PRESENT-DAY CRIME.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5254, 21 March 1928, Page 4

PRESENT-DAY CRIME.

MHO IS TO BLAME POLICE INSPECTOR’S VIEW. Parents, pictures, and papers must share the blame fer the present prevalence of juvenile, crime, according to Mr S. Manktelow, police inspector, of Sydney,, who is on a visit to his old home town, Hamilton (states the 'Waikato Times). However, he remarked that he had not noticed any suc'h increase in juvenile erme in his own experience when he had charge cf the large suburban area of Waver J ley. Mr Manktelow remarked that there was no parental control nowadays ; parents simply looked for the big money for the Children, who looked for ways of spending it. Much harm was done also by nonsensical picture shows, which often led young people to admire mischief and crime.

In New Souh Wales, aids Mr Manktelow, it was difficult to gauge the extent of juveniue crime, as all cases were heard in the court if the accused was less, than 18 years old. No reporter was allowed to be present, and no report appeared ■unless the case was one that had to come before a jury. 'He thought this was wrong. The fact of the trial and the sentence should be published; However, Mr Manktelow is very 'stro,ngly opposed to the detailed and sensatiosnal publication of crime stories. His comments were evoked when the so-called “ razor gangs ” of Sydney were mentioned. The accounts of the razor outrages had been much exaggerated. He hesitated to make an attack on the Press, but—“Go ahead I” the interviewer invited.

“It’s like when somebody goes over the Gap,” he said. “You people get hold of it, advertise it—their motives and all that. Then weak-minded people, think'ng to gain a .little notoriety, go on and follow the example. When there is a suicide there are generally one or two more, whereas if nothing were said about them there would be no more.”

Sb it was with the using of razors in Sydney. A few had begun it, and the newspapers had made such a sensation of it that now the carrying of a razor was very common in the underworld. However, the talk about gangs was much exaggerated. “.We have got no gangs in Sydney worth speaking of.”