Not the slightest reflection can be cast upon the federal census bureau; on the contrary, when consideration is taken of the fragmentary and chaotic state records with which the census bureau had to deal, the systematic and orderly results and the general deductions embraced in the census report of 1904 must be regarded as a signal scientific triumph.
Uniformity in criminal records throughout the Union we have seen to be an imperative need. Is it a visionary ideal, impossible of attainment? If there is any means through which the ideal can be realized, it is through the agency of state bureaus of criminal statistics, such as have just been suggested. Each of these state bureaus, in preparing uniform plans and forms for its own state, would naturally place itself in touch with the national census bureau; while the national bureau would not be legally vested with the slightest power to dictate to the state bureau or to direct its action, practically its wide experience and grasp of the entire situation would enable the federal bureau to wield commanding influence in shaping the action of every state bureau. If the creation of efficient state bureaus, of the kind indicated, in the several states could only be secured, it is not chimerical to believe that through the dominating influence of the federal census bureau, tactfully exerted, a uniform system of statistical records relating to crime could ultimately be established throughout the United States. It is the first step that counts. If a few of the leading states in the Union could be induced to establish such a bureau; if to Indiana could be added New York, Illinois, Nebraska, and in the South Virginia, the force of example would be potent in the sister states. * * *
One exceedingly common and popular error needs special mention; a marked increase in the number of convictions for crime indicates to the public mind an increase necessarily in the volume of crime committed. In fact, it may be owing to increased activity and efficiency on the part of the police and detective officers, to greater severity and thoroughness in the administration of the courts, to a change in the economic conditions of the community, to diminished care and skill on the part of offenders in escaping detection; indeed, there are many possible factors that may have combined to produce an unusual statistical result. A slight change in the laws or methods of procedure, may cause startling statistical fluctuations.
For example, in the year 1890, the number of convictions for drunkenness in Massachusetts was 25,582; two years later, the number had fallen to 8,634. An amazing diminution of drunkenness in Massachusetts—nearly 70%? Not at all; it was owing to a new statute passed in 1891, the effect of which was that only those arrested for the third time within a year were subject to conviction.
The congestion of population in cities and the progress of invention necessitates every year the enactment of numerous statutes and municipal ordinances making certain acts, that are harmful to the public, misdemeanors (that is, legally crimes); but these acts, committed in large part through ignorance or negligence, are not essentially of a criminal nature. Statistically, they swell the number of crimes committed, but most of them are not crimes in the meaning popularly attached to that word. These considerations suggest that all attempts to draw conclusions from, and to explain the significance of the rise or fall of the statistical barometer must be conducted with extreme caution.
An error into which speakers and writers upon crime are prone to fall is that of regarding the statistics of crime as a measure of the total volume of crime committed in the country, affording an answer to the vital question: Is crime increasing? There are two fundamental facts relating to crime that must never be forgotten. First, that criminal statistics are, and must necessarily always be, confined to those crimes that are known and are officially acted upon by the police or the courts. Secondly, that there is a large number of crimes that are committed secretly and are never divulged, the perpetrators of which are never detected, and crimes that never result in the apprehension of the offender.
The crimes of this second class cannot possibly enter into any criminal statistics and yet they form a very large part of the total volume of crime committed. It does not seem to be commonly appreciated that these unpublished, unpunished crimes, which can never be included in any criminal statistics, probably far exceed in number those that are followed by conviction and punishment. * * *
In addition to unpublished crimes, there are numerous cases where crime is committed and reported to the police, but proceed no further. In these instances, the offender may be known, but has escaped or the offender is unknown and eludes detection; in either case there is no conviction and the crime remains unpunished. * * *
Perhaps the highest value of criminal statistics consists in the light they may throw upon the practical effects produced by penal legislation, by judicial procedure and by the administration of police and detective officers. For example, within the past decade, radical changes in the administration of justice have been established in this country by laws relating to juvenile offenders, and by the extended use of the suspended sentence and probation. A question has arisen in many minds whether the severity of the penal law has not thus been unduly relaxed. It is a matter of supreme importance to know whether and how far, the tenderness of the modern law toward children serves to rescue them from a life of crime—to know whether the clemency of the law toward adults by suspension of sentence and probation promotes their rehabilitation, and to know to what class of offenders this clemency may properly be extended—to know whether these milder methods of treatment are affording adequate protection to the public or whether sterner measures of restraint and discipline may be made more effective in repressing crime.
These vital questions can receive final answer only by following the subsequent career of the offenders to whom these methods are applied and thus gaining data for statistical tabulation. In the same way, the virtue of the indeterminate sentence ought to be substantiated by the statistical test. Statistics can be made to show what class of crimes comes most frequently before the courts in a given community, and whether an increase in the severity of punishment tends to increase or diminish the number of convictions.