1940: Crime

Incidence of Crime.

The control of crime continued, during the year 1940, to be one of America's outstanding social problems. According to the Uniform Crime Reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a tremendous number of crimes were committed during the past year. Approximately 802,000¹ crimes of murder, manslaughter, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and auto theft, came to the attention of the police authorities in 2,025 cities with a total population of 62,288,351. This represents only about half the country and would mean that at least 1,600,000 of these eight varieties of crime were committed throughout the country, if the ratio of crime to population is the same in the non-reporting area as in the reporting area.

1 This estimate is based on the 9 monthly figures of the F.B.I. for 1940.

Not all crimes are reported to the police or come to the attention of the police. Moreover the criminal codes contain many more varieties of crimes than the eight listed above. The sum total of crime actually committed in 1940, therefore, is far greater than is indicated by the above figures. Although the total amount of crime committed is very large, it cannot be said necessarily that crime is on the increase. Uniform Crime Reports note that pronounced increases in 1940 as against 1939 occurred only in manslaughter and larceny. Decreases over 1939 were noted in murders, robberies and rapes.

Characteristics of Criminals.

Male preponderance in crime continued in 1940 as in other years. Of the 459,167 arrest cards filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the first nine months of 1940, 91.6 per cent represent arrested males, whereas only 8.4 per cent were for females. A comparison of an average group of 1,000 males arrested with 1,000 females indicated, however, that the females were charged more frequently than males with murder, assault, use of narcotic drugs, and liquor violations. Males exceeded females in crimes against property.

Youth continued to be the principal characteristic of persons arrested. More persons aged 19 were arrested than those in any other age group: 28.9 per cent of those arrested for robbery, 44.9 per cent of those arrested for burglary, 32.3 per cent of those arrested for larceny, and 52.6 per cent of those arrested for auto theft were under 21. The arrest cards of the F.B.I. also showed that in proportion to population many more Negroes than whites were arrested in 1940.

That crime is largely the work of recidivist offenders — i.e., men with prior criminal records — is indicated by the fact that at least half of the persons represented by the arrest cards had been previously arrested and fingerprinted.

Outstanding Crimes.

De Tristan Kidnapping.

Crime may be the act of a single individual acting from purely personal motives. Crime, on the other hand, may be organized activity whereby gangs of mobsters seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the general public, and resort to violence and murder where necessary to achieve their ends. One of the most sensational of the former types of crime during 1940 was the kidnapping of Marc de Tristan who was snatched from his California home by a kidnapper who demanded $100,000 ransom. The child was recovered unharmed and the kidnapper, an illegally entered German alien, named Muehlenbroich, was sentenced to imprisonment for life for this crime.

Murder, Inc.

The second variety of crime — crime as organized activity — may be seen in the exposure in Kings County (Brooklyn, N. Y.) of the criminal organization which received the newspaper title of Murder, Inc. For years, lax and ineffective law enforcement on the part of the district attorney's office in Kings County had permitted organized gangsters to prey upon business men, laborers, and other members of the public in a variety of criminal ways. An investigation of law enforcement by the city administration, the appointment of a special prosecutor and the election of a new district attorney resulted in a drive against organized crime in Kings County. One of the by-products of this drive was the prosecution of the gangsters composing Murder, Inc., and the disclosure that one of their side-lines was murder on a contract basis. The members of this gang were used by 'big shots' in the criminal rackets to 'rub out' inconvenient witnesses, obstreperous businessmen and dangerous rivals. Although the leaders of the gang received large sums of money for the murders, the actual murderers were paid as low as $10 to $20 for each. A number of murder convictions have already resulted from the above disclosures.

Labor Racketeering.

One of the fields in which organized gangsterism gave the most trouble in 1940 was that of labor relations. Men with criminal records have seized control of a number of labor unions and are using the unions to further their criminal purposes. One of these gentry was George Scalise, president of the Building Service Employees International Union. He was found guilty of stealing the union's funds and was sentenced to serve from 10 to 20 years in prison. Scalise had a racketeering background and a criminal record which included a 4½ year term in Atlanta Penitentiary for violating the Mann White Slave Act.

Hopson Frauds.

The violation of the criminal law on a wide scale is not the exclusive prerogative of the professional criminal. It may also be resorted to by so-called respectable businessmen. This is evidenced by the activities of Howard C. Hopson who was charged with looting the Associated Gas and Electric Utility System of nearly $20,000,000 and causing its bankruptcy. Hopson was convicted on all seventeen counts of an indictment for mail fraud by a jury in the Federal Court and was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

Violation of Anti-Trust Laws.

Crime as an incident of respectable business activity is also encountered in the energetic work of the Anti-Trust Division of the Federal Department of Justice in prosecuting various combines, combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade. In its investigation of the building industry, for example, it secured the indictment of some five hundred defendants including 394 trade associations, corporations and their officials, and 106 unions and their officials for such crimes as violation of the Anti-Trust laws, conspiracy, unlawful diversion of funds, and perjury.

Political Corruption.

There were a number of graphic illustrations of the weakness of law enforcement and peno-correctional machinery in combating crime in 1940. Detroit, for example, furnished a clear cut example of the fact that organized crime cannot flourish without some measure of official connivance. A Grand Jury investigation in Detroit disclosed the fact that an estimated $2,000,000 was being paid by the gambling and vice interests of the city to members of the Police Department and to other public officials. As a result of the disclosures, 145 persons including the sheriff, prosecutor and former mayor of Detroit and one out of four officials in the Police Department over the grade of patrolman were indicted and bound over for trial.

In Arkansas the largest prison break in the history of the state occurred when thirty-six convicts fled from a state farm. Most of these convicts were retaken after leaving behind them a trail of kidnapping, auto theft and violence.

In Massachusetts, a commission investigating pardons and parolees reported that it had reached the inescapable conclusion 'that money was the moving cause in obtaining some pardons between 1931 and 1938.' The commission also scored the disregard of procedural requirements and the failure to investigate properly applications for pardons by the officials charged with granting them.

Legislation to Improve Law Enforcement.

Much was done in 1940 to improve the administration of justice and the penal and correctional system. For example, Congress passed a law permitting Federal criminal procedure before verdict to be prescribed by rule of the Supreme Court instead of by Congress itself as formerly. This statute makes possible a clear and simple Federal procedural code based on the best statutory and common law provisions and the best practice of the state and Federal courts. It puts revisions in the field of criminal procedure in the hands of the courts administering the law.

Progress was also made in breaking down state barriers in crime control through the work of the Interstate Crime Commission and other agencies. A handbook of the Commission issued in 1940 showed that 31 states had adopted the legislation recommended by the Commission permitting fresh pursuit by police officers across state lines, 30 states had adopted the simplified extradition procedure, 37 the simplified procedure for securing the attendance of out-of-state witness, 32 had passed legislation for mutual assistance in the supervision of probationers and parolees, 41 for the control of narcotic drugs, and 9 States had adopted uniform legislation for the control of firearms.

Youth Correction Authority Act.

A realization that adolescent offenders, boys under 21, were responsible for a large part of our crime and that new methods of control were necessary actuated the American Law Institute at its annual meeting in adopting a model Youth Correction Authority Act. This Act will be recommended to the states. It does not disturb existing methods of criminal prosecution but deals with the treatment of youthful offenders after conviction. The Act provides for a three-man board or Authority of requisite ability, experience and knowledge which will be called upon to decide the sentences and treatment of adolescent offenders. Judges under the Act will no longer be able to sentence adolescent offenders to imprisonment but will be required to commit them to the Authority. The latter will determine the terms and conditions of treatment after expert study of the offender. Under the Act the Authority will have at its disposal for purposes of treatment a relatively indeterminate sentence and release under supervision for those deemed capable of adjustment without confinement in an institution. (See also JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.)

Behavior of Paroled Men.

Some idea of the value of effective peno-correctional method in controlling crime is had from a report of the New York State Board of Parole which studied the post-parole behavior over a five-year period of parolees released from the New York State institutions since 1934. The findings of the investigation showed that only 9.4 per cent of these parolees were convicted of new felonies and 8.1 per cent were convicted of misdemeanors. An additional 18.3 per cent were returned to the institution during the parole period to complete their sentences because of violation of parole or for other reasons. Thus 64 per cent of those released on parole in New York State according to this study made good on parole. See also LYNCHINGS.