STATISTICS OF THE COST OF CLIMB IN ENGLAND AND WALES.

[PROM A COBJECESPONDEW.]

WE have thus discussed, very briefly it is true, but to the extent of pre- scribed limits, first, the public expenditure upon crime ; and secondly, the private losses by society at large, from the depredations of the criminal classes. The total cost of crime has been estimated at the annual amount of sixteen millions sterling ; and this statement having been, it is hoped, not only asserted, but defended, nothing remains but the third and last question on the subject of the cost of crime, which was antici- pated in the opening letter. The remaining question refers to the pros- pects of this national outlay with reference to the expenditure in former years. It resolves itself into a solution of the proportionate cost of crime —whether or not the returns for the present year are equal in amount to, are less than, or are in excess of, the average expenses, so far as they may be obtained, of the last ten years. The results for a period extend- ing over ten years will more fairly give an insight into the prospects of the cost of crime than any shorter period. The year 1849 carries us back into the times of transportation ; when the hulk system had not be- come a matter of history ; and when much which now tends towards a more rational treatment of our criminals was yet unknown, or not acted upon. The comparison of 1858 with 1849 is, however, not without its drawbacks ; and not unfrequently would the truth be more nearly within reach if the comparison was less extended.. Although of course a very large expenditure in the colonies has, or ought to have been di- minished, consequent upon our altered relations with our dependencies on the subject of transportation, yet upon the whole of the Civil Service Esti- mates there has been no comparative decrease. What has been, or what ought to have been, saved in one department has been incurred in another ; and if we escape the outlay of money at the Antipodes, we are obliged to become more extravagant at home. Contemporaneous with the long growing conviction of the injustice—as it was practised—of our former system of transportation, more correct opinions on the treatment of criminals at home have flourished. So that if our colonial expenditure has decreased, our outgoings in England, in all the essentials of a more enlightened policy, have been augmented. Hence, with unavoidable in- conveniences attaching to both systems, it will perhaps be the better plan to record, year by year, in cases in which such a process is feasible, the officially estimated expenses of the various sources of criminal out- lay. In many cases this plan cannot be followed. In some it may only be traced for a limited period. All these cases, however, fall within the scope of the first division of the whole subject ; since, irom the ab- gene° of all trustworthy information upon the strength of the criminal population prior to the publication of the last volume of the Judicial Statistics, it is clear that no proportionate estimate can be ascertained in connexion with the second.

It will tend to make future statements more definite, if a summary of the national expenditure on crime for a single year is produced—even at the cost of repetition—in a tabulated form. The items are as follows.

I. Police establishment £1,447,019 II. Cost of prosecutions 150,000 III. Prison establishments-

1. County and borough prisons £580,285 2. Government and convict dep6ts 254,711

3. Reformatories 31,027 4. Criminal lunatics 22,122 5. Convict establishments 225,968

6. Expenses of transportation

44,715 Total 2,705,847 I. The first item in this costly catalogue is the police force. Mr. Redgrave states that the numerical strength of the establishment for 1857 was 19,187 ; and that its numbers for 1858 were 20,256. This shows an increase for one year of 1069 men—an increase which, if not made again, or even to a greater extent, in the next and one or more following years, without all doubt should be made, to give that efficiency to the force by which alone it will perform the duties which arc ex- pected from it. Mr. Redgrave's statistics abundantly prove the truth of this assertion. It is owned that many districts do not yet possess their full complement of police, and a comparison of the details of some of them confirms the avowal. In many cases, the disproportion in the num- ber of the police between districts similarly circumstanced; or the simi- larity of numbers when the circumstances are different, is remarkable. From tables constructed from Mr. Redgrave's returns, too voluminous to be printed in these letters, which show the proportion of the popula- tion to the police force in each district, the following results are obtained, which justify the opinion that our police force requires a still further numerical developement. Thus Lancashire and Bucks—a densely populated manufacturing district, and a county thinly inhabited and purely agricultural—possess an equal per centage to the population in the number of the police establishment. Similar results are obtained for the counties—very differently constituted with respect to the characteris- tics of their inhabitants—of Dorset and Durham, of Worcester and Herb; of Warwick and Somerset. Again, Chester and Stafford each present a proportion of police to population of 1 to 1400; whilst the proportion in Yorkshire is 1 policeman to every 1500 of the inhabitants ; in Derby it is 1 to 1600; in Nottingham 1 to 1700; and in the county of Nor- thumberland the proportion is 1 to 1800. All these cases, it will be re- membered—and but a few inconsistencies are mentioned where many might be given—are country districts; and their results are calculated apart from the returns of the towns. Neither are the occupations of the inhabitants of the counties of Northumberland and Stafford, of Cheater and Derby, and of Nottingham and Yorkshire, so apparently different, as to require the presence of a police force which varies, without a defi- nite reason in the extreme numbers, from 1 to 1400 down to I in 1800 of the population.

But if the numbers of the police establishments in the country districts appear to be guided less by the requirements of a certain law or by the exigencies of the particular case, than by the anomalies of accident, the proportionate numbers of the force in many of our more important towns are not more satisfactory. We cannot suppose that any of our large cities and boroughs are overpowered by police; nor can it be conceived that the merchants and traders of some of the chief centres of commercial or manufacturing industry are content to retain the services of a larger body of constables than the safety of their property imperatively demands. The metropolis, from the peculiar circumstances of its existence—with a proportion of 1 policeman to every 368 of the population—will not enter into the comparison. The returns for Manchester and Liverpool, how- ever, may be fairly taken to represent the minimum requirements of a police establishment for the larger of the more important seats of in- dustry. Liverpool supports an establishment of 970 police to keep in order the criminal class which exists in a population of 370,000. Ac- cording to this proportion, Preston, one of the chief seats of cotton and linen manufacture, ought to possess a police force of 180 men. Instead of this, Preston, with a population of 69,500, entrusts its internal peace and safety to 42 constables—less than one-fourth the number in propor- tion to the population required by LiverpooL Again Manchester has organized a city police in the ratio of one representative of the law to every 500 persons. In Liverpool the proportion is 1 to 380; and in Bristol it is 1 to 450; but in all likelihood a larger per centag,e is needful for the preservation of order in an extensive commercial port than in a large manufacturing city. Still, one policeman in each 500 of the in- habitants cannot be considered to be too extravagant a rate of insurance to life and property ; and yet this proportion is considerably' higher than exists in most towns of a similar character. For instance—in round numbers—the proportion in Birmingham is 1 to 600; in Sheffield it is 1 to 700; in Leeds 1 to 800; in Halifax and Salford 1 to 900; in Coventry 1 to 1000; whilst in Macclesfield the ratio falls to 1 in 1950. All these towns are more or less affected by or dependant upon manufacture and commerce, and hence may be fairly compared. Of course, when the population becomes less dense a smaller police force is more efficient for the supervision of crime than a comparatively large one where masses congregate together, and from their very numbers impede the progress of justice. It is therefore useless to continue the comparison to smaller towns. And although but a few eases have been produced in which the police force appears to be diaproportioned to, and insufficient for the con- trol of, the respective populations, yet enough has been said to show that to become equal to the &dies expected from it, the police establishment in England and Wales must he much augmented—and hence its expendi- ture must be greatly increased. Whilst these consideration; however, apply to what probably will hereafter take place, Mr. Redgrave's statistics help us to understand what has already come to pass. His returns amount to this, that— The cost of the police establishment for 1857 was.. £1,265,579 And the oast of the police establishment for 1858 was ....1,447,019

And hence that, in addition to an augmentation in the strength of the corps, the increase for its sepport amounts in a single year to 181,4404 It is only just to state that Mr. Redgrave asserts that many incidental expenses for 1858 will not be repeated. Doubtless such is the ease with respect to many outgoings indispensable on the first establish- ment of the force ; and if the strength of the police body remain at its present efficiency, such expenditure will not again be needed. But if the establishment needs to be increased in numbers—a position few thoughtful persons will be prepared to dispute—a corresponding addi- tion to the estimates must result. Ind in confirmation of this opinion, the details of the sums voted for the civil service for 1859 bears witness : for, although the estimates are arranged in a different manner from the one adopted in the Judicial Statistics, it appears that the items of the expenses of the police force for 1859 shew a definite increase upon the corresponding estimates for 1858 on every point, with the exception of salaries and the cost of the metropolitan police courts.

II. The first item in the above table thus discovers a very serious— though needful—increase in the estimated expenditure of our police esta- blishments. Nor does the second item hold out any promise for a pro- portionate diminution. The reverse. is unhappily the case ; for, whilst in 1857,

The cost of prosecutions is stated by Mr. Redgrave to be £95,890 In 1858, the civil service estimates return them at 150,000 which proves an increase of 54,1101. in a single year.

III. The details of the third portion of the subject are not so easily dealt with. In truth they are very complicated ; and it is .only by doing what the present letters do not profess to accomplish that we can arrive at the results they propose to determine. The present attempt is to discover the proportionate annual amount of the cost of crime in Eng- land and Wales, independent of Scotland and Ireland. The method, however, upon which the Civil Service Estimates are compiled preclude the possibility of ascertaining such statistics for any fractional portion of the Empire, or for anything short of the United Kingdom of England and Ireland. It is true that the amount of criminal outlay for any single year—such as for the year 1858—can be ascertained by means of a combined research in the volumes of the Judicial Statistics and of the Civil Service Estimates. Even this result cannot be calculated with exact precision. It will have been observed, that a sufficiently large margin has been allowed for these contingencies ; for, whilst the estimated cost of crime is 2,700,0001., two millions and a half of money, it has been argued, is the sum actually spent. When, however, we leave the region of definite expense for the atmosphere of proportionate cost, we can no longer confine ourselves to the estimates fur England and Wales alone— and for this simple reason, that such returns do not—in all cases—afford the information required. In those items wherein we are able to trace the proportionate expenditure, this method will of course be pursued, and to them attention will be in the first place directed. These details will supply subject matter for the conclusion of the present letter. It will be reserved far the following one to discuss the Civil Service Estimates for the Convict Service in Great Britain and Ireland during the last ten years ; whilst it is proposed that a concluding letter shall contaia such practical remarks which some consideration of the foregoing statis- tics seem to suggest.

One of the items in the cost of crime for England and Wales, is the expense incurred by the county and borough gaols. The following pre- sents at a glance a statement of the ordimu-y cost of the county prisons for the last ten years :-

1849 £433,701 1854 £508,964 1850 408,320 1855 :513,613 1851 428,836 1856 515,917 1852 435,162 1857 447,004 1853 450,416 1858 441,190 These returns are furnished by Mr. Redgrave. They prove that al- though in the expenditure of the county gaols there has been a slight and gradual decrease for the last two years, yet that from 1850 to 1856 there was an equally gradual, and a more decided advance ; and that the di- minution observed in 1857 and 1858 is not a decrease from an average expenditure, but a slight decline from a very greatly augmented outlay. In fact, we are almost in the same position in which we found ourselves ten years ago—but not so advantageously placed—and we are positively spending more, by sums varying from 32,000/. downwards, than at any period from 1849 to 1853. The question, then, with regard to the bo- rough prisons, stands thus :—Our present rate of outlay approximates to that of 1849; it largely exceeds the returns for the years 1850-52; it falls short of those for 1853-56; and it is nearly equal to that for 1857.

The only other two items which may be calculated for England and Wales, apart from the returns for Ireland and Scotland, are the cosrof criminal lunatics, and the charge for reformatories. The charge in 1858 for criminal lunatics does not seem to require further notice than the statement of the fact that it amounted to upwards of 22,0001. The na- tional outlay upon reformatories is an expense which, the sooner it is increased and the larger is the augmentation, the more quickly and the more surely will the aggregate cost of crime eventually be diminished. Mr. Redgravo calculates them at 31,000/. Last year the cost was 45,0001. The estimates for the present year raise the sum to 50,0001.; and this last amount does not include 40001., the first year's vote for Ire- land.

Hence, in conclusion—to recapitulate shortly the results at present ob- tained—it appears that on the estimates (in round numbers) For the police foree there has been an increase of.... £180,000 For the cost of prosecution 54,000 For reformatories 14,000 Total £248,000

in a single year; and that the estimates for the borough prisons are sta- tionary when compared with the expenditure ten years ago.

The following letter will give details of the increase of 200,0001. which is observable upon the estimates voted by the House of Commons for convict services at home and in the Colonies for the year 1858, when compared with those for 1849.

[To Sc continued.] INC/MEER.