OCR Text |
Show A Practical Test A large county in a western state, finding its crime problem growing, recently re-cently adapted its legal procedure to the English system of swift retribution retribu-tion and punishment. As a result, within a short time, murders and other oth-er major crimes dropped to a minimum. mini-mum. The county is experiencing the quitest period in its history so far as criminal ravages are concerned. The other side of the picture is pre-'-.ntoti by one of the largest American Ameri-can civics. In this community few criminals arc ever arrested and sttill fewer crimes are punished. It is estimated es-timated that the murder's chance of reaching the electric chair is less than one in a hundred. In consequence, crime is on the increase and the underworld un-derworld thrives. Yet this city's record in comparison to other American Ameri-can metropolises is merely average. It would seem that the American people should need no more proof than has been advanced in the last few years that our method of handling hand-ling crime is foredoomed to failure. In England, for example, a single unpunished un-punished murder in ay ear is cause for speeches in parliament and public indignation. in-dignation. In the United States hundreds hun-dreds of murders go unavenged almost without comment. The public must take the blame. Public opinion has been grossly negligent negli-gent in its attitude toward crime. We will never have a reform until a majority ma-jority of our citizens use their power to demand an application of our law: and criminal procedure that will bring swift retribution to the wrong-doer. |