The United States After Thirty Years VII.—Crime
CRIME WAVE "—Americans themselves use the term so I need. not hesitate to follow them—began to spread over the United States : in 1925. That is the date mentioned in the Report of the. National Conference op the Reduction-of Crime which was called together last year by the National Crime Commission. Many explana- tions have been given. of the increase of crime, but none seems satisfactory. Probably, as in the case of most social manifestations that affect a whole nation, there are several causes.. . - The anti-Prohibitionists will tell you that. Prohibition is the. cause. As an exclusive or even fairly wide explana- tion.. that may be dismissed at once...... Obviously a considerable reduction in the total -Amount of drink consumed cannot cause, crime. On the other hand Prohibition is plainly the cause of crime, crime of a very _ violent sort, in a certain class. The bootleggers are smugglers. Many of them when they are challenged are quick to, shoot. Many of them also conduct a campaign of intimidation and personal violence against those who denounce them or try, to enforce the law. For example, when Senator, Deneen was carrying on a " dry '! campaign against Mr. " Big Bill " Thompson, the notorious Mayor of Chicago, he _persuaded the Federal- Authorities to send more police to Chicago. One of Mr. Deneen's personal associates was soon murdered and Mr. Deneen's house was pineappled. " Pineapple " is the pretty name for a home-made bomb. It was only by good fortune that Mr. Deneen and his household were not killed. In such ways and in such a sense Prohibition provokes crime because bootlegging is the consequence of Prohibition; but, after all, the bootleggers' are only a class in a vast community.
The fact which has to be faced is that the crime wave has affected not one bUt many desks. I shall not forget the impression made upon me by an incident -in New York the day after I landed. An armoured car drove Up to a bank. Suddenly a side door of the bank opened and a man looked out and scanned the street this ,way and that. He seemed to be satisfied that the coast was clear and beckoned 'to two men within the bank who 'so far had been invisible to me. These men then ran out carrying bags, jumped quickly into the armoured car and were driven away. I was told that they were carrying money froni one bank to another. Beside-the 'Chauffeur of the armoured car sat a man with a revolver. A specially large category' of recent crime comes under the heading " hold-ups," and to this category bank robberies belong.
-I judge from all I heard and read that the chief instrii- ,-beiit of "crime is -the Ina-6f 'tat. The -Criminal steals - a motor car, holds up-a pay-roll clerk or another motor car, or a bank, or a post office, or a store, gets away with his loot, abandons the motor car and is thereafter exceedingly difficult to trace. The number of .arrests in proportion to the amount of crime throughout America- is strikingly small, and even when arrests have been made the criminals, owing to the delays and faults of the law, have a fairly good chance, as they well -know, of being acquitted.
Several people said to me that the War was the real cause of the crime wave. The "War had inured men to the thought and habit of violence. It is one of those easy explanations which are -probably too simple to be true. Of course America was not long enough in the War to become so utterly weary of it, and so disgusted with the very idea of war, as- Englishmen were. Still, I very much doubt whether those Americans who returned from France came back in love with violence. I have no statistics on this point, but I should be surprised to learn that the typical criminal is an ex-soldier.
Americans themselves, as I found, are so perturbed by the increase of crime. that they have seriously taken the matter in hand and already they have had much success: The Report of the National Conference on the Reduction of Crime shows—and this is a very good sign—that most of the anti-crime activities have been started by popular opinion. The National Crime Commission itself was mainly the creation of the late Judge Gary, but almost every State now has a Crime Commission. What have these -Commissions" done ? The Crime Commission of New York State appointed the well-known Baumes Committee, whose recommendations have had great influence in other States. The so-called Batnnes Law heavily increased the term of imprisonment -for second and third offenders and made the fourth offence punishable with a life sentence. According to the evidence laid before the Conference the original objection that the severity of the ilaumes Law would defeat itself is not often made now. No doubt that is true ; desperate circum- stances required desperate remedies ; but I cannot help thinking that later, when crime is reduced, as it will be, to a normal level, experience will be justified and it will be found that any law that is unnecessarily severe does defeat itself. Every reader of history knows that when the death penalty was inflicted in England for minor offences, "humane judges shrank from convicting persons and the penalty became no penalty at all.
Almost every State has been considering fresh legislation during the past two or three years, though not many Bills have been passed out of the vast number presented. The general object has been to regulate the carrying of fire-arms. 8trange results may be noted. Minnesota, for instance, while accepting the Bill for licensing pistols, refused to pass any law requiring a machine-gun to be licensed. Many of the gunmen have, naturally, found a- machine-gun' a highly useful and manageable weapon in a motor car. Illinois, in which State is Chicago, not only refused to pass a Pistol Bill, but refused to curb in any way the private possession of machine-gunS.
Perhaps the oddest of all the new laws are those, in seven States, which have raised the theft of a chicken to the dignity of grand larceny. Idaho has 'actually 'passed a law that nobody may buy a chicken between sunset and sunrise without the permission of the Sheriff. Thus if you meet anybody carrying a chicken in the dark you know what to think.
- Several 'of the Bills were directed against the receiver" of stolen goods, or " fence." The thief of goods cannot Make a living (because he cannot easily enough dispose of the goods) without the help of a fence, So that when anti-fence legislation succeeds the foundation of the- -whole of this class of -clinic ought tOlieein to totter. I spoke of public opinion as being behind all the reforms, but public determination has not stopped at exhortation. Private persons—in a manner that is approved in America but would be impossible in Great Britain—have armed themselves in bands to resist and capture criminals. -For instance, bands of picked men have been sworn in and armed as Deputy Sheriffs in order to protect the banks. Bank robbery is one of the most frequent crimes in America, and it seems that long before it: became fashionable to talk about a crime wave this form of robbery had reached its zenith. The peak• year, indeed, was as far back as 1921. - Insurance figures ten a curious tale. It is more expensive to insure a bank by daylight, when everybody is about, than to insure it by night. In Iowa during 1923 there were fifty-six daylight raids on banks, thirty-six of which were success- ful... In 1924. seven out of fourteen banks in Madison County, Illinois, were held up. A witness, at the Con-, ference said, " I have been in sixty banks in St. Clair County in the last three weeks who still are so scared that they do not. dare to take the string off the latch of the door."
There has, however, been a great improvement and it has been brought about almost entirely by the Vigilantes. A witness at the Conference who was responsible for much of the organization in Iowa and Illinois said, " When I, took hold of the situation the talk was that you could rob banks and get away with it easily. Now they say ' You had better lay off of Illinois banks, because they have got a shot-gun squad in several towns and they are going to kill you if you go in there.' " In Great Britain casual armed persons would be watched by the police perhaps even more carefully than criminals them- selves, but in the United States the ordinary police welcome the alliance of the amateurs. The cost of arms, ammunition, and training for these " shoot-at-sight " Deputy Sheriffs is met by the Bankers' Associations. The Ordnance Department in Washington sells the ammunition.
The organizations are highly developed ; directly a silent alarm message is telephoned from a bank, several of the marksmen can be relied upon to reach the spot in two or three minutes. Five minutes is too late. In several Statei revolver-shooting competitions are held regularly for prizes offered by the bankers. - " These State shooting tournaments," said a witness at the Conference, " are gala occasions and they give considerable back- ground for valuable publicity. None of it is wasted on the criminal element."
All this free firing for citizens is, like the Baumes Law,. a desperate measure for desperate circumstances. - It will be superseded in time, no doubt, for public opinion is determined that the arm of the law shall not always have to be held up by unofficial help.
J. B, ATKINS.
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