HARVARD CRIME SURVEY PUBLISHES NEW VOLUME

A "revolutionary change in the classification of types of work to be done by patrolmen" constitutes the crucial recommendation for the improvement of the Boston police department made by the Harvard Crime Survey in its volume, "Police Administration in Boston," which is published by the Harvard University Press this week. The book is the work of Leonard V. Harrison, of New York, N. Y., a police expert of many years standing.

The survey regards the improvement of personnel as the foundation for better policing and states that this should be brought about by increased salaries, to attract men of superior talents, improvement and extension of training, and the creation of a personnel unit under the supervision of a deputy commissioner responsible for the selection and training of recruits and management of matters of personnel to supplant the present Civil Service Commission.

Criticizes Civil Service

The survey further criticizes the Civil Service Commission on the ground that prior experience is not as important as the Commission believes and that an examination of the character of the applicants is more important than the arrest records and answers to the practical questions which are learned from the Civil Service Commission, however, would review the methods of examination and guard against favoritism and political influence, while the police department itself would test the intelligence, temperament, character and physical fitness of the applicants.

The survey further recommends that not only should meter patrol, radio, flashlight recall system, and patrol booths be increased but also that the methods for coordinating that work of the police units, be improved, so that the whole force can be mobilized in a given emergency.

As a substitute for the present practice of having members of the district attorney's staff participate in police work, the survey recommends that a staff of competent lawyers to be included in the police organization.

The survey suggests that since an investigator eventually becomes too well-known in the underworld of one locality to be of further service there, the Boston police department should take steps to cooperate with either large city departments in the exchange of special investigators of this type.

Despite the many changes that the Survey advocates in Boston's police department, it states that on the basis of comparison with other American cities. Boston's crime totals and trends would be satisfactory to any large department in the United States.