CRIME IN AMERICA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4630, 26 November 1923, Page 2

CRIME IN AMERICA.

APPALLING ANNUAL RECORDS. The moral issue, of which so much is made sometimes,/ in New Zealand, is dismissed at the foot of an article dealing with crime in the United States by the statement that there is one divorce in every nine marriages, and that returns show that divorce has increased 400 per cent, since 1840. The appalling annual list of muiders, which the writer attributes to the general apathy of the American people towards law enforement, naturally relegates to a minor news value the social morality question. Reports presented to the American Bar Association show that in 1921 “there were,9,so'o homicides as compared with 9000 in 1920. In no year during the last ten did the number fall below 8,500. In other words, since 1910, no fewer than 84,000 of our citizens have perished by poison, the pistol, the knife, or other unlawful and deadly injury. The largest proportionate ratio of crime is in our cities of fewer than 800,000 population. It therefore may be conservatively estimated that in this Republic last year there occurred 7850’ murders. To these may be added 6790 cases of manslaughter and other unlawful killings, totalling 14,646 unjustifiable homicides.” The American committee which furnished the report investigated criminal procedure in the English and French courts, and came to the conclusion that expedited justice and prompt executions impressed the public, while in America the tardy proceedings defeated the ends of justice. “ Two or three years elapse between the crime and the execution sometimes,” it states, “ and a first verdict judgment forms merely a preliminery skirmish. We recommend that a permanent commission be appionted to formulate a standard code of criminal procedure for the States of the Union.”