Letters to the Editor

CRIME IN AMERICA [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sre,—I was much interested in the article appearing in the Spectator of May 19th by Mr. Atkins on Crime in America. He has hoivever, in my opinion failed to get at the ioot- eaus,elt the extraordinary-+prevalenCe of crime in the United States. The true ex-planation to those who are familiar with the administration of criminal laws is not far to seek.

So long as crime can be made to pay, and pay handsomely, RD long will there be an adequate number of persons who will take to it as a profession. It is admitted on all hands that bootlegging is at present one of tha.most,successful businesses in the United States, and second only to it is robbery whether accompanied by murder or not.. Prohibition per se ought not theoretically to account for the, increasing. wave of crime that has its commencement .from. a year ,that is almost coinci-: dent with the passing of the Volstead Act. Practically, however, it opens up a field of profit to those who break the law that has tempted not merely the criminal class but many others who-did-not belong to it to engage in it. The United States is said to be full of millionaires who have become so in a very short space of time through having successfully evaded the law. These men, as Mr. Atkins pointed out, stop at no violence that may be necessary to conduct their- unlawful traffic.

Apart from this, Prohibition has been responsible for creating millions of law-breakers who expose themselves to punishments often much- more drastic than those which have hitherto been-meted out to what are ordinarily classified as -serious crimes in civilized countries. One man for the second offence, of having a half-bottle of whisky in his• possession was actually sentenced to penal servitude for• life. All these offences against the law are in reality not offences against morality,- for neither- the manufacture, the sale, nor tire consumption of spirits is- treated .as such in any other civilized or even semi-civilized country. The result of sa creating an enormous class of offenders liable to criminal punishment has been to divert the police from their proper functions, to crowd prisons, and so congest the business of the courts of justice that they cannot overtake their

ordinary work. - In the United States the number of criminals who are detected and punished has always been very much less in proportion to the crimes committed than in older communities like our own. This is due partly to the inefficiency and rela- tively small number of the police, the corruption that is widespread amongst all classes of officials, and the crude and cumbrous administration of the law, which offers many Chances of escape to the criminal who is actually brought up for trial. It is estimated that of the 12,000 murders annually committed in the United States only about 1 per cent. result in death sentences which are carried out. Contrast this state of matters with such a country as Scotland, where it is estimated on good authority that two out of every three murderers are brought to trial and where a premeditated Murder or one committed -in the course of committing some Other crime is- invariably followed by the death sentence when satisfactorily established ; and yet it has not been necessary to have more than one execution on an average for the past

twenty -years. • In my own experience as • one of thirteen judges of -the High Court for seventeen years, I had only to try four cases of premeditated murder. In one the accused was acquitted by a majority, in the other three cases the death sentence was pronatmced, but was only -carried out in one owing to circumstances which appeared to the Scottish Secretary to be extenuating—the sentence being commuted to penal

servitude for life. '

The fact- that vigilance societies have had to be formed-in America in order to cope with the constant holds-up of banks is a most convincing proof of the utter breakdown of the judicial administration in criminal cases. In what civilized country are people authorized to shoot at sight people whom they believe to be on the point of committing robbery, or

in what other country are civilians offered a premium, as was done in Chicago some years ago, for every motor bandit whom they might succeed in shooting when escaping with his booty ? It is not on light grounds that the leading legal society in the. U.S. has characterized the administration of justice in the States as a scandal and a disgrace. To increase the sentences, as Mr. Atkins points out is being done now, will have little effect in reducing crime so long as only a fraction of those who commit crimes are detected and brought to punishment.

Highway robbery in England was rife even when the highwayman paid the penalty of his offence on the scaffold; but before terminating his career in this way he had usually

committed successful- robberies over a considerable period of years. The comparative certainty of detection, coupled with adequate but not excessive punishment, is the only way by which crime can be kept within bounds now that the accumulation of wealth has given countless opportunities for the expert robber and housebreaker to amass a fortune within a short time, and when mechanical invention has provided him with easy means of breaking open safes, and of

escaping in high-speed motor cars from the scene of his exploits.

The Americans as a people are, I am convinced, not a bit more criminal than the. people of the older countries of Europe, but so long as through their ineffective police depart- ments and other causes they fail to bring to justice more

than a small percentage of those engaged in serious crime, so long will such crime flourish. When crime ceases to pay,

the. American criminal may be induced to try other methods of earning his living, but not before.—I am, Sir, &c.,.

EDW. T. SALVESEN.

Dean Park Rouse, Queensferry Road, Edinburgh.