INCREASE IN CRIME

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 48, 20 November 1920, Page 9

INCREASE IN CRIME

ACTIVITIES OF' AUSTRALIAN POLICE. Dliring tho past week the value in property recovered or accounted for by reason of many arrests, Ootals in value just .on •• <63000.- says tho ."Sydney Morning Herald" of November.B.. At one divisional station .alone .the property thus accounted for is valued at X 452. Special night patrols have been organised. Nearly one hundred arrests have been effected recently.

, The increase in crime, held-ijo be due to . all. tho 'abnormal conditions .'to which tho war has given vise, is not by any means peculiar to Australia; it is worldwide, ' It knows practically no geographical bounds. That crime, especially the more serious classes of",it, is prevalent in New Soityh Wales need?, unfortunately, no emphasis. The fact that the .Government was faced with the necessity for doubling the facilities for dealing with serious crimes in tthe metropolitan district, by the passing of an Act only. recently to set up a second C'ottrt of Quarter Sessions, bears sufficient witness to its prevalence. This Court has been set. up to relieve the positoin generally, including t3ie accumulation of cases that havo been standing over, some of . them for many weeks, some of them for several months. Of men of formerly good character straying from tho path of moral rectitude there are only isolated cases.: l'or the'most part it is .the criminal' class who are exercising the minds of those whose duty, it is to protect the public and their property. The re-arrest of persons on bail ponding the t'rial of their cases by. me higher Court is pointed to, for instnnco, as some evidence of this.

Garrotting is not what the polico call a fashionable crime at present. Criminals' just now are ..concentrating largely .on. housebreaking . and on warehouses. Criminals look to Sydney, above all utner cities in Australia, its an illimitable lield. because of its flourishing conditions and the fact that it i! a greut shipping-porr, permitting, incidentally, better opportunities for a quick "getaway" than i.he'otlicr o.'ties. This all makes the task of the polico heavier and more responsiblo.

The increase in crime generally in New South Wales is strikingly reflected in the statistics. The figures for 1918 showed an increase 011 those for 1917 of 5232 cases, and illie 1919 figures indicated ail increase of 2-147 over 1918. Taking the total number of more serious classes of< offenco3 recorded in the police gazette, the figures show an increase of 157.1 eases for 1919.' compared with 1918; the increaso in 1918 contrasted with 1917 was only one case. Comparing 1919 with 1918, tlio biggest increase was in offences against' property without violence; those numbered 6534 in. 191S and 7811 in. 1919, or an increase of 100". "