AMERICAN CRIME

Hokitika Guardian, 5 March 1926, Page 4

AMERICAN CRIME

AX UXEXYI AiH.E REGOR D

SAN FRANCISCO, December 30.

The closing of the year witnessed a phenomenal series of sensational crimes in various parts of the United States, forcing more to the attention of the world America’s unenviable record as leading the nations of the universe in the matter of crime. In fact, human life has never been as insecure in the United States as it is to-day. The American murder rate is sixteen times higher than the murder rate for England and Vales. It is three times as high as that of Italy, its nearest

competitor in crime among civilised nations. To put it baldly, it is the highest murder rate in the world. And the killers responsible for keeping it so high are not hordes of “ uneducated aliens.” the backwash of Europe, as some of the experts have been pleased to designate the msiereants, hut nativehorn Americans*.

These statements were made in "The Homicide Problem. ' a paper by Frederick 1.. Hoffman. L.L.D., consulting statistician of the Prudential Assurance Company of America, a wellknown student of crime.

One nmn in ten thousand is doomed to die a violent death from to-day. according to Dr 1 loflman's statistical data, based on the figures for former years. This means that of the eighty thousand football enthusiasts that »a Idled a game between the Stanford and Berkeley Universities near San Francisco a few weeks ago. eight men or women will he choked, stabbed, or riddled with bullets before next year's game is played.

There are no less than ten thousand deaths a. vear in this country by murder. and had as this record is. the city of .Memphis, in Tennessee, leaves it far behind. .Memphis men kill eight times

as often as men in any other average city of the United States. In other words, the murder rate of the city of Memphis is—in proportion—exactly one hundred and twelve times higher than the murder rate of Great Britain. Most of the victims of the Memphis killings are negroes. MURDER A DAY.

When Dr Huffman's figures for Memphis were first published. that city’s Mayor and newspapers contended that a number of murders ascribed to Memphis had been oui-01-town. "eases” brought to the city for treatment and ultima (oly dying there. While this explanation was found to he true to a certain degree', the fact remained that no oilier city in lute world had so many suburban homicides us Memphis, stnied Dr Hoffman in reply.

Last year New York—a veritable hot lied of enn e -had a murder a day almost, tint oven s.>. "wicked” New York has, and 'has bad tor years, one of the lov.esi homicide records in the 1 tilled States. Dr Hoffman gives these reasons: It. has a large Jewish population. It has a very large percentage of foreign-horn. It is both a great metropolitan and industrial cent re.

According to statistics ihc most lawabiding element in the United States are the Jew-. Next in order come the foreign horn, and then the native uhites. Coloured people figure at the bottom of the list.

Most law-abiding is the East, with it> immigrants. Industrial centres like Providence. Pittsburgh. Iloston and New York all show comparatively low record', according to these statistics, j anil Hartford, in Connecticut. is tahulali'd tis the inii't law-abiding city out of all those surveyed. "Murder and crime are greatest among native-horn Americans in the smith,” Dr Hoffman was quoted as saying. "There the sanctify of human hlc i> a ghastly joke. Rut ihete is a sharp difference between the foreignhorn and ihe childi on of the, second-, generation. I hey have had a chance to ahsoi i. our < ultiire. and it is inevil ■P'lc .'"iin ”1 them should take the "orst ol it. Then we have the possibility ol a hold and cruel criminal.” FEW FOREIGNERS. Ihe West, almost wholly of while native .slotk.. has a lower homicide record than the South, hut a higher one than the East, "here immigrants help to keep the late ol murders down. In Dr 11 oil man s booklet the following is quoted Imm a New York newspaper: "The sociological department of the f niversity ol Omaha has just completed a survey of ill in-- among thirty nationalities of the city. Working independently they have just tabulated i figures "inch exactly confirm Dr Huffman . Native white American stock I turu is lied two and a half as many persons arrested as the foreign horn, and 1 the negroes furnished three times as 1 many as the native horn white stock. j "Only mice the foreign lairn crashed , uto prominence in the crime records j il Omaha. In three hundred eouvic- > ions in the Federal Court for viola- I ions ol the Volstead Act. there were 1 cvcnty-livc Italians.” )

I'ldticalion lines not save a potential imrdercr from his late, if anything.

I tends to increase crime. All the 'osourees ol science are af the educaed criminal's disposal, contends Dr ‘I off 111 an.

Two factors are responsible for the over-increasing tendency to crime. Their importance is not equal, it is pointed out. Hut their combined inlluence is deeply nefarious.

first, lhe revolvers and their unlimited sale are direct factors in increasing crime in America. Dr Hoffman once expressed himself that in his opinion revolvers are manufactured lor the convenience of burglars, holdup men and ” two-men guys.” Any man, woman and child in the United States can order a gun by until, give a general delivery address—and tile murderous u capon becomes their property, while no other country ill the .world boasts ol such facilities. The Sullivan law of Xiiv York State concerning weapons has had good effect, and it is now being urged for other States to adopt it. in order effectually to reduce the awful crime record in America. GUARANTEED TO ” 1x11,1..” Cheap magazines everywhere in America arc advertising revolvers by mail, which can be bail from a sovereign to AM Ills, guaranteed to "shout to kill.” That they are largely bought for that purpose does not admit of a question of doubt, thinks Dr Hoffman. Dealing with poison. Dr Hoffman cites a Chicago case where a woman bought enough poison to kill a dozen families on the alleged plea of spraying plants. Another cause of increasing crime in Uncle Sam’s domain is the detective stories that are enjoying such perennial popularity. ” Murder is set forth with alluring attractiveness in countless cheap publications which eater to a morbid and depraved appetite.” says Dr Hoffman.

Lawyers, judges and other students ol crime have voiced from time to lime a warning about the ever-increas-ing wave ot crime that threatens to submerge the United States. But it was left to the insurance companies to bring the matter to the attention of the people. It seems that the insurance companies boar heavy losses by murderers. They pay out insurance to the widows and children of men, who in the natural course of events, would have gone on paying their policy premiums for years. Dr Hoffman further insists that there are numberless eases labelled offhand "suicide” or “accidental death”

which are really cleverly-executed murders. He says that reckless drivers of motor-cars are much too rarely convicted of manslaughter. lie also points to the number of famous murders whore the killers have never been found and are even now walking amongst the populace receiving the fruits of their crime. Ho recounts: "The Cronkite case remains unsolved, so does the murder of Dorothy Keenan, the death of a voting student at the Northwestern University at Chicago, and another student at Kent, Connecticut. No one has been punished for the murder of Peters, near New York, nor has any one been apprehended in the Hall murder case of New Brunswick. Those guilty in the -Mere Rouge outrages and guilty in the Herrin massacre have nil escaped the just consequences of their crimes. Murder litis, indeed, become a safe trade and the Government and the public view the most, appalling situation on record with indifference, if not with a lack of serious concern.” PROYKD RY FIGURE". As to whether this last, accusation he true or not. the following figures are quoted hi the “Homicide Problems ” : Out of lAS murderers sentenced to death in the State of New A ork from 1889 to 1923. only 298 were executed. according to Warden Lawos. of Sing Sing Prison. During the period 1912-19 in the States of New Hampshire, New York. Indiana. Vermont. Virginia, -Massachusetts. Ohio. Pennsylvania. California, Kentucky. Connecticut and Utah, there occurred Hi. 777 homicides, hut of the murderers cmlv I7A were sentenced to death and of these only 319 were executed. “Capital punisTtmenl is to he enforced if il is to continue.” says Dr Hoffman, who then proceeds brilliantly j to state the case against capital punishment. for he is not a believer in

" a life for a Iff." he reasons for doing away with the death penalty have been summarised hy Warden Lawos as follows 'I ■ The death sentence is uncertain ami spasmodic in its application. No other punishment lacks in so marked a degree Hint most important of all elements, certainty of execution : (2.1 life imprisonment is not so uncertain as il Ims been popularly supposed to he, nor is il sodiflicull of application: (3) there is a greater facility in obtaining convictions for homicide in abolition Stales limn in the Slates w here lin death penalty is arbitrarily imposed. " States in which the dealh penalty ha- been done a wav with hate not a higher. Imt sometimes a lower homicide rate than the States in which capital punishment is enforced. The execution of the death sentence is a relie ol barbarism which has no place in modern t ivilised society." STUDY OF ( ItI.ME. An organised nniimml society for the study ol* crime, eorresnotiding to the great national orgiinisation engaged in promoting health, is advocated b\ Dr Hoffman, and this, he says, should ho coupled with a scientific study of the influence of geographical position, climate. racial stock. Prohibition, and other factors on the prevalence of

There has been formed this year a National Crimes Commission in (lie City of New York. There exists also a Chicago society for the studv of crime and a similar organisation in Los Angeles, Southern California. And finally, Dr lloflnian advocates that the police force everywhere in the U.S.A. he enlarged, as there are indiral ions that the number of “men ill blue” is, insufficient lor protection of Hie lawabiding from the lawless. I