So far as sex crimes are concerned, during the time I have been there [in the boys' court] I have not noticed anything that would indicate any difference between colored and white boys.
Judge Charles M. Thomson:
In my work with the criminal court, I was astonished at the large number of criminals involving the sexual abuse of children, but I remember no case in which a colored defendant was charged with that crime. Almost all races were represented, but I don't remember one colored man charged with the abuse of a child. There were many, however, accused of adultery.
Judge Hugo Pam, criminal court:
I have had more serious rape cases against white than against colored people. The most serious case I had was about ten days ago, and I sentenced the man to life imprisonment. I never had such a case involving a Negro.
Judge Kickham Scanlan, criminal court:
I do not think Negroes are more liable to sex crimes than whites. I tried a colored man six or eight years ago for rape. He founded an alleged orphan asylum. The evidence showed that he had held a number of young children in that place. He got life in the penitentiary. He was the only colored man ever tried before me with any offense of that character. The children in that case were colored children. But I have tried a number of white men for rape, and while I have had ten or a dozen cases of crimes against children, in my twelve years' experience on the bench, I have never had a case of a colored man charged with crime against children.
3. OFFENSES AGAINST MORALS
Judge Arnold Heap:
The number of colored cases in the morals court is largely disproportionate to the number of Negroes in the total Chicago population. There are more colored cases now in the morals court than formerly because in the past the houses kept by white people with colored inmates were alone held responsible. Since colored people are now doing business on their own responsibility, they are at present brought in the same as white people. At first the Negro newcomers were strangers to our surroundings and were not such frequent offenders, but as that strangeness wore off they became familiar with vice as it exists among us today. The offenses of these new comers are about the same as those of the northern Negroes. Some persons think that the immorality of the colored is more gross than that of the whites, but I have my doubts about it. One factor in the problem is that colored people of the poorer class crowd together in smaller quarters than whites, and this tends to a lesser type of morality because they are so crowded.