Show ' BY EDWARD M TOOTIIMAN Forma 014 of Police Oakland Calif and MURRAY TEIGH BLOOM - - r i I -- - Wr e iry is L hecks Latikly I ‘ ' ' 7i - I L r1111 i 1 111 '11: I 1 - - 0 1"t c 0 ) I' L In a sense they are even more imporI 300000 are written every day 2 costing tant than money since $9 out of every 31000000000 sto we owe is paid by check less than ti000000 In 1965-6- 6 a year in higher prices and taxes Often accidental they are too often premeditated ' - I wasn't considered insane there was day some 3oo000 Americans same no place to send her — except prison the nervously amusing Every their checks bounce And as soon as she was released she But it's not that funny so few of us like got into the same trouble again" That such a person should have no to admit the bank had to call about a trouble opening a checking account — check for which there wasn't enough the right to make money in fact — is a money in our account phenomenon that bankers the police Fortunately most of us do our check-stu- b district attorneys and the public must arithmetic fairly compenow examine with great care What is tently If we do miscalculate — on the how in the or on account at stake are over $1000000000 a year amount long in added costs to merchants — which it will take the check to get back to the bank — bankers know we will come in usually are passed along to the customers — plus uncounted taxes to support with more to square money quickly $2 be the the police and court work involved or We out $3 may things "Bad checks" automatically make bank charge for the trouble but that's us think of professional crooks who alall — even though technically we most never use their own names don't may be guilty of a misdemeanor or even a felony in many states open checking accounts and travel sBut many of the 300000 checks widely But the NSF check writer that bounce every day are not that generally stays put and misuses his these In own name and checking account NSF fact simply explained In 1964 there were 635oo comchecks and their signers are becoming one of our fastest growing criminal and plaints made to the police about bad beis in California And this led to checks ironic Which penal problems some 9400 arrests The MiSt bulk of cause most of the men and women these arrests were for NSF checks-Iinvolved are not professional criminals California NSF checks and Circuit judge Horace W Gilmore of Detroit recently told of a prisoner forgeries charges are the third commonest police complaint re-Mrs H who had a long r7---17— ceived 1 After talks to police checks history of writing V chiefs all over the country sufficient funds: without I 0-- z - "Upon conviction in her I'm convinced that this inr" credible situation is true in the psychiatrist i last case s recommended that she be many states institutionalized in a hospivoii I Every day the 5o000- 000 checks we write become al tal where she could get more and more like money proper treatment Since she &hood M T001 n -- '1 t Lw4 — mszavg a in counterfeit bills actually circulated or were accepted Obviously it's far far easier to make money by check In Oakland a few years ago I had some of my men make a survey of banks They found that many local banks for a deposit of as little as Si let anyone open a checking account The California Department of Correcbat obaolts tions alarmed at the Mr $3 mounting number of prisoners in its cells who were there for NSF check issuance surveyed the problem too One prisoner told how he entered a bank with $3 and opened a checking account for that amount The bank official had the inmate's name printed on 20 checks to last until his regular checkbooks were sent The 20 checks were more than enough for a spree When the check bears your name the bank is a local one and you have a driver's license and other identification how can the merchant cashing your $50 check know that you have only $3 in the account? His ignorance is costly to him but it is even more expensive to the rest of us In the Oakland Police Department we generally budgeted $7o000 a year for our bad check detail which bad checks a year gets some These generally worked down to some 200 arrests a year since most of the merchants who brought in the bad checks were happy to withdraw charges when the checks were made good It's almost impossible to tell how much Oakland spent on prosecuting the 200 bad check cases or the time of court attendants judges and juries But we n 'safe' 00 do know the costs of sending a man to prison on a bad check charge: about per case It costs anywhere from $ t 1 7000 a prison bed in new a year to prisons and 11800-270- 0 maintain a prisoner And probably nearly as much to keep his family on welfare once he's in prison With most NSF check writers this is apt to be an endless cost Every' warden and parole board knows that these offenders make good prisoners but simply don't profit from the time served: they return again and again Many NSF check writers are compulsive check writers even when they don't need the money A supermarket check investigator told of a case: "This woman whose husband is a truck driver and makes $3oo-35- o a $10-120- 2-- "I suspect there isn't a person in the room who has never written an NSF (Not I've Sufficient Funds) check passed a bad check myself nobody's divine" —George un Multnomah County District Attorney Van Hoorni- Ors week cashed over ttoo NSF checks in our stores before the account was It was a joint account finally closed but she wrote all the checks He paid for her worthless checks and gave her cash after that for household expenses" But she went on writing checks Professor Emeritus Frederick IC Beutel of the University of Nebraska Law School now at Illinois U found that of the $19000000000 worth of checks his fellow Nebraskans issued in 1954 some $25000000 bounced and of these 90 per cent wereNSF checks As in many other states about a third --- Thasamen'testaitaMrAgoialeItekaalgrtZtragaaaagt-- : mageWleSitrABALMMagircIMIPFPReatialagievareatagilW ovPaaam'aMIMPAr - -- ' Ika |