OCR Text |
Show Active Public Demand Needed The failure of the United Stales to make headway against the organizes or-ganizes forces of the underworld has demonstrated the fallacy of attempting at-tempting to control crime by additional ad-ditional legislation. There are two distinct phases to the crime problem. One is social made up of the causes, mental, physical, educational and economic, that breed criminals. The other is political. During the last few years there have been many revelations showing the amazing connections between officials offi-cials and gangsters in our great cities. Political protection and graft have often made justice impotent. In the face of all this our reformers re-formers keep to their dogged course of attempting to pass more laws. Unbiased persons know that the very volume of laws now on the statute books, surrounded by red tape and technicalities, has made it possible for thousands of criminals of all degrees to evade- punishment. They know that prohibitory legislation legisla-tion usually reacts against the good citizen and in favor of the criminal. They know that simplification and speeding up of the machinery of law is vital to crime reduction. Yet nothing is accomplished. Organized public demands can do much to remove the causes that make for crime and to break up the affiliations that protest criminals. crimin-als. And at the same time the public, if it is to be successful, must likewise demand simplified unforcible laws that will punish wrong-doers without penalizing good citizens. |