Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-07-23
LAW ENFORCEMENT

THE United States makes a most
1 humiliating record when it
comes to crime, undetected and un-
punished crime. A very large pro-
portion of our reported crimes are
never punished. The authors are
never arrested, and if they are ar
rested they are not convicted. and
if they are convicted they are pa
rolled or pardoned, and go forth to
repeat their crimes. Take the
crime of murder alone and the
United States makes a perfectly
awful showing as compared with
European countries, or Canada, in
the number of murders per 100000
inhabitants, as we'll as in the num-
Der of convictions. Judge William
N. Gemmill of Chicago laid before
the Committee on Law Enforce
ment of the American Bar associa-
ton the result of his Investigations.
1t shows that St. Louis has the bad
prominence of standing at the head
of all the cities of the United States
for crime. Quoting the Literary
Digest in its last issue, the case is
set forth as follows:
The unenviable distinction of
leading the country in crime does
rot belong to New York, as may
have been popularity supposed, for
statistics gathered by Judge Will
liam N. Gemmill of Chicago show
that with fifty-three killings for
each 100000 inhabitants, or a total
of 426 last year, St. Louis led all
the cities of the United States in
murders and homicides. AS COM
pared with the killings in England
and Wales, those in St. Louis were
too many to count In a survey
of the crime situation he furnished
recently to the Committee on Law
Enforcement of the American Bar
association. Judge Gemmill says
that New York, which people think
is a very wicked city, is high up on
the honor roll. SO far as murder is
concerned, St. Paul alone having
fewer arrests for murders, while
Tlsr,rn rarlr %L;rJ Cr,r,$i
fourth, Buffalo fifth and New Or
leans sixth By comparison, &C
cording to the survey, Los Angeles
has three times as many murders
III proportion to population as New
York. and two and a half times as
many as Chicago. Washington is
shown to have three times as many
murders as New York and twice as
many as Chicago. Detroit. which
likes to be called a model CITY, has
more than twice as many as New
York and nearly double the number
in Chicago. while St. Louis reports
$50 arrests for murder and SO for
manslaughter in 1921. What is
true as to murder is partly true as
to other major crimes, reports
Judge Gemmill, and, as his findings
are quoted in lions Herald (Bos-
ton. Methodist, he says:
"If the balance of the year 1922
equals January and February of this
year, Los Angeles will lead all other
cities in the number Of burglaries
and housebreakings. She is not
even closely followed by any other
large city. Chicago comes next on
the roll of dishonor. followed close
ly by Washington, Baltimore, Buff
falo, St. Louis, San Francisco, Bos-
ton, St. Paul, Cleveland. New York,
New Orleans. Denver. Cincinnati
and Louisville in the order named,
In arrests for intoxication, Boston
far outstrips all cities. But Chi
cago, with a sense of either pride
or humiliation, refuses to list her
cases. In contrast with these fig
ures I have collected the latest sta.
tistics from Canada and England
and Wales concerning the same
crimes. About 100000 people are
arrested in England and Wales an.
nually. The population there is
about twelve times that of Chicago
and seven times that of New York
For every arrest for murder in Eng.
land and Wales in 1920, Chicago
had eight and a half, New York sis
and three-quarters, and St. Louis
too many to count. The American
Bar association is doing a fine serv
ice in trying to discover the cause:
of c. inc. I predict. however, tina
it will conclude thai. the n grea'
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