There is 'also -difficulty about slow promotion and the perpetual problem. of housing; and the policeman does not possess, in his own sphere, quite the social prestige which he once enjoyed. It comes to this—are there enough stout fellows among us to take on a tough job, under reasonable discipline and with reasonable rewards and prospects, and with some sense of public spirit ? I, for one, do not know the answer. Only the Welfare State can supply it—but without more policemen there soon will not be much welfare.
The police are much reproached for wasting their time on trivial offences when there are so many more serious crimes to engage their attention. But, in the present state of things, what else can they do ? Traffic being what it is, how can they allow motorists to disregard all regulations ? Even as things are, they can restrain only a tiny fraction of the innumerable offences of this and other kinds which are com- mitted every day. There is a strong case for a corps of special traffic police, if only they could be found. It is true, and it is deplorable, that constables have to waste much time hanging about courts in case their evidence should be needed (and it frequently is not) on these minor charges; but, again, what is the alternative ? The truth is that on both police and magis- trates far too many and too miscellaneous duties are thrust; anybody who studies a Chief Constable's annual report will be astonished at the multiplicity of their functions. If we had more of them, of the right kind, with fewer things to do, it is safe to prophesy that there would be an immediate and a substantial fall in the rate of serious crime. It is not easy to suggest how they can be found, but surely a mighty effort is worth while.
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