The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1912. CRIME IN BRITAIN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 89, 13 April 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1912. CRIME IN BRITAIN.

Commenting on the criminal statistics recently issued by the Homo Office, the “Manchester Guardian” expresses the opinion that they .make it clear that the increase in recorded crime which began in England some years ago has not as yet appreciably lessened. The total number of persons tried for indictable offences in 1910 was G 0,389. This is a slightly Jrtwer figure than that for either of the two preceding years, but it is higher than that for any year before them for which figures are available. The amount of crime in proportion to population lias also been increasing in recent years. In 18G2-G the number of crimes known to the police for each hundred thousand of the population was 440. In 1897-1901, after steadily diminishing, it had reached 249. By 1908 it had risen again to 300, and in 1910 it was still at the unsatisfactory height of 288. In the report which it issued last year the Homo Office offered, in explanation of this increase the “growing sentimentality” with which crime is viewed, and the influence of “pernicious” literature. This time the figures are given without any comment, except that of a London magistrate uffiose experience lends him to believe tl\at while crimes of violence are on the decrease crimes of fraud are increasing. The figures hear him out partly. Burglary, housebreaking, and arson have remained stationary in the last recorded year, and there has been a fall from 1495 to 1316 in crimes of violence. The chief increase has been in the crimes which the Children Act was designed to bring to book, and in this fact rather thqn in such explanations as the Home Office last year put forward lies the explanation of the apparently alarming increase in criminal figures. With the perfecting of protective legislation and the increasing efficiency of police work a great deal of crime that formerly escaped punishment is now dealt with in court and added to the records. Detection may have outrun prevention for the moment, hut it would he a mistake to base on that any fear of permanently increased lawlessness.