The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-09-26
Deplores Leniency for LaW-BreakerS
Waterbury, Conn Sept 25, 1884. To the Editor of The Democrat:

Sept 25, 1884.
 To the Editor of The Democrat: Sir:-
 The letter of Mrs Eileen Morse regarding our police force and our courts expresses the sentiments of all thinking people I am sure, with in her complete condemnation of of Waterbury do as good a job as
 those of any other city in appre- hending criminals. With a little
 study of the situation, I think they can do even better. It is evident that they must do more work along the line of preventing crime if Waterbury IS not to become the Chicago of the east"
 I believe that one real reason for our police force not curbing crime better than it does is the flabby sentimentalism of our courts,
 as Mrs Morse states. The police are
 bound to grow little lax in trying to apprehend criminals when they know that these same criminals are to be ''coddled" by mistakenly kind judges once they do come to trial. This lack of support from the bench reacts on the morale of the police force and is certain to pro- duce an attitude of near-indiffer- ence to the capture of thugs who have apparently made a clean get away. Our detectives and police men have done some admirable | work in catching criminals when I the trail was cold and they were given praise for the work. To the public this was only the first step in the way of preventing crime. The next, punishment by the courts has too often resulted in a traves- ty of justice. In their carefulness to mete out justice to the guilty, I the judges have forgotten that q certain justice was also due the l remainder of the public which was lava bading and paying both our police and judges to see that others were also. Now this fact, the exist
 ing habit of treating criminals too indulgently, gives us the second real reason for our being molested
 by the lawless. Besides having our police getting tired of trying to
 catch crooks only to see them go
 scot free again, the crooks them-
 selves are actually encouraged to
 try their luck again. They have little to fear from the stern" judges. They know that they might even be better treated by proba-
 tion officers and social workers
 than if they summed crime and
 tried to lead an honest life. They
 feel they have much to gain in
 taking the chances they do, and little to lose.
 I have lived in other cities and
 have the impression that persons
 committing some of the crimes that are not punished here have been put in jail or the penitentiary for
 a sufficient period to make them re-
 alize that the public was not jok- ing when it asked for, and paid for, protection. What is needed is more common sense on the part of our judges. Let them remember
 the days of their own youth when the rod was not spared and a thief was thief, and if treated accord ingly if in his right mind and above the age of reason. Otherwise we shall have to turn over our streets to the hoodlums after dark and keep inside ourselves out of fear of being waylaid and robbed. Keep some of them 'insidc" for few months, day and night, and we , may again walk our own streets after dark without fear of losing money or life, or both. Very sincerely, A. BOCERE.