Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-12-14
AMERICA LEADS IN CRIME
BY Frederic j. HaSkin
IXT ASHINGTON, D. c., Dec. 1O.-Wash-
w ington has about three times as

year than in all of England and Wales put
together. In typical American city there
are several times as many burglaries every
year as there are in London, in proportion
to population. over 5000 automobiles were
stolen in New York in 1919, while 290 were
stolen in London and ten in Liverpool
These are few typical samples, chosen
at random, of the statistics presented by
Raymond b. Fo-d4ck in his book on Ameri-
can police systems. They show that the
United States leads the world in crime not
by a small margin, but by several hundred
per cent. 1t is perhaps the most lawless
place on earth which pretends to have a
civilized government.
Mr.. Fosdick occupies a unique place in
this country as an expert on crime and DO
lice work, who has studied all the principal
police systems of Europe, as well as that of
his own country. During the war he was
placed in control of the commission on train
ing camp activities, which was certainly one
of the most creditable of our war time &C.
tivities. His book is not of popular nature
and appeals chiefly to students and profess
SIGNALS. 1t therefore seems worth while to
give the gist of his remarkable facts and
arguments here.
Far more interesting than proof of Amer
ica's world leadership in the production of
all kinds of crime is his acute analysis of
the reasons for this. His viewpoint here is
that of a cosmopolitan rather than a typi-
cal American reformer. He does not see the
the fact that We do not all go to Sunday
school, nor in the movies nor in the dime
novels, nor in the foxrrot, nor in short skirts,
homebrew nor cabarets. He does not be-
lfeve that great wave of moral reform
could sweep all this crime away, nor that
a multiplication of laws would solve the
problem On the contrary, he makes out a
strong case for the view that what we suffer
from is too many laws, which attempt to
regulate personal conduct instead of to pre-
unenforcible, because they are not sufficient
ly supported by opinion, and which have had
the effect Of making all law ridiculous, and
of giving social sanction to much law-break-
ing.
Causes of Crime
True, he sees other causes for our nation
al criminality. He shows that our aston
lsh1ng mixture of unaSsimllated racial ele-
ments presents a unique police problem. He
shows that the absurdity of our adLlinistra-
ton of criminal law is an encouragement to
to crime. He shows that almost any crimi-
nal who can hire a lawyer has at least an
even chance to escape conviction, and that
one with plenty of money, or with political
pull, is seldom convicted This is painfully
true, and has been pointed out before. But
Mr.. Fosdick's analysis of the national mind
is the most original and arresting thing he
has to offer. He shows that hone but the
Germans of the period before the war were
men a regimented mass, rather than group
of free individuals.
"The willingness with which we under
take to regulate by law the personal habits
of private citizens is a source of perpetual
establishment to Europeans" he writes. "In
no country in Europe with the exception of
Germany, is an attempt ever made to en-
force standards of conduct which do not
meet with &c al public approval, or, at the
behest of what may be minority, to bring
80 =
scope of criminal legislation. With us, how
ever, every year adds it's accretion to our
sumptuary laws. 1t suits the judgment of
some and the temper of others to convert
into crimes pra tices which they deem mis-
chievous or unethical They resort to law
to supply the deficiencies of other agencies
of social control. They attempt to govern
by means of law things which in their
nature do not admit of objective treatment
and external coer iIn . d. The views Of
private conduct are made the legal require
ments of the state. We are surrounded by
penal laws whose only purpose is to enforce
by threat certain standards of morality.
Moral Laws 49,.
Indeed, this presents one OF the strange
anomalies of American life: with an intoler-
ance for authority and an emphasis upon in
dividual rights more pronounced, perhaps,
than in any other nation, we, of all people,
not even excepting the Germans pre-emi-
nently are addicted to the habit of standard
izing the lives and morals of our citizens.
Nowhere in the world is there great an
anxiety to place the regulation of mor:l af-
fairs in the hand of the police, and no.
where are the police so incapable of carry
ing out such regulations.
"Our concern, moreover, is for externals,
for results that are formal and apparent
rather than essential. We are less anxious
about preventing a man from doin5 wrong
to others than in preventing him from doing
what we consider harm to himself. We
attack symptoms, rather than causes, and in
doing so we create a species of moral1st1c
despotsm which overrides the private con-
science and destroys liberty where liberty is
most precious"
There is little anyone can d. to that
paragraph, but Mr.. Fosdick goes on to de-
scribe some Of our laws.
memorable Laws
"Often the laws are such to defy en-
forcement even if they had behind them a
substantial body of public opinion. Thus
there are laws against kissing, laws against
face powder and rouge, laws against ear
rings, laws regulating the length of Women's
skirts, laws fixing the size of hatpins.
One would have to scar the ordinances pub |
lished by the police president of Berlin to
find any parallel to the arbitrary regulations
in regard to private conduct with which
American citizens are surrounded.
'sIt is estimated that there are on the av-
erage something like 10000 statutes-fed- |
eral state and local-applicable to given
city To enforce them all is of course
utterly impossible. With ten times
the number of policemen it could not be
done"
In a. word, much of our law in the United
States has become tissue OF absurdlty,
which grows in both size and absurdity ev-
orv YEAR Personal liberty in this country