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Show COST OF CROIE ONE-FOURTH OF NATIONS INCOME EXTRACTS FROM TAMM I BY SUPERINTENDENT SKID-MORE What is this we read in the papers about the preventon of crime through education? It has been published in the Manufacturers' Record that the annual cost of crime m the United States is about ?13,0OU,-000,000.00 ?13,0OU,-000,000.00 (thirteen billion dollars). dol-lars). This is at least one-fourth of the present annual nationa income and four times our total expenditures for education. Let me show further the menace of crime before answering the question ques-tion proposed. Quoting from the printed Digest Di-gest of Hearings before the U. S. Committee on Commerce (S. Res. 74, 1934): "The crime situation sit-uation in this country is so serious ser-ious that it approaches a major crisis in our history, a crisis which will determine whether the Nation is to belong to normal citizens or whether it is to be surrendered completely to gang-ster gang-ster rule. "Twelve thousand Americans are being murdered every year in this country, one thousand a month, thirty-three a day, one every forty-five minutes day and night, year in and year out. Every year 1000,000 are being assaulted, 50,000 are being robbed, rob-bed, 40,000 homes are being burglarized, 5,000 homes have the torch of the incendiary applied ap-plied to them. "According to population, nine times as many people are murdered mur-dered in the United States as in England. Twice as many as in Italy. In the United States during 1931 and the first ten months of 1932, "there were 1116 bank rob- ( Continued on page four) COST OF CRIME (Continued from page two) beru-s consisting of 126 night burglaries and 9 90 daylight holdups. hold-ups. The amount of money obtained by these crimes, including includ-ing forgery, was $4,413,606." These great crimes were preceed-cd preceed-cd bv smaller offences which led up to them and which are in number beyond computaton. The great bulk of crime, is a 'youth problem, and its beginnings are nearly always found in misdirected mis-directed "cTTfShood." The average aver-age age of criminals is about twenty-three. "During the first nine months of 1934 the arrest records, the finger print records of 241,000 persons were studied. Those arrested ar-rested at nineteen years of age made up the largest of all the ag? groups. It numbered 12,-41S 12,-41S individuals charged with larceny, lar-ceny, burglary, robbery, assult, rape, and criminal homicide." Dr. George Kirchwey studied hundreds of autobiographies of hardened criminais under twenty-five and thirty years of age and was struck with the fact that nearly all of them started young. The investigations of Irvin W. Halpern in New York show "that the majority of offenders against law are youthful, "unmarried, have had but little elementary school education, and have found their recreation on the streets or in resorts of unsavory reputs." They are social misfits, and eighty-five per cent of them are unskilled un-skilled in any vocation. From what has already been said perhaps you have formed a (good reason why there should be made a definite drive against crime. The place to begin is in the home. The time is early as possible in the child's life. The method is to be one of constructive con-structive education. Teach the young people right living from the start and they are apt to give little trouble later on in (Con'.inued on page five) COST OF CRBIE (Continued from page four) life. The thoughtful parent and the satisfactory home responds willingly to this kind of program. But how may the unsatisfactory home and the maladjusted child be properly considered and dealt with in the w-hole picture of lawlessness? law-lessness? They are somewhat like the bad apples in the bes-ket. bes-ket. Public sentiment and social environment en-vironment as a whole must be regarded as the largest factors which bear upon the problem of crime. We must bar from the mind of the youth an intimation of heroism which appears in the papers of today, such as: "Baby Face Nelson' is 'a 'clever kid'; they'll never take him alive." Such, it is said, was the expression expres-sion of his sister and his friends. The spirit of the bad gang must be broken up. Our children should be taught to abhor the desperado. Dr. O. H. Benson, Federal Vocational Vo-cational Worker, who was here recently, said, he knew intimately the home of two' neighbors who are now widely known Paul Mc-Nutt, Mc-Nutt, the able Governor, and John Dillinger, the "wodden pistol" pis-tol" murderer. When Paul first went from his country home to the large city it was with his father, who took' him about the city and introduced him to men who were loved by the people, but When John ' Dillinger first went to the city, he went alone and without the hearty approval of his father. John soon fell into bad company and here is where his deplorable career began. Dr. Benson said he is very sure that if John Dillinger had been guided right from his twelfth year up that he might have made as good a governor as Paul McNutt. As Dr. Benson has spent the most of his life in guiding young people, his judgement can not be easily set aside without serious consideration. The school is an agency for the prevention of crime through education, but it, occupies only a portion of the children's time. It does what it can. It does it Dy example and by precept, stressing the fundamental virtues. vir-tues. It may yet . do proportionately proportiona-tely more to emphasize character building and still, it can not do all that must be done to safeguard safe-guard the life habits of youth. Too often parents expect too much of the schools. The home, the church, and society in general gen-eral must supplement and cooperate co-operate with the schools for proper moral guidance. Chancellor Chase of the New York University in referring to countless thousands of young people, says: "Neither their parents par-ents nor themselves go to church; family life binds far less closely; hero-worship is of qualities that are not always socially desirable; they see about them corruption in public life, too many illustrations illus-trations in private life of the sacrifice of all principle to immediate im-mediate gain and the devil take the hindmost. And, against all the confusion of standards, and the hurly-burly, and the excitement excite-ment of contemporary life, with all its disintegrative elements, we expect the school to do the work that it takes a whole integrated social and moral order properly to accomplish." In answer to the question proposed, pro-posed, let me say in conclusion that an effort is being made to have school officials everywhere appear for the cooperation of every civic, business, professional, social and religious organization to make a drive against crime. |