Fosdick 
 
 Crime in America and the 
 Police
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Estate of 
 Klara Sandrich
 
 Crime in America and 
 the Police 
 
 BY 
 
 RAYMOND B. FOSDICK 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE CENTURY CO.
 
 Crime in America and 
 the Police 
 
 BY 
 
 RAYMOND B. FOSDICK 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE CENTURY CO.
 
 Copyright, 1920, by 
 THE CENTURY CO.
 
 HV 
 
 F'lZc 
 
 The material in tfiis pamphlet consti- 
 tutes the first chapter of Mr. Fosdick's 
 
 new book, AMERICAN POLICE SYSTEMS. 
 
 It is presented in this compact form be- 
 cause of the large demand for the special 
 information on crime conditions which 
 that particular chapter contains.
 
 AMERICAN POLICE SYSTEMS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE AMERICAN PROBLEM 
 
 Contrast between European and American police. American po- 
 lice problem far more difficult. Heterogeneity of America's popu- 
 lation. Preponderance of crime in America. Comparative statis- 
 tics : murder, burglary, robbery. Relation of heterogeneity to 
 crime. The relation of court procedure to the police problem. 
 The law's delays. The technicalities of procedure. Faulty per- 
 sonnel on the bench. The sentimental attitude of the public. 
 Relation of unenforceable laws to American police problem. 
 Sumptuary laws. Borderland between live and dead law. Em- 
 barrassment of the police. 
 
 To the American student of European municipal po- 
 lice bodies the contrast with similar institutions in the 
 United States furnishes slight basis for pride. The ef- 
 ficiency of the Metropolitan Police Force of London, the 
 operation of the detective bureau of Paris, the work of 
 the Carabinieri in Rome and of the Politi in Copenhagen 
 have little comparable to them in America ; while even as 
 regards the police of smaller cities like Zurich, Edin- 
 burgh or The Hague, an American looks almost in vain 
 for equal effectiveness at home. This is so well recog- 
 nized, indeed, and we have become so accustomed to 
 think of our police work as perhaps the most pronounced 
 failure in all our unhappy municipal history, that we are 
 
 3
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 inclined to accept the phenomenon without analysis and 
 . charge it up generally to " politics." That politics lies at 
 the root of much of it cannot of course be denied. No 
 one can trace the development of police organization in 
 the United States, as we shall follow it in Chapter II, 
 without realizing how true the generalization is; but to 
 believe that the unfavorable comparison between Euro- 
 pean and American police systems is chargeable solely to 
 politics or to the personnel of our forces is to overlook 
 certain fundamental divergencies in national conditions, 
 customs and psychology which pile up obstacles in the 
 way of efficient police work in America almost beyond 
 the conception of the average European official. 
 
 In a word, the police of an American city are faced 
 with a task such as European police organizations have 
 no knowledge of. The Metropolitan Police Force of 
 London with all its splendid efficiency would be over- 
 whelmed in New York, and the Brigade de surete of 
 Paris, with its ingenuity and mechanical equipment, would 
 fall far below the level of its present achievement if it 
 were confronted with the situation in Chicago. It is to 
 the discussion of some of these external factors which 
 complicate police function in America that the present 
 chapter is devoted. 
 
 I. HETEROGENEITY OF POPULATION 
 
 With rare exceptions, the populations of European 
 cities are homogeneous. The population of American 
 cities is heterogeneous to an extent almost without paral- 
 lel. Only 3% of London's population is foreign-born. 1 
 
 1 Cnsus of 191 1, Vol. 9. Wherever in this book London is 
 
 4
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Paris has 6%, 1 Berlin 2.9% , 2 Vienna approximately one 
 per cent. 8 In America to use only a few illustra- 
 tions at random New York's foreign-born population 
 is 41%, Chicago and Boston 36% each, Cleveland and 
 Providence 34% each, Detroit 33%. Where London has 
 211,000 foreign-born, Paris 170,000, and Berlin 60,000, 
 New York has 1,944,357, of which 1,563,964 are of non- 
 English speaking peoples, while Chicago has 783,428, of 
 which 653,377 are from non-English speaking countries. 4 
 This contrast can be emphasized in another way. 
 London has 14,000 Italians among her foreign-born; 
 Paris has 26,000. New York has 340,000; Chicago has 
 45,000. London has 45,000 foreign-born Russians; 
 Paris 18,000. New York has 485,000; Chicago 121,000. 
 Where Paris has 7,000 Austro-Hungarians, New York 
 has 267,000. Where London has 27,000 Poles, Chicago 
 has 126,000. London's 42,000 foreign-born Germans 
 must be contrasted with New York's 280,000 and with 
 Chicago's 185,000. New York's Italian-born population 
 is greater than the combined populations of Bologne and 
 Venice. She has more German-born residents than has 
 Bremen, Konigsberg, Aix la Chapelle, Posen, Kiel or 
 Danzig. Only three cities of old Austria-Hungary 
 Vienna, Budapest and Prague have a larger Austro- 
 Hungarian population than New York, while in Chicago 
 
 mentioned, the reference is to the Metropolitan Police District which 
 covers an area of 699 square miles and includes a population of 
 7,231,701. 
 
 1 Annuaire statistique de la Ville de Paris, 1912. 
 
 z Statistische Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, 1913, pp. 40-41. 
 
 3 That is, born outside the limits of the old Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire. Meyer's Konversationslexikon, Vol. 20, annual supplement 
 1910-11. 
 
 4 Federal Census of 1910. 
 
 5
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 the foreign-born Austro-Hungarians outnumber the pop- 
 ulation of Brunn, Cracow or Gratz. In only five Russian 
 cities Petrograd, Moscow, Odessa, Warsaw and Kiev 
 can a Russian population be found greater than that 
 of New York. 
 
 But this is not the whole contrast. The forebears of 
 London's present population for generations back were 
 Englishmen, bred to English customs and traditions, just 
 as the forefathers of modern Parisians were Frenchmen, 
 born to French institutions and ideals. In New York, 
 Chicago and other large cities of the United States there 
 are hundreds of thousands of residents whose mothers 
 or fathers or both were born abroad. If we add this 
 class to the foreign-born population, of which we have 
 been speaking, to form what may be called the foreign- 
 stock element, we find that it comprises 80% of New 
 York's population, and that of the total number, amount- 
 ing to 3,769,803, nearly three-fourths came of non-Eng- 
 lish speaking people. 1 Similarly, this foreign-stock ele- 
 ment constitutes the majority of the population in the 
 nineteen largest cities of the United States. In other 
 words, the native white population of native parentage 
 amounts to less than one-fifth the total population of 
 New York and less than one-fourth of the populations 
 of Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee; 
 while in cities like Fall River, Massachusetts, it consti- 
 tutes little more than 10%. In only fourteen of the 
 fifty largest cities of America does the native parentage 
 population equal fifty per cent of the total. 
 
 1 Ibid. Congestion adds to the difficulties of heterogeneity. Lon- 
 don in 1911 had only 180,000 people housed 219 to the acre; New 
 York in 1910 had 1,171,000 people so housed. 
 
 6
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Again, the contrast can be emphasized in terms not 
 only of race but of color. In London and other cities of 
 Great Britain the negro population is so negligible that 
 the census statistics make no mention of it. Only rarely 
 does one see negroes on the streets and a " color prob- 
 lem " does not exist. In America, in consequence of the 
 great numbers of negro inhabitants, this problem has 
 assumed startling proportions. Its extent can be judged 
 from the following figures : x 
 
 Negro 
 
 Percentage of 
 
 City y .. negroes to total 
 
 population J . . , ,- 
 
 population 
 
 Atlanta 51,902 33.5 
 
 Baltimore 84,749 I 5- 2 
 
 Birmingham 52,305 39-4 
 
 Charleston (S. C.) 31,056 52.8 
 
 Indianapolis , 21,816 9.3 
 
 Kansas City 23,566 9.5 
 
 Louisville 40,522 18.1 
 
 Memphis 52,441 40.0 
 
 Nashville 36,523 33- 1 
 
 New Orleans 89,262 26.3 
 
 Richmond 46,733 36.6 
 
 Savannah 33,246 51.1 
 
 Washington 94,446 28.5 
 
 The consequences of this mixture of race and color are 
 far reaching, particularly in their effect on such functions 
 as policing. Homogeneity simplifies the task of govern- 
 ment. Long-established traditions of order and stand- 
 ards of public conduct, well-understood customs and prac- 
 
 1 Census of 1910.
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 tices which smooth the rough edges of personal contact, 
 a definite racial temperament and a fixed set of group- 
 habits by which conflicting interests are more readily 
 comprehended and adjusted in short, the social soli- 
 darity and cohesiveness which come only from a common 
 language and a common heritage all these factors, so 
 interwoven in French and English community life, and 
 so essential in facilitating the maintenance of law, are 
 utterly unknown in many of the towns and cities of the 
 United States. Our larger cities, indeed, are often di- 
 vided by more or less well defined lines into nationalistic 
 sections : Italians, Chinese, Poles, Russians, Czechs, Slavs, 
 each with their own districts, where they settle in colony 
 fashion. Here, frequently in comparative isolation, they 
 speak their own language, read their own newspapers, 
 maintain their own churches and their peculiar social life. 
 Occasionally the so-called foreign-section of a city com- 
 prises within a narrow area a heterogeneous mixture of 
 races. In a single ward in St. Louis to use an illus- 
 tration that could be duplicated many times are 900 
 Austro-Hungarians, 830 Irish, 2301 Germans, 2527 Ital- 
 ians, 7534 Russians and 493 Roumanians all of them 
 foreign-born in addition to 14,067 native residents of 
 foreign parentage and 1602 negroes. 1 The official cen- 
 sus proclamation of 1920 in New York City was printed 
 in 22 languages. 
 
 It is this complex problem of nationality that the police 
 are called upon to grapple with. They must enforce the 
 same laws among a score of races and maintain a stand- 
 ard of conduct in a population coming from radically dif- 
 1 Personally communicated. 
 
 s
 
 The American Problem 
 
 ferent environments. They must be prepared to under- 
 stand the criminal propensities of Sicilians and Poles, of 
 Chinese and Russians. They must become expert in de- 
 tecting crime characteristics as shown by twenty races. 
 They must deal with people who have no knowledge of 
 public health regulations or safety ordinances or of those 
 sanitary laws which distinguish the modern city from the 
 medieval town. They must have a ready knowledge of 
 national customs and habits so as to be forearmed against 
 an Italian festival, a Polish wedding or a Russian holi- 
 day. They must constantly realize that the juxtaposition 
 of separate racial groups is a factor of potential disorder. 
 To see the London " Bobby " at work, dealing with 
 people of his own race who understand him and whom he 
 understands, is to learn a larger sympathy for his brother 
 officer who walks the beat in New York, Chicago or San 
 Francisco. 
 
 II. PREPONDERANCE OF CRIME IN AMERICA 
 
 The task of the police is further handicapped in the 
 United States, as compared generally with Europe, by the 
 greater volume of crime committed here. Police statis- 
 tics show that crime is far more prevalent in American 
 cities than in the cities of England, France or Germany. 1 
 The point will undoubtedly be made that inasmuch as the 
 prime duty of the police is the prevention of crime, this 
 unhappy condition is the result of our police ineffective- 
 ness rather than one of the causes of it. In part this 
 
 1 German criminal statistics after 1914 are not available, and 
 French statistics since that date are unsatisfactory for the use of the 
 careful student. The English statistics maintain their standard of 
 excellence and completeness in spite of the war. 
 
 9
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 point is well taken, and it must be admitted that in assess- 
 ing responsibility for the condition which we shall shortly 
 describe, we are in a borderland where exact analysis is 
 impossible. At the same time x the large preponderance 
 in America of certain types of crime which are, generally 
 speaking, unaffected by police activity such as pre- 
 meditated murder and many kinds of commercial frauds 
 affords a basis for the belief that our greater compara- 
 tive propensity to crime is to a certain degree due to the 
 make-up of our population, quite apart from the ineffi- 
 ciency of our police forces. To that extent, therefore, 
 this condition may be placed in the list of those external 
 factors which complicate our police problem. 
 
 Comparative Statistics Murder. 
 
 As to the fact of our excessive criminality, the statis- 
 tics furnish startling evidence. London in 1916, with a 
 population of seven millions and a quarter, had nine pre- 
 meditated murders. Chicago, one-third the size of Lon- 
 don, in the same period had 105, nearly twelve times 
 London's total. 1 In the year 1916, indeed and it was 
 not an exceptional year Chicago with its 2,500,000 
 people had twenty more murders than the whole of Eng- 
 land and Wales put together with their 38,000,000 peo- 
 ple. 2 The Chicago murders during this year total one 
 
 1 These figures, in both instances, do not include abortion cases. 
 I am indebted for my Chicago figures to the Bureau of Records of 
 the Chicago police department which prepares perhaps the best 
 analysis of homicidal deaths to be found anywhere in the United 
 States. The London figures are from the annual reports of the 
 Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It must be emphasized 
 that these statistics in both instances are based not on judicial de- 
 terminations, but on a police analysis of crime complaints. 
 
 2 Figures obtained from the Judicial Statistics of England and 
 
 IO
 
 The American Problem 
 
 more than London had during the five year period from 
 1910 to 1914 inclusive. In 1917 Chicago had ten more 
 murders than the whole of England and Wales and four 
 more murders than all England, Wales and Scotland. 1 
 In 1918 Chicago had fourteen more murders than Eng- 
 land and Wales. In 1919 the number of murders in 
 Chicago was almost exactly six times the number com- 
 mitted in London. A tabulation of some of these statis- 
 tics follows : 2 
 
 Murders 
 
 1914 jpij 1916 /pi/ 1918 
 
 England and Wales 92 81 85 81 81 
 
 Scotland 8 12 9 6 * 
 
 London 16 21 ' 9 16 26 
 
 Liverpool 5 4 4 4 5 
 
 Chicago 87 77 105 91 95 
 
 * Figures not available. 
 
 But Chicago is not exceptional. Other American 
 cities suffer equally from comparison with crime condi- 
 tions abroad. New York City in 1916 had exactly six 
 
 Wales Criminal Section (Table on police returns). These statis- 
 tics are published annually by the Home Office. The figures quoted 
 above indeed the crime figures quoted in this entire section of the 
 chapter do not represent judicial findings that is, they are not 
 based on the results of trials. They are complaints of crime, or, as 
 they are called in England, crimes known to the police, regardless 
 of arrests, convictions, or the particular degrees of crime for which 
 prisoners are sentenced. Thus the police in a given community 
 might know that 100 burglaries had been committed in the course of 
 ' a year. Perhaps 50 arrests are made and 40 convictions secured in 
 varying degrees of burglary and housebreaking. The index of crime 
 in that community is not found in the arrests or the convictions, but 
 in the 100 burglaries known to the police to have been committed. 
 
 1 Figures obtained from the Judicial Statistics of Scotland, pub- 
 lished annually by the Scottish Office. 
 
 2 Exclusive of abortion cases and infanticides. 
 
 II
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 times the number of homicides (murder and man- 
 slaughter) that London had for the same year, and only 
 ten less homicides than all of England and Wales. In 
 
 1917 New York had six times more homicides than Lon- 
 don, and exceeded the total homicides of England and 
 Wales by 56. In 1918 New York again had six times 
 more homicides than London, and exceeded the total 
 homicides of England and Wales by 67. l This contrast 
 cannot be attributed to the peculiar conditions in London 
 induced by the war. In each of the years from 1914 to 
 
 1918 inclusive New York had more homicides than oc- 
 curred in London during any three year period previous 
 to the outbreak of the war in I9I4. 2 A tabulation of 
 homicide statistics follows : 
 
 1 The New York figures are taken from the annual reports of the 
 New York police department. The homicide figures in all instances 
 are exclusive of abortion cases and vehicular accident and other 
 criminal negligence cases. Every effort has been made to verify the 
 accuracy of these statistics and careful studies have been undertaken 
 in New York, Chicago and London (at Scotland Yard) to test their 
 comparability. 
 
 2 At the same time it cannot be denied that the war had some 
 effect upon criminal statistics in England, although the reduction 
 in homicides is not as marked as might be expected. The following 
 tafole shows murders and manslaughters in London during the ten 
 years preceding the war: 
 
 Total homicides 
 
 Year Murder Manslaughter (murder and 
 
 manslaughter) 
 
 1904 19 30 49 
 
 1905 20 24 44 
 
 1906 16 20 36 
 
 1907 12 35 47 
 
 1908 18 35 53 
 
 1909 18 24 42 
 
 1910 21 22 43 
 
 I9H 21 31 53 
 
 1912 24 40 64 
 
 1913 22 38 60 
 
 These figures, compiled from the reports of the London police, are 
 
 12
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Homicide (murder and 
 
 manslaughter) 1 
 
 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 
 
 England and Wales 220 226 196 180 154 
 
 Scotland 39 57 53 29 * 
 
 London 46 45 31 39 37 
 
 Liverpool 8 8 8 9 5 
 
 Glasgow ii 23 18 ii 9 
 
 New York 244 234 186 236 221 
 
 Chicago 216 198 255 253 222 
 
 Detroit , . .. * * 62 94 42 
 
 Washington, D. C 26 25 24 24 27 
 
 * Figures not available. 
 
 Statistics of this kind could be multiplied at length. In 
 the three year period 1916-1918 inclusive, Glasgow had 
 38 homicides; Philadelphia, which is only a trifle larger, 
 had during this same period 28 1. 2 Liverpool and St. 
 Louis are approximately the same size; in 1915 St. Louis 
 had eleven times the number of homicides that Liverpool 
 had, and in 1916 eight times the number. 3 Los Angeles, 
 one-twentieth the size of London, had two more homi- 
 cides in 1916 than London had for the same period; in 
 1917 she had ten more than London had. Cleveland, 
 Ohio, one-tenth the size of London, had more than three 
 
 exclusive of abortions, infanticides, justifiable homicides and all ve- 
 hicular accident and criminal negligence cases. 
 
 1 Exclusive of abortions, infanticides and vehicular accident and 
 other criminal negligence cases. New York and Chicago figures are 
 based upon police reports, except the 1915 New York figure, which 
 is based on a personal examination of the records. This examina- 
 tion showed twelve more homicides than were indicated in the an- 
 nual report. 
 
 2 Philadelphia statistics from annual reports, Bureau o.f Police. 
 
 3 The St. Louis statistics were obtained from the police depart- 
 ment records. 
 
 13
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 times the number of homicides in 1917 and approximately 
 twice the number in iQiS. 1 
 
 The chief constable for Edinburgh in his annual re- 
 port for 1915 wrote as follows: " I regret to state that 
 while crimes against the person have considerably de- 
 creased, a number of serious crimes under the heading of 
 homicide were reported during the year namely, one 
 murder, one attempted murder, and five cases of culpable 
 homicide." The one murder was an abortion case; two 
 of the culpable homicides were cases in which infants had 
 died from neglect; a third was a vehicular accident case; 
 and two others, " after full investigation by the Crown 
 Authorities were not proceeded with." 3 Edinburgh is a 
 city in excess of 300,000 population. Surely a chief of 
 police in an American city of equal size would have rea- 
 sons for pride rather than regret if he could point to 
 such a record. 
 
 We have already noted that as a result of the war re- 
 liable crime statistics are not available in Continental Eu- 
 rope. It is pertinent to note, however, that for a long- 
 time before the war Berlin had an average of 25 mur- 
 ders a year, and Vienna an average of nineteen. 4 
 
 1 Statistics obtained from police records. 
 
 2 Report on Crime and the Police Establishment, 1915, p. 6. 
 
 3 Ibid. In his report for 1918 the chief constable of Edinburgh 
 says: "The only crime of a serious nature recorded during the 
 year was that of a young unmarried woman charged with culpable 
 homicide." This was an infanticide case (p. 8). In his report for 
 1919 this same official said : " I regret to state that while crime 
 has slightly decreased during the year, crimes against the person 
 have considerably increased. . . . Two cases of murder and one case 
 of culpable homicide were reported to the police during the year." 
 These cases included one abortion and one vehicular accident case. 
 (P- 8.) 
 
 These figures I verified in 1914 at police headquarters in Alcx- 
 anderplatz, Berlin, and at the Agcntenreferat in Vienna. 
 
 14
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Comparative Statistics Burglary. 
 
 Equally significant is the comparison of burglary sta- 
 tistics between Great Britain and the United States. In 
 1915, for example, New York City had approximately 
 eight times as many burglaries as London had in the same 
 period, and nearly twice the number of burglaries re- 
 ported in all England and Wales. 1 In 1917 New York 
 had four times as many burglaries as London, and ap- 
 proximately the same number as occurred in England 
 and Wales. In 1918 the burglaries which the police re- 
 ported in New York were approximately two and a half 
 times those in London. 2 While war conditions un- 
 doubtedly served to heighten this contrast, they were by 
 no means entirely responsible for it; in 1915 New York 
 City had more burglaries than occurred in all England 
 and Wales in 1911, 1912, or 1913. 3 Chicago in 1916 
 had 532 more burglaries than London, in 1917, 3459 
 more, in 1918, 866 more, and in 1919, 2146 more. De- 
 troit and Cleveland generally report several hundred 
 
 1 In New York there were 11,652 burglaries in 1915; in London 
 1,459; in England and Wales 6,737. In order to establish a com- 
 parison I have grouped within the classification " burglary " several 
 crimes which in England are listed under such titles as housebreak- 
 ing, shop-breaking, sacrilege, etc. The crime burglary as used in 
 the above comparison includes housebreaking by day or night. 
 
 2 It seems probable that these New York figures for 1918 represent 
 an under-statement of the actual number of burglaries. 
 
 3 The burglaries occurring in London and in England and Wales 
 from 1910-1915 inclusive are as follows : 
 
 Year i London England and W ales 
 
 1910 3,057 12,215 
 
 1911 3,048 11,045 
 
 1912 2,974 ii, 112 
 
 1913 2,911 11,166 
 
 1914 ' 2,352 9,844 
 
 1915 1,459 6,737 
 
 15
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 more burglaries per annum than London, although Lon- 
 don is seven or eight times larger. In each of these two 
 cities in 1917 and 1918 the number of burglaries aver- 
 aged one-fourth the number committed in all England 
 and Wales. The annual burglaries in St. Louis always 
 exceed those in London. 
 
 A table of burglaries follows : 
 
 Burglary, including housebreaking by day 
 or night, shop-breaking, sacrilege, etc. 1 
 1916 1917 1918 
 
 England and Wales. . . 7,809 9,453 10,331 
 
 Scotland 3,977 5>73 
 
 London 1,581 2,164 2 ,777 
 
 Liverpool 1,135 1,361 1,136 
 
 New York * 9,45o 7 A 12 
 
 Chicago 2,1 13 5,623 3,643 
 
 Detroit 2,736 3,080 2,047 
 
 Cleveland * 2,752 2,608 
 
 St. Louis 3,212 2,483 2,989 
 
 * Figures not available. 
 
 The disproportionate number of burglaries occurring 
 in American cities as compared with English cities is re- 
 flected in the prevailing burglary insurance rates of the 
 two countries. Due to differences in insurance practices 
 
 1 The American figures in this table are taken from police depart- 
 ment records. Their accuracy cannot be vouched for, because in 
 many of our departments, complaints of crime are deliberately and 
 systematically concealed. It can safely be assumed, however, that 
 these figures represent an under-statcment rather than an over- 
 statement. The English statistics, on the other hand, are kept with 
 meticulous care, and after a careful study of the records and meth- 
 ods at Scotland Yard and elsewhere in Great Britain, I do not be- 
 lieve that complaints of crime are ever concealed to avoid unfavor- 
 able appearances. 
 
 16
 
 The American Problem 
 
 and methods, exact comparisons are impossible, but 
 enough has been gathered from careful investigation to 
 warrant the general conclusion that burglary rates in 
 American municipalities are from fifteen to twenty times 
 higher than in the principal cities of England. 1 
 
 Comparative Statistics Robbery. 
 
 Even more startling are the statistics of robbery. 2 
 New York City in 1915 reported 838 robberies and as- 
 saults with intent to rob where London had 20, and Eng- 
 land, Wales and Scotland together had 102. In 1916 
 New York had 886 such crimes to London's nineteen, and 
 England, Wales and Scotland's 227. In 1917 New York 
 reported 864 to London's 38, while England, Wales 
 and Scotland reported 233. In 1918 New York had 
 849, while London had 63 and England and Wales had 
 100. This contrast is by no means ascribable to war 
 conditions, although such conditions undoubtedly height- 
 ened it. In each of the four years from 1915 to 1918 
 inclusive, New York City had from four to five times 
 more robberies than occurred in all England and Wales in 
 any one of the five years preceding the war. 
 
 1 This statement is based on quite a detailed study of burglary 
 insurance in London and New York and I am indebted to various 
 insurance company representatives in both cities for their courtesy 
 and assistance. An interesting comparison in burglary insurance 
 rates for private residences is possible between different American 
 cities. The rates prevailing in June, 1920, for seven municipalities 
 are as follows: Chicago and San Francisco, $19.80 per thousand; 
 New York, St. Louis and Detroit, $16.50 per thousand ; Atlanta, 
 $13-75 per thousand; Boston, $ii.po per thousand. 
 
 2 The astonishing discrepancy in these statistics led to a careful 
 investigation. The legal definitions of robbery are practically identi- 
 cal on both sides of the Atlantic. The fact remains that highway 
 robberies or " hold-ups " do not occur in Great Britain with any- 
 thing like the frequency they do in America.
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 Practically the same proportion exists between Chi- 
 cago's robberies and those in Great Britain. In 1918, for 
 example, Chicago had 22 robberies for every one robbery 
 in London and 14 robberies for every one robbery in 
 England and Wales. Washington, D. C., in 1916 had 
 four times the number of robberies that London reported ; 
 in 1917 three times the number; and in 1918 one and one- 
 half times the number. Los Angeles in 1916 had 64 
 more robberies than all of England, Wales and Scot- 
 land put together; in 1917 she had 126 more than these 
 three countries. Cities like St. Louis and Detroit, in 
 their statistics of robbery and assault with intent to rob, 
 frequently show annual totals varying from three times 
 to five times greater than the number of such crimes re- 
 ported for the whole of Great Britain. Liverpool is 
 about one and a third times larger than Cleveland, and 
 yet in 1919 Cleveland reported 31 robberies for every 
 one reported in Liverpool. 
 
 Comparative Statistics Miscellaneous. 
 
 Differences in definition and classification of crime be- 
 tween England and America make it difficult to push the 
 comparison much further. One or two illustrations, 
 however, may be noted to emphasize the contrast devel- 
 oped in the foregoing statistics. Automobile thefts are 
 much more prevalent in America than in Great Britain, 
 as is shown by the following table : 
 
 Thefts of automobiles reported in 1919 l 
 
 New York 5527 
 
 Chicago 4316 
 
 1 Figures in all cases obtained from the police records. I am 
 
 18
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Detroit 3482 
 
 St. Louis 1244 
 
 Cleveland 2327 
 
 Buffalo 986 
 
 London 290 
 
 Liverpool 10 
 
 Comparative statistics as to the number of automo- 
 biles in American and English cities are impossible to ob- 
 tain, but it is probably a fair assumption that the pro- 
 portionate excess of thefts in the United States far ex- 
 ceeds the admittedly larger supply of machines in our 
 communities as compared with the communities of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Similarly in comparing the total number of arrests for 
 all crimes and offenses in the United States and Great 
 Britain, one is struck by the high figures in American 
 cities. 1 The number of arrests in Boston for the year 
 1917 exceeded the number of arrests in London for the 
 same year by 32,520. Philadelphia's arrests for 1917 
 exceeded London's by 20,005. Chicago's arrests for 
 1917 exceeded London's by 61,874. New York's ar- 
 rests for this same period exceeded London's by m,- 
 877. Indeed New York had almost two and a half times 
 
 especially indebted to the Honorable Trevor Bigham, assistant com- 
 missioner at Scotland Yard, for his courtesy in aiding me to obtain 
 the London figures. 
 
 1 Figures of arrests must always be taken with some qualification, 
 as they are subject to various interpretations. They may denote 
 crime conditions, or excessive zeal on the part of the police, or too 
 many laws and regulations to be observed, or any one of half a 
 dozen other situations. Because in this case the American arrests 
 exceed the English arrests by such large figures, I have felt free to 
 use the comparison as at least throwing some further light on crimi- 
 nality in the United States. 
 
 19
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 as many arrests in 1917 as were made in London. Glas- 
 gow with an estimated population of a third of a million 
 larger than either St. Louis or Boston, recorded in 1918 
 22,290 arrests and summonses, while St. Louis in the 
 same period showed 54,400 and Boston 90,293. This 
 same disproportion is to be found in cities of lesser size. 
 
 Relation of Heterogeneity to Crime. 
 
 To what extent the excessive volume of crime in Amer- 
 ica is attributable to the heterogeneity of our population 
 cannot be precisely determined. Even where they exist 
 at all, our criminal statistics are so crude and incomplete 
 that deductions are difficult to make and when made are 
 little better than rough estimates. The number of ar- 
 rests in the course of a year is practically the only classi- 
 fication available for our purposes, and the fact that this 
 basis of measurement makes no allowance for unsolved 
 crimes or for cases subsequently discharged in court, 
 shows its unsatisfactory character. However as an indi- 
 cation of the causal connection between the presence in 
 America of large numbers of foreign races, uprooted and 
 often adrift, and our overwhelming preponderance of 
 crime, the figures of arrest may profitably be studied. 
 They show, for example, that Irish-born inhabitants of 
 Boston, constituting 9.8% of the population, are charged 
 with 15% of the total arrests. 1 In New York City the 
 Russian-born inhabitants, constituting 10.15% of the 
 population, are credited with 20% of the total arraign- 
 ments before the magistrates' courts, while the Italian- 
 
 1 Calculation based on U. S. Census report and Annual Report of 
 the Police Department for 1918. 
 
 20
 
 The American Problem 
 
 born, who equal 7.15% of the population, have n.8% 
 of the arraignments. 1 The total figure of arraignments 
 before the magistrates' courts in New York for 1917 
 can be calculated as follows : 
 
 Percentage of Percentage of 
 
 Nativity total population total arraignments 
 
 Foreign born 4.0.8% 5 2 -9% 
 
 [Native born 59.2 47.1 
 
 (of native, foreign or 
 mixed parentage) 
 
 These figures, however, are largely made up of mis- 
 demeanors, including violations of sanitary regulations, 
 health ordinances, etc., which as far as the foreigner is 
 concerned may be often the result of ignorance. Cer- 
 tainly they do not necessarily imply criminality. A fairer 
 judgment can be based on cases of felony as distinguished 
 from misdemeanor. Arrests for felony in 1918 in Chi- 
 cago, for example, can be illustrated as follows : z 
 
 Percentage of total Percentage of total 
 
 Country of Origin population felony arrests 
 
 U. S. white 62.1% 55-i% 
 
 U. S. colored 2.0 13.2 
 
 Poles 5.8 6.4 
 
 Russia 5.6 5.9 
 
 Italy 2.06 4.3 
 
 Germany 8.3 2.4 
 
 Lithuania (including Letts) .9 2.3 
 
 Other nationalities 12.-}- io.+ 
 
 1 Calculations based on Annual Report of City Magistrates for 
 1917. 
 
 1 Compiled from annual police report of Chicago for 1918. 
 
 21
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 This can further be illustrated by figures showing the 
 respective percentages of felony arrests and misdemeanor 
 arrests in the total arrests of each of the above nationali- 
 ties : * 
 
 Percentage of Percentage of 
 
 felony misdemeanor 
 Nationality arrests arrests 
 
 U. S. white 9-97% 90.03% 
 
 U. S. colored 15.8 84.2 
 
 Poles 11.3 88.7 
 
 Russia 15.97 84.03 
 
 Italy 15.3 84.7' 
 
 Germany 11.5 88.5 
 
 Lithuania 14.6 88.4 
 
 Other nationalities 8.5 91.5 
 
 The problem presented by the colored race is shown 
 in the following statistics of arrest from Washington, 
 D. C, for the year 1919 : 2 
 
 Percentage of total Percentage of 
 
 population total arrests 
 
 White 71.5% 57-57% 
 
 Colored 28.5 42.43 
 
 Another calculation follows showing the number of ar- 
 rests for serious offenses in the same city for the same 
 year : s 
 
 1 Ibid. 
 
 2 Compiled from annual report of the Metropolitan Police of the 
 District of Columbia for 1919. 
 
 3 Ibid. Similar statistics are obtainable in other cities which have 
 large colored populations. 
 
 22
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Nature of Offense Number of Arrests 
 
 White Colored 
 
 (constituting 71.5% (constituting 28.5% 
 
 of population) of population) 
 
 Murder 15 34 
 
 Manslaughter 6 8 
 
 Assault with dangerous 
 
 weapon 33 249 
 
 Assault with intent to kill 6 10 
 
 Housebreaking 139 323 
 
 Robbery 40 283 
 
 An intensive study of homicide records furnishes simi- 
 larly interesting results. For example, the general homi- 
 cide return for New York City in 1915, exclusive of 
 abortions, vehicular accidents and justifiable homicides, 
 shows that 240 cases were known to the police in which a 
 total of 251 persons were killed. 1 Of this number, six 
 were infants below the age of one year, and one was an 
 adult who was never identified. Distributing the re- 
 maining 244 decedents according to nativity we find that 
 93 were born in the United States of native parents, 26 
 were natives of the United States with foreign-born par- 
 ents, and 125 were foreign-born. Of the 240 cases, ar- 
 rests were made in 161, and 222 persons were charged 
 with homicide. Of the 222, 60 were natives of native 
 parentage, 65 were born in Italy, while twelve others were 
 native-born of Italian parentage. The Russian-born 
 numbered 21, and the native-born of Irish parentage were 
 next in order with a total of nineteen. 2 
 
 1 These statistics are the result of personal research at Police 
 Headquarters in New York. 
 
 2 The complete list of the nativities of the 222 persons apprehended 
 
 23
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 The Chicago Police Department reported 77 cases of 
 premeditated murder for the year 1915, accounting for 
 the death of 77 people. Of the 59 persons arrested on 
 the charges of murder and accessory to murder, 25 were 
 native whites, nineteen were Italians, ten were native 
 negroes, two were Poles, and three were of other nation- 
 alities. 1 
 
 was as follows : Italy, 65 ; United States, 60 ; Russia, 21 ; United 
 States (parents Ireland), 19; United States (parents Italy), 12; 
 Austria, u ; United States (parents Germany), 8; Ireland, 7; Ger- 
 many, 4; United States (parents Austria), 3; England, i; England 
 (parents Russia), i; Finland, i; Greece, i; Hawaiian Islands, i; 
 Hungary, I ; Scotland, I ; Turkey, I ; United States (parents Can- 
 ada), i ; United States (parents Russia), i; United States (parents 
 Sweden), i; West Indies, i. 
 
 It is possible to push this analysis a little further. We have seen 
 that arrests were made in 161 of the 240 cases of homicide known 
 to the police. In 27 cases the perpetrators committed suicide, in 
 one case the perpetrator was killed, so that there remained 51 cases 
 which were not solved by the police and in which no arrests were 
 made. Considerable importance attaches to these cases, as unsolved 
 crimes are more likely to be planned by the wary and seasoned 
 criminal. In homicides, the very fact that no clue is left may indi- 
 cate greater caution and more carefully laid plans. To include in 
 the calculation, therefore, only those cases in which arrests have 
 been made, is to eliminate the most dangerous and vicious crimes and 
 criminals. For these reasons a careful examination was made of 
 the Detective Bureau records pertaining to the 51 unsolved murder 
 cases, and personal interviews were had with the detectives having 
 the cases in charge. In many of them, while the perpetrator was 
 known with reasonable certainty, the evidence was not sufficient to 
 warrant an arrest. On the basis of this calculation, of the 51 un- 
 solved cases, 31 can with reasonable accuracy be charged to natives 
 of Italy; 4 perpetrators are believed to be natives of the United 
 States, one a native of Irish parentage, and one an Austrian. In 14 
 cases no clue whatever was established. 
 
 1 A study similar to that carried on in New York was made of 
 Chicago's 1915 cases. As in New York, it consisted of close ex- 
 amination of the Detective Bureau records and consultation with 
 the detectives. The unsolved cases amount to 30 cases of murder 
 and 10 cases of manslaughter, and the perpetrators can with reason- 
 able certainty be distributed among the following nationalities : 
 United States (white), 6; United States (colored), 6; United States 
 (parents Polish), i; United States (parents Irish), i; Italian, 13; 
 Poland, 2; Russia, 2; Serbian, i; Turk, i; Chinese, i; no clue, 6. 
 
 24
 
 The American Problem 
 
 In St. Louis during 1915 there were 71 cases of mur- 
 der and manslaughter 1 in which there were 71 dece- 
 dents and 72 perpetrators. The nativity of the perpe- 
 trators in these cases almost coincided with the nativity 
 of the decedents. Of native whites there were 34 dece- 
 dents and 35 perpetrators; of the native colored there 
 were twenty decedents and 24 perpetrators; seven dece- 
 dents were of Italian parentage as were six perpetrators ; 
 there were three Albanian decedents and two Albanian 
 perpetrators; seven decedents of other nationalities, with 
 five perpetrators of other nationalities. 2 
 
 In Memphis in 1915 there were 76 cases of murder and 
 manslaughter in which 78 people were killed. Of the 
 persons killed, nineteen were white and 59 were colored. 
 Of the 77 alleged perpetrators, the whites numbered 
 seventeen, the colored 53, unknown four, patrolmen in the 
 performance of duty, three. 8 
 
 In Washington, D. C, in the five years between 1915 
 and 1919, 143 homicides were committed. In all but five 
 of these cases the police succeeded in apprehending the 
 persons charged with the crime. Of the 138 cases thus 
 
 1 This figure does not include abortions, justifiable homicides or 
 criminal carelessness cases. Arrests were made in 56 cases, in two 
 the perpetrators committed suicide and thirteen remained unsolved 
 by the police. 
 
 2 These statistics were gathered by personal research. It is worthy 
 of note that in St. Louis in this period (1915) one negro was 
 charged with murder or manslaughter for every 1,832 of the col- 
 ored population, and one white was charged with the same offense 
 for every 13,385 of the population. 
 
 3 Arrests were made in 37 cases, 15 of the perpetrators being 
 white and 22 being colored. Of the remaining 36 unsolved cases, 
 two white perpetrators were known but not apprehended, 29 col- 
 ored perpetrators were unapprehended, four cases remained without 
 clue, and one perpetrator committed suicide. (Statistics gathered 
 by personal research.) 
 
 25
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 cleared up, 45 were committed by white persons and 93 
 by negroes. 1 Of the 45 white persons, five were for- 
 eigners. 
 
 Calculations such as these furnish 'indisputable evi- 
 dence that America's crime rate is greatly augmented by 
 the presence of unassimilated or poorly assimilated races. 
 It must not be supposed, however, that our foreign and 
 colored population is the sole cause of our excessive crime 
 rate. If the offenses of our foreign and colored races 
 were stricken from the calculation, our crime record would 
 still greatly exceed the record of Western Europe. With 
 
 i The complete tabulation of these homicides is as follows : 
 
 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 Total 
 
 Total number of homicides .... 25 24 24 26 44 143 
 
 Cleared up 25 23 24 26 40 138 
 
 Not cleared up o i o o 4 5 
 
 Committed by whites 13 5 9 4 14 45 
 
 Committed by negroes 12 18 15 22 26 93 
 
 The details of the above totals are as follows: 
 
 White men killed by negroes. . o 2 3 5 4 14 
 
 Negroes killed by white men. .21103 7 
 White men killed by white 
 
 women o i o o i 2 
 
 White women killed by white 
 
 men 4 2 3 3 3 15 
 
 Negro women killed by negro 
 
 men 6 7 4 4 4 25 
 
 Negro men killed by negro 
 
 women o o 2 o 3 5 
 
 Negro men killed by negro men 7 9 6 13 15 50 
 
 White men killed by white men 6 i 5 I 7 20 
 
 The above figures, which were furnished through the courtesy of 
 the late Major Pullman of the Washington force, are exclusive of 
 abortions, infanticides, and justifiable homicides. The record made 
 by the police of Washington, D. C., in clearing up all but five cases 
 out of 143 is most unusual and compares favorably with the best 
 records of European police departments. As will be noted by the 
 above table, the Washington police department in three different 
 twelve-month periods scored a hundred per cent record in their work. 
 In some cities the record of homicide cases cleared up is only thirty 
 and forty per cent of the total. 
 
 26
 
 The American Problem 
 
 all its kindliness and good nature, the temper of our 
 communities contains a strong strain of violence. We 
 condone violence and shirk its punishment. We lack a 
 high instinct for order. We lack a sense of the dignity 
 of obedience to restraint which is demanded for the com- 
 mon good. We lack a certain respect for our own secur- 
 ity and the terms upon which civilized communities keep 
 the peace. 
 
 " There is probably more undisciplined, egotistic, mis- 
 chievous force in the United States than in any country 
 of first rank in the world." l This indictment, framed 
 by an indignant newspaper, is scarcely exaggerated. 
 There is hardly a community where its accuracy is not 
 vindicated. It is little wonder, therefore, that the task 
 which we have set before our police has all but proved 
 impossible. 
 
 III. THE LAW'S DELAYS, THE COURTS, AND THE 
 PUBLIC 
 
 The police are but one part of the machinery of jus- 
 tice. Their function is to maintain order and if neces- 
 sary apprehend offenders. With the prosecution, trial 
 and punishment of these offenders, however, they have 
 little to do. They start the process but they do not 
 finish it. The prosecuting attorneys' offices, the courts 
 and the prisons take up the thread of their work where 
 the police leave it. The operation of justice is a single 
 operation working through a number of agencies. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that the effectiveness of the po- 
 lice cannot be judged apart from the effectiveness of 
 
 1 Chicago Tribune (Paris edition), January 31, 1919. 
 
 27
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 other agencies with which they are associated in working 
 for a common end. If the district attorney's office is lax 
 in its prosecutions, if legal procedure makes for delay 
 and uncertainty, if the court is slothful or open to un- 
 worthy influence in its decisions, the ends of justice for 
 which the police are working are apt to be defeated. The 
 failure of a single agency impairs the work of all. 
 
 This is a point which cannot be too strongly empha- 
 sized. In the popular mind the police are often held re- 
 sponsible for results over which they have no control. 
 They share the ignominy which belongs to other parts 
 of the machine, as well as the discouragement of associa- 
 tion with an enterprise which so often fails. Efficient 
 work on their part in the detection of a criminal, for ex- 
 ample, or in the prevention of an abuse, stands an excel- 
 lent chance of being mangled and destroyed in the subse- 
 quent processes. Indeed, without the support of an ad- 
 ministration of justice that is prompt and certain, con- 
 sistently effective police work is out of the question. 
 
 It is, of course, a notorious fact that such support is 
 not given our police forces. There is no part of its work 
 in which American law fails so absolutely and so ludi- 
 crously as in the conviction and punishment of criminals. 
 " It is not too much to say," said President Taft in 1909, 
 " that the administration 'of criminal law in this country is 
 a disgrace to our civilization, and that the prevalence of 
 crime and fraud, which here is greatly in excess of that in 
 European countries, is due largely to the failure of the 
 law and its administration to bring criminals to justice." * 
 
 1 Chicago Speech, September, 1909. Quoted in Tfie Reform of 
 Legal Procedure by Moorfield Storey, Yale University Press, 191 1, 
 P- 3- 
 
 28
 
 The American Problem 
 
 The Technicalities of Procedure. 
 
 Space is not available for more than a hasty discussion 
 of this important factor. In the first place, our legal 
 procedure* with its red tape and technicalities is fantas- 
 tically employed to aid the criminal. When a verdict of 
 murder is set aside because the word " aforethought " is 
 omitted after the word " malice " ; 1 when a man con- 
 victed of assault with intent to kill is freed because the 
 copying olerk left out the letter I in the word malice; 2 
 when an indictment for rape is held defective because it 
 concluded " against the peace and dignity of State " in- 
 stead of " against the peace and dignity of the State " ; 3 
 when another murderer is discharged because the prose- 
 cution neglected to prove thJit the real name of the victim 
 and hrs alias represented one and the same person ; 4 when 
 a horse-thief is released because the indictment ended in 
 the words " against the peace and dignity of the state of 
 W. Virginia," instead of " against the peace and dignity 
 of the state of West Virginia " 5 briefly, when in a man- 
 ner utterly unknown in Europe, such absurdities can be 
 spun to defeat the ends of justice, it is not surprising that 
 the police are slack and careless. 6 The morale of the best 
 
 1 Etheridge vs. State, 141 Ala. 29. 
 
 2 Wood vs. State, 50 Ala. 144. 
 
 3 State vs. Campbell, 210 Mo., 202. 
 *Goodlove vs. State, 82 O. S. 365. 
 6 Lemons vs. State, 4 W. Va. 755. 
 
 ' Although there are a few recent cases, I believe that the courts 
 as a whole are less inclined than formerly to upset convictions be- 
 cause of faulty indictments. See Garland vs. Washington, 232 U. S. 
 642 (1914), overruling Grain vs. U. S., 162 U. S. 625 (1896). See 
 also V aide 2 vs. U. S., 244 U. S. 432. It is noteworthy too that Con- 
 gress in 1919 passed the following amendment to the Judicial Code : 
 " Sec. 269. All of the said courts shall have power to grant new 
 trials, in cases where there has been a trial by jury, for reasons 
 
 29
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 police organization in the world would soon be broken 
 down in such an environment. " It 's small satisfaction 
 to catch the crooks," a chief of detectives told me, " when 
 you know all the time that some sharp legal trick will be 
 used to turn them free." 
 
 A member of the Alabama Bar, addressing the Bar 
 Association of that State, said : " I have examined 
 about 75 murder cases that found their way into the re- 
 ports of Alabama. More than half of those cases were 
 reversed and not a single one of them on any matter that 
 went to the merits of the case; and very few of them 
 upon any matter that could have influenced the jury in 
 reaching a verdict." * This same story comes from all 
 over the country. 
 
 Again, the special defenses which the common law 
 throws about the defendant have been so interpreted and 
 developed as to afford the accused a degree of protection 
 out of all relation to modern conditions. The principle 
 that no person shall be compelled to give evidence against 
 
 for which new trials have usually been granted in the courts of 
 law. On the hearing of any appeal, certiorari, writ of error, or 
 motion for a new trial, in any case, civil or criminal, the court 
 shall give judgment after an examination of the entire record be- 
 fore the court without regard to technical errors or defects or to 
 exceptions which do not affect the substantial rights of the par- 
 ties." 
 
 This reform has in substance been adopted in the following 25 
 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, 
 Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, 
 Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, 
 New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin and 
 Wyoming. (A summary of the statutes and decisions in these 
 states is to be found in 66 U. of P. L. Rev. 12. For further discus- 
 sion see Third Annual Report of the Standing Committee of the 
 American Bar Association to Suggest Remedies and Propose Laws 
 Relating to Procedure, dated June 10, 1919.) 
 1 Storey, loc. cit., p. 231. 
 
 30
 
 The American Problem 
 
 himself, or shall be placed twice in jeopardy for the same 
 offense, furnishes the basis for constantly recurring per- 
 versions of justice upon which foreign jurists look with 
 amazement. The accused has wide privileges of chal- 
 lenge in the choice of a jury which are denied the prose- 
 cution; he cannot be made to take the stand in his own 
 defense and his failure to do so cannot be used against 
 him ; he has the right of appeal to higher courts while the 
 state has none. As many prosecuting officers have 
 pointed out, the criminal law in America is a game in 
 which the defendant is given every chance to escape, fair 
 and unfair, while every possible obstacle is placed in the 
 way of the prosecution. To such an extent has this situ- 
 ation developed that under present conditions it would 
 seem to be the community that stands in need of protec- 
 tion rather than the criminal. 1 " The wonder now is 
 not that so many guilty men escape," said a prominent 
 member of the Philadelphia Bar, " but that under our 
 present system any guilty men are ever convicted. 
 Where they have money enough to employ the most able 
 counsel and to take advantage of every delay and tech- 
 nicality available, they practically never are convicted." 2 
 In a single year in Oregon to use an illustration that 
 could be duplicated everywhere there occurred 56 
 homicides. Forty-six of the offenders were arrested. 
 
 1 " The fact is that our administration of criminal law has as 
 nearly reached perfection in guarding the innocent (and guilty) 
 from conviction as is possible for any human institution; but in 
 securing the safety and order of the community by the conviction of 
 the guilty, it is woefully inadequate." Judge Carl Nott in Coddling 
 the Criminal, Atlantic Monthly, February, 1911. 
 
 2 Samuel Scoville, Jr., in The Evolution of Our Criminal Pro- 
 cedure, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 
 Science, March, 1914. 
 
 31
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 Of these, ten committed suicide and 36 were held for 
 trial. Of the 36, only three were convicted at all, and 
 of these only one for murder in the first degree. 1 In 
 1913 in the City of New York there were 323 homicides, 
 185 arrests and only 80 convictions. Of the 80 convic- 
 tions, ten received death sentences. In 1914 in the same 
 city there were 292 homicides, 185 arrests and 66 convic- 
 tions. Of the 66 convictions, six received death sen- 
 tences. 2 In 1917 in New York there were 236 homicides, 
 280 arrests and 67 convictions, of which nine received 
 death sentences. In 1918 in the same city there were 
 221 homicides, 256 arrests, and 77 convictions, of which 
 six received death sentences. 3 In Detroit during the fiscal 
 year 1917 there were 89 murders, 104 arrests, and four- 
 teen convictions; in the fiscal year 1918, there were 71 
 murders, 147 arrests and 22 convictions. 4 The annual 
 homicide calculations of the Chicago Tribune, which, after 
 careful checking, seem to be as accurate as any criminal 
 statistics can be under our present system, indicate the 
 following facts regarding culpable homicide in the United 
 States : 5 
 
 1 Reports of the American Bar Association, 1908, p. 495. 
 
 2 See Report of a Study of the Homicide Records, Neiv York Po- 
 lice Department, 1913-14, prepared by the Bureau of Municipal Re- 
 search, March, 1915. 
 
 3 See annual Report, New York Police Department, 1918. 
 
 4 In the same city in 1917 there were 843 robberies, 494 arrests 
 and 115 convictions, while in 1918 there were 688 robberies, 458 ar- 
 rests, and 101 convictions. (See Annual Report of Detroit Police, 
 1918.) 
 
 "These figures are exclusive of infanticide, justifiable and ex- 
 cusable homicide, and all vehicular and other accident cases. I use 
 these figures because from all facts which I can secure they seem 
 to represent an understatement rather than an overstatement. They 
 are substantially supported by the annual homicide analyses of Mr. 
 Frederick L. Hoffman, published in the Spectator (se?, for example,
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Total number of Total number of 
 Year culpable homicides legal executions 
 
 1916 8,372 115 
 
 1917 7.803 85 
 
 1918 7,667 85 
 
 In England the situation is far different. Any volume 
 of judicial statistics or any report of the Police Commis- 
 sioner of London bears out the contrast. In 1904, for 
 example, in London to pick up a random report 
 there were twenty cases of premeditated murder. In six 
 the perpetrators committed suicide; one man was sent 
 immediately to an asylum, and one escaped to Italy. Of 
 the twelve persons arrested and brought to trial, one was 
 acquitted, five were adjudged insane and confined in an 
 asylum, and six were sentenced to death. In 1917 in the 
 same city, there were 19 premeditated murders. Three 
 cases remained unsolved ; five perpetrators committed sui- 
 cide, and eleven were arrested. Of the eleven arrests, 
 there were eight convictions. In the whole of England 
 and Wales for 1916, 85 murders were committed and 59 
 people arrested in connection therewith were committed 
 for trial. Fifty -three trials resulted during the year. 
 Twelve of the accused were found insane on arraignment 
 and were confined; sixteen were found guilty but were 
 adjudged insane and confined; ten were acquitted, and 
 fifteen were sentenced to death. 1 
 
 It was from England that we borrowed the foundations 
 
 Vol. XCV, No. 26). No more emphatic commentary could be made 
 upon the lamentable condition of criminal statistics in the United 
 States than the bare statement that calculations such as these are 
 not based upon exact information. 
 
 1 Judicial Statistics for England and Wales, 1916. 
 
 33
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 of our criminal system. The special position of the ac- 
 cused, the assumption of innocence until guilt is proved, 
 our jury system, in fact our whole attitude and point of 
 view in regard to the man on trial, are of English origin, 
 and were handed down from generation to generation be- 
 fore they were carried to America. It is an inescapable 
 conclusion, however, that the English machine works 
 smoothly and effectively while ours does not. A para- 
 sitic growth of technicality and intricacy has thwarted 
 and choked our whole criminal process. 
 
 The Delays of Justice. 
 
 The delays of the courts furnish another reason for the 
 failure of our administration of justice. A random ex- 
 amination of almost any volume of appellate court de- 
 cisions will fully substantiate this charge. For example, 
 in Illinois one Sam Siracusa was tried for murder in 
 October, 1913, and pleaded guilty. On a writ of error 
 the case was carried to the Supreme Court of Illinois 
 where judgment was affirmed exactly three years from 
 the date of conviction. The case was not finally disposed 
 of until three months later when a rehearing was denied. 1 
 Dominick Delfino was convicted of murder in Pennsyl- 
 vania in October, 1916. One year and three months 
 later the judgment was affirmed. 2 In New York Charles 
 Sprague was convicted of murder on February 8, 1912. 
 Judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals four 
 years and one month later. 3 Oresto Shilitano in the 
 same state was convicted of murder on March 6, 1914. 
 
 *275 111. 457. 3 2i7 N. Y. 373. 
 
 2 259 Pa. State 272. 
 
 34
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Judgment was affirmed two years and two months later. 1 
 Similarly, Leo Urban was found guilty in New York of 
 robbery in the first degree on December 14, 1915. Judg- 
 ment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals July 3, iQi/. 2 
 These are not unusual cases. They are picked at random 
 from miscellaneous law reports. 
 
 A study of criminal court dockets brings similar re- 
 sults. For example to cite a single case out of many 
 at hand one Ben Kuzios was indicted in Chicago on 
 May 1 6, 1917, for assault with intent to rob. He was 
 found guilty on July 25, 1917, a motion for a new trial 
 was over-ruled, and he was sentenced to the penitentiary. 
 A week later his attorney entered another motion for a 
 new trial and the prisoner was released on bail. The 
 transcript from the docket tells the rest of the story : 
 
 Aug. 24, 1917 motion for new trial continued to Octo- 
 ber term. 
 
 Nov. 3, 1917 motion for new trial continued to Nov. 7, 
 1917. 
 
 Nov. 7, 1917 motion for new trial continued to Nov. 14, 
 1917. 
 
 Nov. 14, 1917 motion for new trial continued to Nov. 
 28, 1917. 
 
 Nov. 28, 1917 bail forfeiture and capias issued. 
 
 Oct. 22, 1918 motion for new trial continued to Nov. 
 12, 1918. 
 
 Nov. 26, 1918 order of court, cause off call. 
 
 Jan. 29, 1919 order of court, cause set for Feb. i, 1919. 
 
 Feb. i, 1919 motion new trial granted. Prisoner re- 
 leased on $500.00 bail. 
 
 1 218 N. Y. 161. 236 N. Y. Crim. 70. 
 
 35
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 Feb. 18, 1919 judgment in bond forfeiture, heretofore 
 
 entered, set aside by order of county commissioners; 
 
 costs paid. 
 Sept. 22, 1919 on motion of defendant, cause continued 
 
 to October 21, 1919. 
 Oct. 22, 1919 by agreement cause continued to Oct. 30, 
 
 1919. 
 Nov. 6, 1919 former verdict of guilty set aside. 1 
 
 Records of this kind are not exceptional. They are 
 commonplace occurrences with which every prosecuting 
 attorney is familiar. 
 
 Radically different is the situation in Great Britain. 
 Under the English law appeals to the Court of Criminal 
 Appeal must be taken within ten days after conviction. 
 Ordinarily the court renders its decision in from seven- 
 teen to twenty-one days, although in murder cases in- 
 volving the death penalty this period is often shortened. 
 An appeal never postpones execution in a capital case 
 by more than three weeks. Thus, William Wright was 
 convicted of murder at the London Assizes on Febru- 
 ary 2, 1920; his appeal was filed on February 10, was 
 denied on February 23, and he was hanged on March 
 10. George Lucas was convicted of murder on January 
 15, 1920; his appeal was filed on January 17 and was 
 dismissed on February 2. Andrew Fraser was convicted 
 of murder on February 19, 1920; his appeal was filed on 
 February 27 and was denied on March 8. 2 
 
 1 Records of the clerk of the Criminal Court, Docket 11,413. This 
 transcript and many others of similar nature have been published in 
 the bulletins of the Chicago Crime Commission during 1919 and 1920. 
 
 2 The Court of Criminal Appeal, which was established in 1907, 
 sits in London with jurisdiction over England and Wales. (7 Kdw. 
 
 36
 
 The American Problem 
 
 In this fashion it would be possible to quote case after 
 case from the records which the Registrar of the Court of 
 Criminal Appeal kindly placed at the writer's disposal. 
 One gets the impression of a swiftly moving, silent ma- 
 chine the embodiment of the certainty of justice in 
 England. 
 
 The same impression is gained by one who watches the 
 conduct of English criminal trials. The business of 
 choosing a jury is a matter of minutes only. 1 The judge 
 
 7. ch. 23). It is composed of the Lord Chief Justice of England 
 and eight judges of the King's Bench Division of the High Court. 
 The following table shows convictions quashed and sentences re- 
 duced by the Court of Criminal Appeal from its inauguration to 
 date. The figures for 1915 and 1916 are not available. 
 
 Convictions Sentences 
 
 Year Appellants quashed reduced 
 
 1909 627 27 39 
 
 1910 706 39 42 
 
 1911 679 25 31 
 
 1912 664 30 17 
 
 1913 655 31 47 
 
 1914 554 25 35 
 
 1917 299 16 16 
 
 1918 285 10 21 
 
 1919 355 17 17 
 
 The word " appellants " includes all persons who have appealed either 
 against their conviction on a point of law or against their sentence 
 as of right, or who have applied to the court for leave to appeal 
 against conviction or against sentence, or against both conviction and 
 sentence. There have been a very few cases where the sentence has 
 been increased by order of the Court of Criminal Appeal, although in 
 most cases where an unsuccessful application for leave to appeal is 
 made to the court, the time from the signing of the notice of appeal 
 to the final refusal of leave to appeal does not count as part of the 
 sentence of the appellant, and so his term of imprisonment is auto- 
 matically increased to that extent. 
 
 1 In New York when Thaw was tried, and in Tennessee when the 
 murderers of Senator Carmack were at the bar, weeks elapsed in 
 choosing a jury. In the selection of a jury to try Calhoun in San 
 Francisco, 91 days were consumed. To obtain a jury to try Cor- 
 nelius Shea in Chicago, 9,425 jurymen were summoned, of whom 
 4,821 were examined, the cost of jury fees alone being more than 
 $13,000. See Storey, loc. cit., p. 210. 
 
 37
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 fakes an astonishingly prominent part in the proceedings 
 in a manner that an American judge would scarcely dare 
 do, examining witnesses, instructing counsel and openly 
 exerting his influence- to guide the jury. He does not 
 hesitate to comment upon the failure of a defendant to 
 take the stand in his own behalf, and his general conduct 
 of the case is such that in almost any state in the Union 
 there would be no difficulty in securing a reversal by an 
 appellate court on any one of a dozen technical points. 
 The unrestricted flow of objections to questions by op- 
 posing counsel on the grounds of irrelevancy, incompe- 
 tency and immateriality which forms so conspicuous a 
 part of an American trial, is surprisingly absent. The 
 proceedings are direct, simple and even colloquial. They 
 would be intelligible to a layman. There are no hypo- 
 thetical questions, no haggling over the admission of evi- 
 dence. Counsel on both sides give the appearance of 
 striving to arrive at the truth by the quickest and most 
 direct route. On direct examination the questions of the 
 attorneys are often " leading " questions and are put with- 
 out objection. Thus they do not hesitate to ask their 
 witnesses such questions as this : " Did you look through 
 the door and see the defendant speaking with Williams, 
 and after a few seconds did you see him fire a shot? " 
 In an American trial it would take a dozen questions and 
 answers to elicit this information, and each of them would 
 likely involve objection and argument. 
 
 Briefly, our criminal procedure not only -makes dela> 
 possible but encourages it. Our methods are formal, 
 diffuse, and inflexible; we are enmeshed in technicalities 
 which we revere as the attributes of justice, confusing 
 
 38
 
 The American Problem 
 
 them with the essentials of a criminal system. We do 
 not seem to realize that simplicity, directness and a mod- 
 erate degree of speed are consistent with fair, impartial 
 trials. 
 
 Faulty Personnel. 
 
 Another contributing factor in the failure of our ad- 
 ministration of justice lies in the poor quality of some 
 of our magistrates and prosecuting officers. On no point 
 are policemen throughout the country so unanimous as 
 in their emphatically expressed opinion that they are not 
 fairly or properly supported by the prosecuting attorneys 
 and the courts. And it must be admitted that the charge 
 is not without considerable substantiation. From Massa- 
 chusetts comes the authenticated story of the county at- 
 torney who on the last day of his term quashed 200 cases 
 without consulting the complainant officers. From the 
 police in many other states there are allegations, often 
 with specifications, of prosecuting attorneys conniving at 
 the acquittal or inadequate punishment of criminals. In- 
 dictments remain untried and accumulate on the calendars 
 of the courts, often dating back as far as three and four 
 years, with the result that witnesses leave the jurisdiction 
 and evidence disappears. The abuse and misuse of the 
 bail system are notorious. 1 Cases are often postponed to 
 
 1 As illustrative of the abuse of the bail system, the Grand Jury of 
 Cook County, 111., in May, 1919, handed down a presentment in part 
 as follows: "One of the most aggravated cases we have handled was 
 the case of three notorious criminals who were indicted by this 
 grand jury for robbery and hold-ups committed while out on bail. 
 We fixed the bail at $25,000.00 in each case. When we handed 
 these indictments to the judge we also requested him to prevent 
 any reduction in the amount of the bail. In addition to the above, 
 we asked the state attorney's office to fight any reduction of the bail 
 
 39
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 wear out the patience of the police. " There are in- 
 stances on record," said former Police Commissioner 
 Woods of New York, " where a case has been postponed 
 and re-postponed until the patrolman has been obliged to 
 come to court twenty-six times before it actually was 
 called to trial." 1 
 
 Illustrations of this laxity and neglect are legion. For 
 example, on February 10, 1911, Thomas Chap, a bar- 
 tender in Chicago, shot and killed a seventeen year old 
 boy. Chap admitted the shooting and justified his act 
 by accusing his victim of striking matches on the bar-top 
 and of kicking a dog. He was indicted for murder on 
 March 4, 1911. On April 7, 1911, he was released on 
 $10,000 bail. No further record of his case appears 
 until 1916, when the docket shows the following: 
 
 March 20, 1916 case continued to April 17, 1916. 
 April 17, 1916 continued to May term. 
 (Another gap in the record.) 
 Jan. 23, 1918 continued to March 4, 1918. 
 March 28, 1918 continued to April 22, 1918. 
 April 22, 1918 continued to May 13, 1918. 
 May 13, 1918 cause off call, order of court. 
 Sept. 23, 1919 on motion of State's Attorney, cause re- 
 instated. 
 Sept. 23, 1919 capias order issued. 
 
 of these notorious criminals. Two members of the state's attorney's 
 office fought this reduction to the limit. Notwithstanding our rec- 
 ommendations and their efforts, within a day or two we learned that 
 the amount of the bond had been reduced from $25,000.00 to 
 $10,000.00 in each of the three cases, and that these men were again 
 at large in the community and able to continue their depredations 
 on the pubjic. We believe that bail for persons having a record 
 of crime should be made extremely difficult." 
 
 1 In a public address delivered in 1916. Manuscript unpublished. 
 
 40
 
 The American Problem 
 
 Nov. 12, 1919 on. motion of State's Attorney continued 
 to Nov. 17, 1919. 
 
 Nov. 13, 1919 by agreement bond reduced to $7,500. 
 
 Nov. 17, 1919 on motion of State's Attorney set for 
 December i, 1919. 
 
 Dec. i, 1919 plea of not guilty entered, jury trial. 
 Jury sworn ; testimony heard in part. 
 
 Dec. 2, 1919 further testimony heard ; jury returns ver- 
 dict of " not guilty." l 
 
 In some jurisdictions, moreover, it is not unusual for 
 committing magistrates to throw cases out of court for 
 frivolous and sometimes capricious reasons because 
 the officer is late, or because his hand-writing on the com- 
 plaint is poor, or because his coat is unbuttoned. Often, 
 too, the sentences imposed are absurdly inadequate. Dan- 
 gerous criminals with long records are returned to civil 
 life after undergoing minimum punishment. Sometimes 
 they escape punishment altogether. Occasionally this is 
 the work of politics; 2 more often it is due to haste and 
 carelessness or to a failure on the part of the magis- 
 trates to realize the true significance of the struggle of 
 society against crime. " One of the most discouraging 
 things about police work," former Commissioner 
 O'Meara of Boston told me, " is to work for weeks and 
 months getting evidence on a particular case only to have 
 
 1 Grand Jury No. 137 ; P. G. D. No. 95,897 ; Term No. 2,459 ; and 
 General No. 84. This and other similar cases taken from the rec- 
 ords of the Criminal Court Clerk in Chicago are published in the 
 Bulletin of the Chicago Crime Commission of Dec. 20, 1919. 
 
 2 Anyone who would see the American judicial system at its worst 
 and lowest should read the report of the Congressional investigation 
 of the negro riots in East St. Louis. (6sth Congress, 2nd Session, 
 Document 1,231, July 5, 1918.) 
 
 41
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 the court let the defendant off with a $25 fine. Then 
 we have to begin our work all over again." The annual 
 report of the General Superintendent of Police of Chicago 
 for 1910 carries a paragraph equally significant : 
 
 " An honest effort has been made to reduce all gam- 
 bling to a minimum, and many arrests and raids have 
 been made, and the best results have been obtained that 
 were possible under existing conditions. The average 
 fine for gambling was $4.20." * 
 
 Moreover the decisions of the courts are often based 
 on ignorance. In New York in 1915 a man well known 
 to the police was arrested for having concealed on his 
 person a burglar's " jimmy " and a flashlight. He was 
 immediately discharged by the magistrate on the ground 
 that intent to use these tools was not established. An- 
 other suspicious person, arrested with skeleton keys in his 
 possession, was similarly discharged. 2 Cases of this kind 
 can be duplicated in other cities. In 1911 in New York, 
 a judge of the Court of General Sessions frequently di- 
 rected juries to acquit defendants because of the alleged 
 misconduct of the prosecuting attorney or of witnesses. 
 For example, in one such case, in which two men were 
 on trial for burglary, the district attorney wanted to 
 show that when arrested the men had dropped a " jimmy " 
 which was later found exactly to fit the marks on the 
 door of the premises in question. The following col- 
 loquy ensued : 
 
 1 P. 8. The italics are mine. 
 
 2 Cases of Proctor and Rentz in the Magistrate's Court in Janu- 
 ary, 1915. 
 
 42
 
 The American Problem 
 
 The District Attorney: Q. (To Detective Murray) Did 
 you ever take this jimmy upstairs into the building? 
 
 The Court: How is that material? I will sustain an 
 objection. 
 
 The District Attorney: I want to show that the jimmy 
 marks fitted into the door. 
 
 The Court : In view of the statement made by you I will 
 direct the jury to render a verdict of not guilty. 
 
 The District Attorney: I stated it in my opening. I 
 could n't prove it in any other way. The officer went 
 back and fitted it. 
 
 The Court: The officer did not go back in time. You 
 have no right to repeat that now so I sustain the objec- 
 tion. Sit down. I direct a verdict of acquittal for im- 
 proper conduct of the district attorney in the trial of the 
 case. 1 
 
 Comment in cases such as these is superfluous. They 
 are cited only because they illustrate some of the diffi- 
 culties under which our police are laboring in their un- 
 equal fight with crime. 
 
 Attitude of the Public. 
 
 The weak sentimentality of the community in relation 
 to crime and the criminal is a final factor in the failure of 
 our administration of justice which cannot be overlooked. 
 Offenders go unpunished and the laws are used as a 
 shield for crime because such laxity is after all in sub- 
 stantial accord with public opinion, or at least with that 
 element of public opinion which follows the daily news- 
 
 1 People vs. Ristino, p. 18. For a discussion of this and other 
 cases, see report dated May 23, 1912, submitted to the Mayor of New 
 York by the present writer when serving as Commissioner of Ac- 
 counts of New York. 
 
 43
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 paper stories of our criminal courts. Our hereditary 
 sympathies are for the under-dog, for the man who is 
 down and out, and the criminal is too frequently pictured 
 as being only the victim of hard luck or a bad environ- 
 ment, fighting for his life or freedom against the power- 
 fully organized, impersonal forces of the commonwealth. 
 Sometimes this sentiment is little short of maudlin, and 
 the man whose crime has been picturesque or unusual be- 
 comes in public imagination, if not a hero, at least a very 
 interesting character, in the discussion of whose case the 
 rights of society and the claims of justice are lost sight of. 
 Sensational publicity whets the popular interest; the sor- 
 did details of the crime and its motive are blazoned in 
 hysterical headlines. The attorneys issue or inspire state- 
 ments in the press, presenting their proofs of innocence 
 or innuendoes of guilt, and long before the case is tried, 
 public sympathy is vociferously arrayed on one side or 
 the other. In three different parts of the country I was 
 told by prosecuting attorneys that it was impossible 
 to secure the conviction of a woman for murder, no mat- 
 ter how conclusive the evidence. " It is not considered 
 a fair sporting proposition," one such official said. 
 " Every important case in which a conviction is obtained 
 brings me a flood of letters urging clemency,'' a western 
 judge told me. And he added : " Often the letters pre- 
 cede the conviction." 
 
 This false perspective this irrational public attitude 
 which first shrieks for the punishment of the perpetrator 
 and then seeks to find excuses for his act and reasons for 
 his pardon has done much to vitiate the restraints of 
 
 44
 
 The American Problem 
 
 the law and weaken its administration. " The evidence 
 shows that Anton Jindra's treatment of her was most 
 tantalizing, annoying and brutal ; and because of this we 
 believe the said Pauline Plotka should be given the benefit 
 of the doubt, and we, the jury, recommend that she be 
 released from custody." * This verdict, handed down 
 by a coroner's jury in Chicago in the case of the murder 
 of a man by his sweetheart, is typical of the atmosphere 
 of false public sentiment in which criminal justice is ad- 
 ministered in the United States. In Indianapolis in 1919 
 a negro shot and killed another following a quarrel over 
 a girl. Upon apprehension the perpetrator admitted the 
 act, but was freed by the Grand Jury presumably upon 
 the ground of justification in shooting a trespassing rival. 
 Upon release from custody he called at the coroner's office 
 to get his pistol which he had left beside the body of his 
 victim and which had been held as evidence. 2 
 
 These are not isolated instances. While more preva- 
 lent in some parts of the country than in others, they can 
 be duplicated in almost every jurisdiction. They are 
 typical of the maladjustment of our attitude toward crime. 
 " We have three classes of homicide," I was told by the 
 chief of detectives in a large southern city. " If a nigger 
 kills a white man, that 's murder. If a white man kills 
 a nigger, that's justifiable homicide. If a nigger kills 
 another nigger, that 's one less nigger." While of 
 course brutally exaggerated, the statement is none the less 
 
 1 New York Times, February 28, 1918. 
 
 2 Personally communicated by the coroner of Marion County, In- 
 diana. The investigator happened to be in the coroner's office at the 
 moment when the negro called for his pistol. 
 
 45
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 too nearly a correct portrayal of the actual condition of 
 public opinion in many parts of the country to be alto- 
 gether or even largely discounted. 
 
 Crime is an offense not only against the individual vic- 
 tim but against the whole structure of society. Until 
 public opinion adjusts its own point of view on these 
 matters we cannot expect our courts to reflect anything 
 better. 
 
 In discussing these four phases of the administration 
 of justice in America our technical criminal procedure, 
 the long delays and the uncertainty of punishment, the 
 badly chosen personnel on the bench and in the depart- 
 ment of the prosecuting attorney, and finally the unhealthy 
 state of public opinion toward crime and the criminal 
 the aim has been to emphasize the point, too often over- 
 looked, that our police suffer from connection with a 
 system that has all but broken down. From time to 
 time, in our indignation at the obvious growth of crime, 
 we rise up and cry out at the police. Why are they not 
 at their business? Why do they not succeed? The an- 
 swer is obvious. The task before us is far greater than 
 the regeneration of our police. It is the regeneration of 
 our whole system of administering justice and the cre- 
 ation of a sound public attitude toward crime. 
 
 IV. UNENFORCEABLE LAWS 
 
 A final disadvantage under which American police de- 
 partments are laboring is to be found in the presence on 
 our statute books of laws which, because they interfere 
 with customs widely practised and widely regarded as 
 
 46
 
 The American Problem 
 
 innocent, are fundamentally unenforceable. The willing- 
 ness with which we undertake to regulate by law the per- 
 sonal habits of private citizens is a source of perpetual 
 astonishment to Europeans. In no country in Europe, 
 with the exception of Germany, is an attempt ever made 
 to/enforce standards of conduct which do not meet with 
 general public approval, or, at the behest of what may 
 be a minority, to bring a particular code of behavior 
 within the scope of criminal legislation. With us, how- 
 ever, every year adds its accretion to our sumptuary laws. 
 It suits the judgment of some and the temper of others 
 to convert into crimes practices which they deem mischie- 
 vous or unethical. They resort to law to supply the de- 
 ficiencies of other agencies of social control. They at- 
 tempt to govern by means of law things which in their 
 nature do not admit of objective treatment and external 
 coercion. " Nothing is more attractive to the benevolent 
 vanity of men," said James Coolidge Carter, " than the 
 notion that they can effect great improvement in society 
 by the simple process of forbidding all wrong conduct, 
 or conduct which they think is wrong, by law, and of 
 enjoining all good conduct by the same means." * 
 
 It is to this temptation and to this fallacy that our legis- 
 latures habitually succumb. The views of particular 
 groups of people on questions of private conduct are 
 made the legal requirements of the State. We are sur- 
 rounded by penal laws whose only purpose is to enforce 
 
 1 Law: Its Origin, Growth and Function. New York, 1900, p. 221. 
 See, too, The Limits of Effective Legal Action, an address by Roscoe 
 Pound before the Pennsylvania Bar Association, June 27, 1916 (a 
 pamphlet) ; and The End of Law as Developed in Legal Rules and 
 Doctrines, by the same author, in 27 Harvard L. Rev. 195. 
 
 47
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 by threat certain standards of morality. We are hedged 
 about by arbitrary regulations, which, while they may 
 have at one time perhaps satisfied the consciences of those 
 responsible for them, no longer represent community pub- 
 lic opinion, or at best represent only a portion of it. 
 These regulations have not grown as we have grown and 
 they do not ease up as we push the whole social weight 
 against them. Indeed this presents one of the strange 
 anomalies in American life: with an intolerance for au- 
 thority and an emphasis upon individual rights, more pro- 
 nounced, perhaps, than in any other nation, we are, of all 
 people, not even excepting the Germans, pre-eminently 
 addicted to the habit of standardizing by law the lives 
 and morals of our citizens. Nowhere in the world is 
 there so great an anxiety to place the moral regulation 
 of social affairs in the hands of the police, and nowhere 
 are the police so incapable of carrying out such regula- 
 tion. Our concern, moreover, is for externals, for re- 
 sults that are formal and apparent rather than essential. 
 We are less anxious about preventing a man from doing 
 wrong to others than in preventing him from doing what 
 we consider harm to himself. We like to pass laws to 
 compel the individual to do as we think he ought to do 
 for his own good. We attack symptoms rather than 
 causes and in doing so we create a species of moralistic 
 despotism which overrides the private conscience and de- 
 stroys liberty where liberty is most precious. 
 
 From this condition arises one of the most embarrass- 
 ing phases of the whole question of law enforcement. 
 Mayors, administrations and police forces are more often 
 and more successfully attacked from this point than from 
 
 48
 
 The American Problem 
 
 any other, and the consequences are corrupted policemen 
 and shuffling executives who give the best excuse they 
 can think of at the moment for failing to do the impossi- 
 ble, but are able to add nothing to the situation but a 
 sense of their own perplexity. Of all the cities visited 
 by the writer, there was scarcely one that did not bear 
 evidence of demoralization arising from attempts to en- 
 force laws which instead of representing the will of the 
 community, represented hardly anybody's will. " I am 
 always between two fires," the chief of police in New 
 Orleans told me. " If I should enforce the law against 
 selling tobacco on Sunday, I would be run out of office 
 in twenty-four hours. But I am in constant danger of 
 being run out of office because I don't enforce it." At the 
 time of my visit to New Orleans the enforcement of this 
 particular law was in a state of compromise by which 
 green curtains were hung to conceal the tobacco stands on 
 Sunday. The curtains served the double purpose of ad- 
 vertising the location of the stands and of protecting the 
 virtue of the citizens from visions of evil ! 
 
 It is this sort of hypocrisy that one encounters every- 
 where, and the number of such statutes is legion, most of 
 them honored in the breach or perhaps in some compro- 
 mise that brings the law and its administration into public 
 contempt. " There has never been serious attempt to 
 modify our strict Sunday laws," I was told by the prose- 
 cuting attorney in a large southern city. " In the first 
 place it is n't necessary because the laws are n't enforced, 
 and in the second place any attempt to modify them would 
 meet with determined opposition from our good people." 
 This happy philosophy fails to take account of the spas- 
 
 49
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 modic efforts on the part of the good people to enforce 
 the laws. One constantly comes across such situations 
 as the following newspaper item portrays : 
 
 " ABERDEEN, Miss., April 15. The W. C. T. U. is 
 seeking to have all soda fountains closed on Sunday in 
 the future. This was done once before but it did not 
 last. The W. C. T. U. officials say they are going to 
 hold this time and that they intend to see that the law 
 is carried out to the letter and that every violator is 
 prosecuted to full extent." 1 
 
 Most chiefs of police confess frankly that in these 
 cases they do not act except upon specific complaint. 
 " And then we have to act," said one chief, " but of 
 course nothing ever comes of it because judges and juries 
 will not convict." Said a criminal court judge in Ken- 
 tucky : " On ample evidence furnished by a Church Fed- 
 eration I placed several cases of Sunday violations before 
 the Grand Juries of March, April, May, June, Septem- 
 ber, October and November, 1915. Not a single indict- 
 ment was returned. It is my experience that prosecutors, 
 judges and juries will not convict people of crime 
 for doing things that are the community habit and prac- 
 tice." 2 
 
 A county solicitor from Alabama writes me as follows : 
 " While we have a statute making it unlawful to play ten- 
 nis and golf on Sunday there is no effort made to enforce 
 it. A great deal of effort has been made in the past to 
 convict negroes for playing cards on Sunday, but this has 
 
 1 Birmingham Age-Herald, April 16, 1915. 
 
 2 Personally communicated. 
 
 50
 
 The American Problem 
 
 been due to the fee system, and has been looked upon with 
 disfavor by both courts and juries." i 
 
 Clearly it is a bungling arrangement which leaves a 
 borderland between the live and the dead law to be ex- 
 plored at the discretion of individual officers. Our police 
 departments are torn apart by constant controversies as 
 to the existence and location of this shadowy area. Re- 
 cently in Baltimore, the police suddenly descended in a 
 series of raids to arrest all violators of the Sunday law. 
 One hundred and thirteen people were taken into custody 
 in one day and 223 summonses were served. Those ar- 
 rested included druggists, drivers of ice-cream trucks, 
 barbers, and bakery-shop keepers. Two men were ar- 
 rested for balancing their books in their own homes. 
 Selling a child a stick of candy constituted a heinous 
 offense and the buying of a piece of chewing gum or a 
 loaf of bread caused the arrest of the store-keeper. One 
 man was arrested for painting the gate in his back yard. 
 Policemen did not hesitate to approach a man who hap- 
 pened to be smoking a cigar and question him as to how 
 he came in its possession. If satisfactory answers were 
 not forthcoming the man was arrested. Efforts were 
 made to persuade the police to allow a few men to con- 
 tinue working in a garage on the ground that a hundred 
 motor trucks stored there would freeze if not attended 
 to. The police, however, refused, and two arrests were 
 made of men who attempted to preserve their property. 2 
 " This satire upon religious observance," said the Balti- 
 more American, " bore no fruit of holiness, but on the 
 
 1 Letter dated May 8, 1915. 
 
 2 See Baltimore newspapers for December I, 1919. 
 
 51
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 contrary fermented bitter feeling and vindictiveness. 
 The public was strained almost to the verge of physical 
 violence. The arrests were a disgrace to the city, and 
 even the policemen who under orders made them, and the 
 magistrates who held the preliminary hearings, shrank 
 with disgust from the tasks that were laid upon them." l 
 
 Equally ludicrous results follow everywhere from legis- 
 lative incursions into the sphere of morals. In Massa- 
 chusetts where golf-playing on Sunday is illegal, a cer- 
 tain golf course lies partly in one township and partly in 
 another. The authorities in one jurisdiction enforce the 
 law; the authorities in the other do not. Consequently 
 on Sunday the members are limited in their play to the 
 holes in the " liberal " township. In Tennessee the law 
 against the sale of cigarettes is enforced in Nashville and 
 disregarded in Memphis. In Alabama the law against 
 Sunday golf and tennis is nowhere enforced, while the 
 law against Sunday baseball is enforced only in Birming- 
 ham. In New Orleans at the time of my visit a police- 
 man was stationed every evening in each of fourteen 
 cabarets where liquor was sold. These officers were on 
 duty from 8 P. M. to 4 A. M. except on Saturday nights, 
 when they were withdrawn at midnight for the reason, 
 as stated to me by the commissioner, that their presence 
 in the cabarets after midnight " might seem to counte- 
 nance the violation of the Sunday liquor law "! 
 
 Often the laws are such as to defy enforcement 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 
 
 1 December i, 1919. 
 
 52
 
 The American Problem 
 
 the length of women's skirts, laws fixing the size of hat- 
 pins. In Massachusetts one may not play cards for 
 stakes even with friends in the privacy of one's home. 
 In Texas, card-playing on trains is illegal. One would 
 have to scan the ordinances published by the Police Presi- 
 dent of Berlin to find any parallel to the arbitrary regu- 
 lations in regard to private conduct with which American 
 citizens are surrounded. 1 
 
 The argument of those who hold the police responsible 
 for our lax observance of these sumptuary laws marches 
 with a stately tread. " The police," they say, " are sworn 
 to enforce all laws. It is not for them to use discretion 
 in determining what laws shall be enforced and what shall 
 not be." This argument fails to take account of the 
 practical situation in which the police find themselves. 
 It is estimated that there are on the average something 
 like 16,000 statutes, federal, state and local, applicable to 
 a given city. 2 To enforce all of them, absolutely, all the 
 time, is of course to any mind but that of the theorist 
 
 1 Statutes such as these are frequently enacted apparently on the 
 theory that the function of law is to register the protest of society 
 against wrong. Dean Roscoe Pound of the Harvard Law School, 
 makes the following comment on this theory : " It is said that 
 Hunt, the agitator, appeared on one occasion before Lord Ellen- 
 borough at circuit, apropos of nothing upon the calendar, to make 
 one of his harangues. After the Chief Justice had explained to 
 him that he was not in a tribunal of general jurisdiction to inquire 
 into every species of wrong throughout the kingdom but only in a 
 court of assize and jail delivery to deliver the jail of that particular 
 county, Hunt exclaimed, ' But, my Lord, I desire to protest.' ' Oh, 
 certainly,' said Lord Ellenborough. ' By all means. Usher ! Take 
 Mr. Hunt into the corridor and allow him to protest as much as 
 he pleases.' Our statute books are full of protests of society against 
 wrong which are as efficacious for practical purposes as the decla- 
 mations of Mr. Hunt in the corridor of Lord Ellenbo rough's court." 
 (Address before Pennsylvania Bar Association, June 27, 1916.) 
 
 2 See Brand Whitlock : Enforcement of Laws in Cities, Indian- 
 apolis, 1910, p. 79. 
 
 53
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 and doctrinaire utterly impossible. With ten times the 
 number of policemen it could not be done. Arthur 
 Woods, formerly police commissioner in New York, put 
 the case as follows : " Those who lightly advise that 
 every law should be vigorously enforced cannot have in 
 contemplation what such a policy would involve: police 
 spies prowling around every household over which a 
 scandal hovers, men and women shadowed by detectives, 
 many respectable people accused unjustly by officious 
 functionaries, immense sums of money spent in putting 
 the entire community under police surveillance. All this 
 would be necessary." J Whether it squares with our 
 ideals or not, the police are forced by practical circum- 
 stances to determine where they shall put the emphasis in 
 the enforcement of the law. 
 
 Under such circumstances, therefore, it is not surpris- 
 ing that they are disinclined to enforce statutes which lie 
 in the region where public opinion is either uncertain or 
 frankly antagonistic in its attitude toward the things 
 sought to be required or repressed. Mr. Brand Whit- 
 lock defines the situation with admirable clearness: 
 " When the act which violates the law is merely nialum 
 prohibitum and would not be wrong in itself, when large 
 numbers of the people, or a majority of the people wish 
 to commit that act or have no objection to others com- 
 mitting it, such an act, for instance, as playing ball, 
 going to a theatre, trimming a window, running a train, 
 or having ice-cream delivered for the Sunday dinner, 
 then it becomes impossible to enforce the law without re- 
 
 1 From a public address delivered in 1916, the manuscript of which 
 Ires before me. 
 
 54
 
 The American Problem 
 
 sorting to violence, namely, by rushing policemen here 
 and there in patrol wagons, and forcibly carrying away 
 men and women to police stations, courts and prisons, 
 and when they are out, doing the same thing over again. 
 This process, when attempted on a large scale, is called a 
 ' crusade,' and is invariably accompanied by disorder and 
 tumult, sometimes by riot, and always engenders hatred 
 and bad feeling. Its results are harmful and it being 
 found to be impossible to sustain the high pitch of excite- 
 ment and even hysteria which are necessary to conduct a 
 crusade properly, the enthusiasm of crusading officials 
 soon subsides, other duties are found to demand atten- 
 tion, and so the crusade dies out, is abandoned, and things 
 are worse than before." 1 
 
 Those who would push the enforcement of their ideas 
 to such extremes as these overlook the fact so succinctly 
 stated by former Mayor Jones of Toledo, that law in 
 America is what the people will back up. 2 Its life is its 
 enforcement. Victorious upon paper, it is powerless else- 
 where. The test of its validity is the strength of the 
 social reaction which supports it. " The true liberty of 
 law/' said Elihu Root, " is to be found in its development 
 from the life of the people. The enforcement upon the 
 people of law which has its origin only in the mind of a 
 law-maker, has the essence of tyranny and its imposition 
 is the mandate of a conqueror." 3 Said Emerson : 
 " The law is only a memorandum. We are superstitious 
 
 1 Whitlock, loc. cit., p. 20, quotation slightly abridged. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 55- 
 
 3 From a speech delivered before the Harvard Law School Asso- 
 ciation of New York City, April i, 1915, the stenographic transcript 
 of which is before me. 
 
 55
 
 American Police Systems 
 
 and esteem the statute somewhat; so much life as it has 
 in the character of living men is its force." 1 
 
 One final adage is always hurled at this position. 
 " The best way to repeal a bad law is to enforce it." 
 This statement is largely fallacious. It is true only when 
 those upon whom the obnoxious law is enforced have the 
 power, through representatives that they themselves elect, 
 to repeal it. When the case is otherwise it is not true. 
 For years it has been the practice of state legislatures, 
 largely representative of rural districts, to attempt the 
 regulation by law of the customs, diversions, sports and 
 appetites of city populations. The city police could en- 
 force these statutes to the continuous discomfort and an- 
 noyance of all the inhabitants without effecting a repeal, 
 because most city populations are represented in their 
 legislatures by minorities. Only too often have these 
 minorities sought in vain to obtain release from laws that 
 are not adapted to the life and habits of the city and that 
 in the nature of things cannot be adapted to them. 
 
 Meanwhile our police are caught in an embarrassing 
 dilemma, and there is little hope of a sound and healthy 
 basis of police work until our law-making bodies face the 
 fact that men cannot be made good by force. The at- 
 tempt to coerce men to render unto Caesar the things 
 that are God's must always end in failure. The law can- 
 not take the place of the home, the school, the church 
 and other influences by which moral ends are achieved. 
 It cannot be made to assume the whole burden of social 
 control. Permanent advance in human society will not 
 be brought about by night-sticks and patrol wagons, but 
 
 1 Essay on Politics. 
 
 56
 
 The American Problem 
 
 by the cultivation, in neighborliness and sympathy, of a 
 public opinion which will reflect its soundness in the laws 
 it enacts and in the approval it gives to their enforce- 
 ment. 1 
 
 1 See Newton D. Baker: La^v, Police and Social Problems, Atlantic 
 Monthly, July, 1915; Chap. IX of Havelock Ellis' The Task of Social 
 Hygiene, London, 1913; Chap. VIII of Fuld's Police Administration, 
 New York, 1910; and Chap. VII of Woods' Policeman and Public, 
 Yale University Press, 1919.
 
 Jt
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 APR 2 7 1982 
 
 INTERUIBRARY LOANS 
 
 OE RECQPI 
 
 Form I 
 
 '56(C790s4)444 
 
 Tl-M 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORU V 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 a 
 
 PAMPHIET BINDER 
 
 ^^ZI Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 ^ Stockton, Calif. 
 
 3 1158 00231 2618 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 001 045 963 4