A Caveat on Crime Control

Abstract

by similar conferences in various states including New York. Governor Lehman presented a legislative program emanating from his conference which purported to cover the field. A special prosecutor has been investigating racketeering in New York City and has obtained convictions. There has been ample publicity for all these activities. But none of the dilemmas which lie at the root of any effort to deal with crime by law has been exposed to public view. On the contrary, the crime conferences fostered the belief that because they were attended by scientists and experts any proposals made by them proceeded from a fund of knowledge adequate, or nearly adequate, to solve the practical problems of crime control. In addition, there has been an impressive series of newspaper and motion picture glorifications of the police work of Mr. J. Edgar Hoover and his Bureau and of the integrity and ability as prosecutors of men like Mr. Dewey in New York. As a result, the faith that crime programs of the Lehman type, police work of the Hoover type, and prosecution of the Dewey type will substantially eliminate crime is almost as widely held as the belief that the Bureau of Investigation fulfills the principal function of the Department of Justice of the United States. To attack this popular faith is a task which is unpleasant for several obvious reasons. The criminal law shares with the rest of our law the need of a careful and critical revaluation; the crime conferences were, potentially at least, a step in that direction and the crime programs, including Governor Lehman's, contain some useful measures which have often been insincerely criticized. Police organization and personnel in the major part of the United States are incredibly poor and the organization and personnel of the Bureau of Investigation constitute a genuine improvement. Prosecu-