CAUSES OF CRIME

Evening Star, Issue 19782, 4 February 1928, Page 14

CAUSES OF CRIME

DISCUSSED BY EXPERTS 4- , HOW CAN IT BE OUSTED?, , What are the causes of crime and how can it be curbed or cured ? This problem is the subject of a symposium in the December ‘ Current History,’ in which every angle of the admittedly serious situation is discussed by a group of men well qualified by research and experience to express valued opinions. The symposium opens with a report of the proceedings of the National Conference on the Reduction of Crime recently held in Washington. The tendency of this gathering of distinguished doctors, psychiatrists, and criminologists was to recognise crime as a social disorder needing intelligent, scientific treatment rather than vindictive punishment. A warning note was, however, sounded by Chief Justice Tatt against allowing “interest in ariminaJs to go to the point of making effective punishment of crime subordinate to schemes for reform of criminals, however admirable they may be.” In general, the contributors to the symposium form two groups—those who believe that criminals are mentally and physically diseased and should be treated accordingly, and those who believe that criminals adopt crime as a profession more or less voluntary under the social conditions. WOULD CONTROL CHILDREN. Professor Harry Elmer Barnes sees crime as “ one of the costs of our complex civilisation with its tremendous strain on the nervous system.” He would strike at the root of the evil by preventing the development of antisocial conduct in childhood through a comprehensive system of juvenile courts and child-guidance clinics; his “prison of the future”, would bear “ a close resemblance in its objectives and methods to the better State hospitals for the insane that now exist.” George W. Kirchwey says that “ our discreditable crime rate is only what we deserve,” and is the direct result of the social morality wo. have developed, the most undesirable feature of which is our “ rampant individualism.” He agrees with Professor Barnes that we must start with the child, as “the criminal of to-day is only the reckless difficult, unadjusted child of yesterday.” Inefficient enforcement of criminal Jaw, under which only 20 per cent, of the cases result in punishment, is responsible for our crime situation (according to the Hon. John Knight, majority leader of the New York State Senate). He particularly attacks the lower courts, “ where 60 per cent, of the cases are dismissed,” and the importance of the District Attorney, “ whose record qf convictions is as important to him as a baseball player’s batting average.”' P. W. Wilson, former member of the British Parliament, compares criminal law enforcement in America and Europe, and the obvious conclusion from his figures, which show only 10,000 persons in prison in Great Britain, 150 homicides, and fifteen executions, a year, is that both the criminal law is more efficiently enforced and a stronger social conscience has been developed there. American lawlessness is seen by Spencer Brodney, former English and Australian newspaper editor, as a sort of survival of the adventurous pioneer spirit; our crime rate the result of a “get-rich-quick philosophy ” that stops at nothing in the acquisition of wealth, and is condoned by public opinion as “long as you can get away with it.'' V. P. Calverton, editor and author, is, inclined to put most of the blame on Prohibition and the open contempt of the law which it engenders. “Reduction of..the birth rate among people of criminal stocks ” is seen by Austin E. Burges as “ the one ultimate solution of the crime situation.”-