The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1923-01-19
AGAINST
CRIME WILL
SUCCEED
Police Commissioner Enright
Predicts Development of
SunerdetectiVes.


greater IN the larger cities? HosU
OiU apprehension of criminals be
conducted IN the futuree
An authority on this subject,
Police Commissioner EnTight, of
New York, looks ahead and fore
sees a class of detectives IOho can
fGth0ns aUkat is IN criminals
brain, and not only soLVe crimes,
bat prevent them from occurring.
BY RICHARD. e. ENRIGHT.
Commissioner Of Police, City Of
New York.
Copyright, 1923, by Cosmopolitan
News Service)
NEW YORK, Jan. 19.-Within
the next century criminal investi-
gators may develop all additional
sense, so to speak, to the extent
that they may be able correctly
to deduce what Is going on in
the brain of criminal or poten-
tia1 criminal. and SO either solve
an important crime or prevent one.
Some people may smile at this
suggestion, but people would have
laughed 100 years ago had anyone
suggested the likelihood of men fly
ing through space at the rate of
ESQ miles an hour, or Of flying
from England to the American con-
tinent 100 years later. More likely
they would have accused them of
witchcraft or Of insanity.
OF course, no one looks for the
complete eradication of crime. That
is one Of the things that cannot
be expected, at least not until
human nature is changed COM
pletely.
Crime always has existed and al
ways will, in one form or another
and to a greater or lesser extent
What may have happened in
criminology by 2023 is that the
percentage of crime will have been
greatly reduced through the bet
tering effects of religion and edu-
cation, coupled with the progress
which will no doubt have been
made by police bodies in handling
crime problems, for the world is
ever progressing, just as we have
all advanced in knowledge since
a year ago.
Criminals and the enemies of
criminals, IN other words, police
organizations, are always graphing
with other in the attempt to be
ahead" AS the criminal element
turned to new methods when cleo
tricity, in it's various forms, was
used by the police to offset crinni-
mails, and as they used new inven-
tons such as the automobile, to
help them in their work, so have
preventors and detectors of crime
turned to new appliances, such. as
finger printing, the transmission
of photographs by radio and other
means to bring about the arrest
and Identification of violators of the
law.
CITED.
We have an object lesson right
here in New York City of how a
reduction in crime may be brought
about by intelligent and up-to-date
Not that in other cities
good work has not also been done
by those engaged in the suppression
of crime
Any fair-minded man who has
lived in New York for some years
will admit crime has decreased
here as compared with former
times. Much of this has been due
to the way in which the work has
bee ndone, but religious influence
and the elevating work which edu-
cationalists have accomplished have
been most important factors. This
is particularly noticeable because
this has been accomplished to so
large an extent since the end Of
the world war, when public morals
We're at a lower stage than before
the conflict, as always happens in
the case of wars.
Now, If such a forward step has
been possible only so recently, and
not alone in this city but in 9TH
ers, is it not reasonable to assume
this progress should continue, and
that the refining process will have
reached such point by 2023 that
crime will have been reduced? That
which does exist may have become
and advanced to such a
degree that it will require the skill
of police supermen, in a sense, to
cope with it. Such criminal inves-
tigators may have developed through
the most intensive training, and by
the exercise of unusual brain power,
the faculty of not only sensing"
what the criminal may contemplate,
but divining his thoughts accurately.
DETECTIVES.
VI course InlS is looking lar
ahead. but even today the New
York police department is arranging
to establish a training school for
something never under
taken in this country.
No one realizes more than my
self that to produce results in any
particular field of >endeavor train
ing is a prerequisite. The better
a man knows his job the better he
is equipped to do the work assigned
him. In the new school we shall
look for advice from overseas and