THE MISSOURI CRIME SURVEY.

BY

GUY A. THOMPSON,1

OF ST. LOUIS, MO.

To those who have given attention to the subject, the swelling tide of crime has been apparent for many years. From time to time it has receded, but with each return it mounts to greater heights until today it threatens to submerge us, for life itself is now held cheap indeed. The menace is not peculiar to any state or section. It is nation-wide.

The causes of crime are doubtless manifold. A number could be mentioned and with profit be discussed, though their relative importance would remain matters of dispute. But all agree that one of the most important of these is the criminal's lack of fear of the law, and that this is due to deficiencies in the law and in its administration. The difficulty is in knowing precisely where these deficiencies are. Here opinions are conflicting. One thinks they are in the police departments, another that they are in the prosecuting attorney's office, a third is certain they are in the courts, a fourth believes they are chiefly due to our penal and reformatory system, a fifth is equally certain the jury system is responsible.

With us in Missouri the crime condition, as elsewhere, was appalling. Indeed, it had come upon us like a plague. The causes assigned were as divergent as the remedies that were proposed. Editorials thundered, and speeches were delivered. Everybody was talking, everybody was complaining, but nobody was doing anything. All the while, the plague was spreading and increasing in intensity; all the while, public confidence in our judicial system was being sapped and undermined.

1Mr. Thompson was President of the Missouri Bar Association when, under its leadership in 1924, the Missouri Association for Criminal Justice was formed and he served as Chairman of the Survey Committee of the latter Association.-EDITOR.

It was manifest that if the problem was to be dealt with in practical and effectual fashion, two things were essential. First, the facts must be gathered and, second, public opinion must be aroused. The facts if gathered would reveal the deficiencies and point to the remedies. Public opinion if aroused would compel the adoption of the legislative and administrative remedies thus made manifest.

The problem and the laws affecting it were not local, but were state-wide. Therefore, an investigation should be state-wide. Furthermore, the task should be done by an agency that would hold the confidence and enlist the support of the entire state, and that meant an organization having as its constituent members other organizations of influence and good repute throughout the state. Beyond these considerations and of equal importance, care must be taken to so launch the enterprise as to attract state-wide attention and gain state-wide approval. The importance of an auspicious inauguration of such a movement cannot be overemphasized.

Here, then, was at hand a great work for the Missouri Bar Association. The people of Missouri had the right to expect the Bar of Missouri to perform this service, for it was the only body with the practical experience and the specialized training adequate for the task.

Accordingly, on February 16, 1924, the President of that association requested the Executive Committee for authority to appoint a special committee to investigate and consider the growth and condition of crime, criminal law and procedure in Missouri. Permission was granted, the committee was appointed. and to it the President submitted the suggestion of a state-wide survey by a state-wide organization. Meanwhile care was taken to inform the press of these proceedings and public addresses were made upon the subject and the report of the special committee was awaited with eager interest. When, therefore, the committee reported, recommending a state-wide survey by a state-wide organization, the report was given wide publicity and from platform and pulpit and press it received commendation and approval.

The result was that in response to the call of the President of the Missouri Bar Association there assembled at Jefferson City,

the state capital, on the 15th of October, 1924, more than 100 representatives from the foremost civic, commercial, fraternal, religious, labor and professional organizations throughout the state. This was a remarkable meeting. Remarkable not only because of the character, ability and prominence of the men and women in attendance, the importance and numerous memberships of the organizations they represented, but also because of the splendid spirit, the high resolve and determined purpose to deal constructively and effectively with the serious problem that occasioned the assemblage.

Before the meeting adjourned it organized and incorporated The Missouri Association for Criminal Justice and commissioned it to conduct a state-wide survey of the administration of criminal justice and to initiate and secure the legislative changes and the administrative improvements that the findings. of the survey would suggest. A board of 30 members were elected, 10 from St. Louis, 10 from Kansas City and 10 from interior Missouri. A carefully prepared budget disclosed that the contemplated survey would cost $40,000,00. The public spirited were appealed to and, so great was public confidence in the movement, this amount was promptly subscribed. Later approximately $25,000.00 additional was received through popular contributions.

An operating director and an assistant operating director to supervise and direct the survey were selected. These were fulltime employments at substantial salaries. Approximately 28 field men were employed. For the most part, these were recruited from members of the Bar and the senior classes and recent graduates of the law schools of the University of Missouri, Washington University and St. Louis University. The authors to write the reports were also chosen. A Survey Committee was selected from members of the board to keep in constant touch with the survey and to control the work. Later, this committee was enlarged and all administrative and executive affairs of the Association were committed to it, subject to the approval of the full board.

Being thus adequately financed and equipped, we were ready for the state-wide survey and to that task the energies of the Association were applied.

Missouri contains three large cities: St. Louis, upon the eastern border, with its population of 800,000; Kansas City with 350,000 upon the Kansas line; and St. Joseph in the northwest with 80,000. The police departments of these three cities are under the control of boards appointed by the Governor. Furthermore, each of these cities is obliged to appropriate from its revenues for the maintenance of its police whatever sums its police board determines to be necessary. The investigation of their police departments revealed much to commend and much to censure. The Kansas City situation is particularly deserving of criticism. The police constitute the first line of defense against the criminal classes. Upon them exclusively rests the duty of apprehending the criminal after the crime has been committed. The consideration of the police problem in these three large cities has made clear the fact that there can be no satisfactory administration of criminal justice until the police problem is solved. The investigation has revealed that state control bars the way to lasting improvement and that a single responsible administrative head appointed by local municipal authority, without fixed tenure, adequately compensated, removable only after charges have been formally preferred and a hearing granted, is essential to the development of satisfactory police administration.

Attention was given to the ancient and honorable office of Coroner. It was found that no professional qualifications are prescribed for encumbents; that generally the office is not attractive to a man of first rate ability, and that it often goes begging. Undertakers and doctors predominate, the latter often of indifferent professional qualifications. The investigation disclosed that the inquest, whose purpose it is to aid with promptness and speed in the administration of criminal justice by fixing responsibility for crime and preserving the evidence, is actually an hindrance to the solution of the crime and the capture and conviction of the criminal. Many of the coroner's verdicts, though barren of helpful findings, possess, nevertheless, the saving grace of humor, albeit unintentionally expressed. We quote:

We, the jury, believe the death of desieced was caused by hart troubl for all we know.

Again :

So far as I could ascertain I found She came to her death from A natur cause comenly called hart failure and I found no cause to suspect eny foul play.

Again:

I lerned the man while Under the Enfluence of Whisky or White Mule just wilfully drownded himself.

Yet again:

The deceased came to her death by septecemia and not from any medicine given by any doctor.

Save in St. Louis the autopsy is the exception rather than the rule. These are often performed by untrained and unskilled physicians in crude surroundings and without adequate operative equipment. Outside St. Louis, autopsies were performed in less than 10 per cent of the cases reported in 1925 and, in perhaps 25 per cent of homicides, no inquest was held. The Massachusetts Medical Examiner Law is recommended as the most satisfactory answer to the coroner problem.

The office of Sheriff was not overlooked. It was found that under the law he is little more than a process server. It is not surprising, therefore, that he is usually a farmer, unskilled in police work. Not only is he not required to assume the initiative in solving crimes or in capturing criminals, but he is not compensated, neither are his expenses reimbursed him for his services in that connection. Beyond this, there is danger that if he is active in that behalf he may thereby disqualify himself from performing his customary functions at the trial. The study conclusively reveals the need for a state constabulary now become urgent in consequence of the near completion of the state-wide hard road. system. It is not without interest that the overwhelming majority of the sheriffs themselves recognize this need and favor state police.

One of the most thorough and interesting of the investigations included the penitentiary and the reformatory. It has revealed many startling and deplorable facts and has conclusively established the truth of the charge often made that the reformatory is a training school for crime. More than 1000 cases of recent parolees were thoroughly and intensively studied. It is found that though the average of their sentences was 50.6 months, they were released in 11.5 months. Furthermore, about one-half of the parolees had failed, that is about 25 per cent of them disappeared and about 25 per cent more were sent back to the