The Crime Industry Crime is now one of our moot flourishing industries an industry which is unaffected by hard times or taxes or any of the other banes of legitimate business. Likewise, it is a publicly-owned industry, to the degree that the public pays the bill which is said to total $16,000,000,000 a year, according ac-cording to the Committee on Youth Outside the Home and School in a report to the White House Conference Confer-ence on Child Health and Protection. Protec-tion. The criminal population is estimated to be 1,000,000 and it is unquestionably growing. The state of Illinois alone has 23,000 laws designed to 'prevent crime, and many other states probably prob-ably equal or exceed this record. Every year witnesses a flood of new legislation. And, in the meantime, the criminal class goes evenly about its business, seemingly growing more prosperous and secure. It is not a coincidence that "the criminal crim-inal age" is likewise the age in which law-passers and crime reformers re-formers have flourished to an un precedented degrtc. Like all our other problems, that of crime will eventually be decided by the public. The people, thro their vote, determine whether we shall have a constantly increasing volume of laws, or whether we will go . back to fundamental laws that prcsecute the criminal without putting put-ting good citizens at a disadvantage. disadvan-tage. The past few years have proven that restrictive, sumptuary legislation is, more often than not, a boomerang.