A STATE POLICE

As a means of checking the sudden crime wave which has overrun the state, Governor Ely has recommended that all the police forces be coordinated into a single body. This coordination, it is hoped, will result in a more effective police power, and one that will be able to perform its duties towards public security with more success than have the municipal forces working independently. This plan is an excellent one, and with a competent person in charge, the united force should be able to accomplish much in the way of apprehending criminals. There are, however, other factors than incompetent police forces which must be eliminated before this plan will be able to accomplish all that it should.

In the first place, there are too many crimes committed. In times like these there are people who must steal in order to live, and there are always many hardened criminals for whom there is no remedy but jail. Nothing can be done about these. But when there are young men and boys who commit horrible crimes "just for the thrill," much can, and should be done. Movies and novels have portrayed the criminal as a romantic figure, with the result that there is a tendency to admire and even envy him instead of despising him. It is this tendency which is responsible for many of our worst crimes, and the first step in any attempt to stop criminality should be a drive against the agencies behind it. There are, moreover, facilities at the disposal of a criminal which make a crime a rather simple affair. Machine guns, automatic pistols, armored cars, and swift means of escape from pursuers, all combine to simplify the criminal's attempt. The last factor responsible for much of our crime is the ease with which an offender is able to escape punishment. Shyster lawyers, pleas of insanity, crooked judges, and bribed juries, make justice something to be laughed at rather than feared. Criminal after criminal has escaped retribution until the courts offer few perils to the transgressor. A radical revision of court procedure is called for if the fight against crime is to be at all successful.

The Governor's plan, although in itself admirable, is not likely to accomplish much in the way of stopping crime, unless the other obvious defects in the existing machinery for preventing and punishing crime are remedied. It is to be hoped that Mr. Ely's fight to clean out a bad mess will go beyond the reorganization of the police forces.