The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1876-01-15
Tncrease of Crime.

Il Va ~ AAAA ~
Were any one to set himself patiently
to work to collect the cases Of outrageous
crime that are from day TO day reported
in the public press of the country, a sin
gle month would suffice to yield COL
lection that, thus embodied, would be
read with nothing less than horror. We
do not in this reler to those numerous
petty offenses that burden the daily cal
endar OF every police court; but to
crimes of outrage, larceny, arson, rape,
robbery, murder. There is no day that
the columns of newspapers are not bur-
dened by local and telegraphic reports OF
crimes such as these.
Such a fearful accumulation of crimi-
nal acts can not be attributed TO any
special causes that are in themselves
merely accidental and temporary. 1t
bespeaks sad deterioration in the con-
stituents of cur social life. The fre-
auency and enormity ofthese outrageous
crimes against life, person, and property
point to woful relaxing Of public sentl-
ment upon the subject of such grave
ofenses against the social state. Men
are apt to dismiss the occurrence OF
some criminal horror from their minds
as without any concern to themselves,
provided they are not themselves the
victims of the outrage. They fail to con-
slider that society itself is outraged; that
individual safety is endangered when
ever public security is invaded by the
commission Of some high-handed crime.
Society is in some considerable
degree blamable for this woful In
crease OF crime. It Furnishes &C.
yerely and summariIy the petty
offender, while the desperate and red.
handed criminal is, for the time being,
lionized by public attentions, and toe
often comes to be regarded as marty
by public sympathy. Our criminal Law
has come to be surrounded with such
web of sophistry and technicalities tina,
however monstrous the offense and plair
the proof, there are found loop-holes O.
escape to almost every great offender.
In another particular there is an un
wholesome public sentiment that works
infinite mischief to the moral conditions
of the eommunity,-and that Is in th'
idea of exonerating an offender from al
the legal consequences of his crime oil
condition OF his making either complete
or partial restitution Of the gains de
rived from his criminal act. There ar
almost daily reports of breaches of trus
involving loss to innocent parties o
vast amounts. OF course the first effor
is TO secure the thief or the offender; bu
not to arraign him before the crimina
tribunal as an offender against the law
but to wiring from him so much as ma!
be of his stolen gains al
restitution to the sufferers by his crime
and almost uniformly on terms and con
ditions that he shall not be prosecuted
for his ofense against the law.
Such things have come to be publi'
and notorious. 1t is an arrangement
that the detective system as now prac
ticed is calculated to foster and promot'
to a most mischievous degree. The indi
vidual who may be the loser, if the OF
fender can not be made to refund all o
in part, virtually says, make m
whole from loss, and care no
what depredations you may horeafte
commit upon the community. What i
this but plainly and publicly compound
ing a felonyi And this is Of il
self a crime. And yet crime that me
in good standing are almost daily con
mitting. 1t is from sentiments like thi
that criminals are encouraged and Grim
consequently increased. II men VIII
pass for good citizens would in all sue
cases sternly refuse to compromis
with crime, criminals would be few'
md the increase Of crime would
checked.