Arizona republican., 1921-01-16

efforts have been made to meet the demand. In California there is a state bureau of Identification and a number of the western coast cities have a vol untary cooperative organization by which they exchange identification data Finally, a national bureau of criminal Identification was recently established in Washington by the In ternational Association of Chiefs of Pc lice, and it is hard at work today gath ering Identification data. It is sound in principal and useful, but it is mere ly private enterprise, which can not command adequate support. It pro- vides the nucleus for a national police department, such as has been recently suggested in authoritative quarters
 It has been suggested that such national organization might be a new government department, with a cabi- net member at its head, or else it migllt be merely a bureau of the department of justice. A man of large caliber. .wish a scientific knowledge and practical experience of police methods, such as Arthur Woods or Raymond B. Eos dick, would be placed at the head of it.
 Not Federal Police
 This department would by no means constitute a federal police force. 1t is recognized that. especially in this coun tllC POiANC PAODlCAu ID a lO(dA RlOb- lem. The national organization would be primarily an Identification bureau clearing house by which the photo graphs. finger prints and the Bertillon measurements possessed by each po- lice department would be available to al. It would also probably catalogue. descriptions of stolen property and dis tinguishing characteristics of various major crimes. so that a criminal would | NN. he committed a crime.
 It is evident that such a bureau could do an immense amount of good without
 in the least interfering with the auton-
 omy of local police forces. For exam
 pie, today many of our small police forces have two systems of identifying criminals = the finger print and the Bertillon measurement. Furthermore, | in many of the smaller cities neither of the systems is correctly used-there is
 no one on the force who understands
 them. The national police bureau could see to 1t that one standard sys- tenn was used everywhere. and that in
 every police force there was man who understood the making and keep | ing of these records. This one com paratively inexpensive move would do
 much to make life harder for our lead | ing criminals. The dangerous profes- ! SiOnal criminal who f1ndS 1t too not loI
 him in his favorite large city. such as
 New York or Chicago, is now very apt | to rusticate for while in some smaller town in the knowledge that he is prob
 ably quite safe there. If the police do
 take him upon some minor charge, the
 chances are that they will never find out who he is. He may get into Jaii on a vagrancy charge and stay there comfortably, with little chance that he l will be sent back to New York to face the major charges against him. When \ New York had a brief reign of police
 efficiency a few years ago the small
 towns in New Jersey were deluged
 with criminals who gave the feeble
 local police forces a hard life. The
 criminals were merely rusticating foI
 a while, until conditions should be- come more favorable to their profes-
 sion in the metropolis. They did no' have long to wait.
 All of this easy system of escape pS travel would become impossible II WIG had an efficient national bureau O identification. And this bureau migh be expanded in a good many ways | might for example. make a study O European police systems and help th' American cities to install new an' useful methods. It might also easil. establish a training school for pohc' executives. In a word. 1t might prin' our ragged and various collection notice forces up to some uniform standard of efficiency.