Crime and Punishment in the United States

Extract

The first discovery one makes about America—and this affects the subject of crime just as much as any other—is the great variety that exists from state to state, and how strong is the resistance to any encroachment of federal government on state rights, which certainly include disposing of the vast majority of criminal offences committed. The importance of local loyalties is real and enduring. They have their roots in American history: have indeed made America what it is. And this is most certainly true, not only of the state laws themselves (the differences in the matter of divorce from state to state is an obvious example) but of the enforcement of the law and the treatment of offenders. Indeed Mr James Bennett, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, can say ‘the penal statutes of this country are a mishmash of conflict and variation’.

That is why any statistical account of crime in America must be inadequate. The annual report issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, which gives a detailed analysis of crimes committed in the various states, has been described as the cheapest work of fiction in existence. This is a serious libel on a most valuable work, but of course it would certainly help in making a true picture if there were uniformity —or at least consistency—in the penal offences themselves as well as in the punishment they attract, quite apart from widely varying police standards which obviously affect the issue.