The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-06-15
Cooperation Against Criminals
BY FREDERIC J. HAsKlN.

The International Association of Chiefs
Of Police is arranging to hold its sixteenth
annual convention in Buffalo today. 1t
had been intended to hold the convention
in Los Angeles, but owing to the recent
police scandal there the change to Buff
falo was made The association meets as
d sort OF clearing house for ideas in the
prevention OF crime and aims TO get a
fresh hold on that growing band of men
ana women who live by their wits, setting
their faces against the law. In the mod
ern days Of quick transportation that pO-
lice department must fail which does not
cooperate with its neighbOrs, for the
criminal may be a thousand miles away
from the scene of his crime within twenty
TOUR hours. IL was 10 bring about that Co
operation, and 10 transform the police
forces OF the world into one great organ
iZatiOn, each part aiding the other in its
work, each part looking for the lawbreak-
eTs OF ali, that the international Associa-
ton of Police Chiefs was formed
Along with it was formed the Interna-
tional Bureau Of Identification now To-
Gated in Washington. This bureau has the
records of nearly 5000 criminals. of
course. some Of them have died, and 9TH
ers have reformed, but it IS still compre-
hensive enough 10 embrace about every
/ notorious individual in the United States
and Canada, and most OF the great inter
national criminals as well. So far as the
! u
But 1t is not the old offenders that give
the police departments the most trouble.
They are aware that the photographs of
! these, their BerullOn measurements. and
their finger-prints, perhaps, are accessi BILE
70 the police everywhere But not so with
the new crop of criminals, which amounts
70 hundreds every year. 1t is in an effort
| to acquatnt the police of North America
with them that most of the energy of the
bureau is exercised.
Every now and then Major Richard SyI-
vester, superintendent OF the Washington
police force, whose work at inauguration
| time always commands national common
dalton, issues little book that the public
at large never sees. 1t goes to police head
quarters in the various cities of the cOun-
try, and contains the pictures and de-
sCTiptiOns Of about two hundred recruits
to the ranks of notorious and dangerous
criminals This album is carefully studied
wherever It goes, as in it are the names of
those whom it will be profitable for the
whole police world to watch during many
coming years.
There is no other point in human exist
enca where the battle of wit is so sharp
as where meet the criminal and the guard
/ ian of the law. For every repressive
measure that society is able to adopt, the
/ forger, the bank robber and the porch
climber has d Roland for its Oliver When
effectively shut off i'm one direction they
/ have been able to break through the pre-
cautions against them in another. so that
I
! between the thief and those who would
! suppress him as ever it was.
1t has been estimated by d criminal ex-
/ pert who had his statistics printed by con-
/ gTessiOnal authority. that crime costs the
people of the United States $500. 900 a
year. The way he arrives al this conclu-
/ sion is interesting. He starts out by esji-
mating that the cities and counties of tie
country spend Sl5J000.0lG a year in the pre-
ventiOn and punishment of crime. The
state and national governments spend 500
O0.0O4 more II TeCkOns that there are
I 10000 criminals I'm the United States. and
/ that their stealings when at liberty and
/ loss Of time when in prison. have an ag-
/ sregate value of 500 0Q0,O0N. He places
| about one-half of all the criminals on the
/ list of habituals.
/ His estimate of the number Of criminals
/ is probably under the mark According
/ S0O0O prisoners in the penal institutions
| of the country, and that takes no account
/ of those In the refOrmatOries and other
/ corrective institutions. The number oil
| crimes which go unpublished is almost as
/ great as the number for which justice Is
meted out so that If the per capita fig
/ ures of the expert are correct, the whole
| cost of crime in the United States is con.
/ siderably above the figures given above
Add to this tn prOpOrtiOnata cost in Can
1 ada and Mexico. and the total for Nortl
America would not be far from billion
dollars year.
/ Of the United States and Canada which
use the Bertillon method of criminal iden-
tifiCatiOn. This constitutes photographs in
three positions, measurements of mum
] Der of unChanginS characteristics of the
body, notation of all scars. defOrmities anC
other pecularities. tn sra are seventy DO.
lice organizations belonging to the Inter
/ national Association of Police Chiefs. anC
they all send these identifications to the
Identification Bureau at Washington
More than 4000 photographs are received
there each year. and over 400 identified
tons of criminals result from its aCtiv-
titles.
/ The Bertillon method is the child OF
Che brain Of a French ethnOlogist now
! attached 70 the Paris police service. Il
Is the most widely used of all method:
/ of Identification. But its value extends
only from the twentieth year upward. Z,
| remedy this defect, and to make assur
/ ance more certain in Identification work
the finger print method has been grow
ing in favor. Dip the finger or thumb ir
I ordinary printers ink and then press 81