It has become a truism that the problems connected with have very little regard for state boundaries. A realization of this fact has led the government to take an increasingly greater interest in criminal phenomena which have heretofore been left to the states or to the void where no government has claimed jurisdiction. But it would scarcely be asserted that the scope of the commerce clause and other bases of jurisdiction could be extended under our present constitutional system so as to allow the law to deal directly with all and the problems associated therewith. This fact, in the minds of many, does not eliminate an urgent need for a concerted, nation-wide attack, federally directed or controlled, on the crime problem in fields other than those we have come to regard as federal. At least one writer, believing that the matter is the concern of the nation as a whole, has asserted that there should be a federalization of our major criminal law and its administration.1 But grant the necessity of a united approach on in the extrafederal field and the necessity of raising standards of law-enforcement personnel in the states; it still does not follow that it is necessary to undergo the cumbersome process of constitutional amendment to reach that result. Such a proposal overlooks the fact that there is available a device which has been used in the United States and elsewhere to enable the central government to control affairs that were theoretically beyond its jurisdiction. The device makes use of federal aid or grants-in-aid and acquires its names accordingly. Some indication of what is meant by federal aid, its use in various fields, and its possible application in the improvement of state law enforcement will be discussed here. In a day when many calls are made on the government of this country, it may seem that the use of the term federal aid to indicate a particularized device of government is not very fortunate. As used in this article it will designate, in brief, a scheme in which the central government agrees to pay part of the cost of an undertaking within the jurisdiction of a local government if the latter will pay the remainder of the cost, and if the central or government is allowed, to a varying