◆ SpookStack

av ee” wy 7 -9- ) pattern, a search of several hundred and even ga thousand fingerprint cards might be necessitated. To circumvent this apparant necessity, we use a fin- gerprint card searching machine that makes such a search through several hun- dred or a thousand fingerprint cards in a fow minutes’ time, enabling a fin- ~gerprint expert to make an identification sometimes within a few seconds that ‘would ordinarily require him forty-five minutes to three hours to make without ‘the aid of this machine. Fingerprints are coming to play a large part in other than criminal identifications in my country. The Federal Bureau of Investigation instituted in the latter part of 1933 a personal identification file. Local law enforce- ment officers throughout the entire United States take fingerprints of citi- gens who desire to have their fingerprints on file for purely personal identi- fication purposes. These particular fingerprints are not searched through cur criminal files and are not filed in our criminal files but are filed in our nersonal identification files. We are receiving these fingerprints from meb- ry te gy oe a a Oe ee we Sw EES Wa de Re ee + ahtgvea pa dbiibvu aa ral re lie spirited citizens all over my country at the rate of several hundred such personal identification fingerprints every day. We have on file at the pres- ent time approximately 375,000 such fingerprints and make many interesting identifications of citizens who otherwise would be buried as unidentified dead in potters’ fields, During the past few years we have made a study of local crime through- out the United States in an effort to assist local law enforcement agencies hroughout the country in determining exactly what their particular crime prob- lems may be. During the calendar year 1935, we examined the police protection rate and the crime rate of @8 cities, of over 100,000-population, throughout the United States. We divided those cities into four classes or groups. In Class I we placed those cities having 2.3 policemen per 1,000; in Class II we placed those cities having 1.6 policemen per 1,000, in Class III we placed those cities having 1,2 policemen per 1,000, and in Class IV those cities having an average of .9 of one policeman per 1,000 inhabitants. ‘Our study revealed that in those cities in Class I, having an average of 2.3 policemen per 1,000, the murder rate averaged 3.9 murders per 100,000. Going down to Class ITI, with only 1.6 policemen per 1,000, the murder rate in those cities increased more than 200% to 8.8 murders per 100,000. In the case of robbery, the cities -in Class I, with 2.3 policemen per 1,000, had a robbery rate of 50.9 per 100,000, while those cities in Class III, with an average of 1,2 policemen per 1,000, had a robbery rate of 88.5 robberies per 100,000. In the case of petty thefts, those cities in Class I, with 2.3 palicemen per 1,000 protection, had an average of 591.3 petty thefts per 100,000 inhabitants, whil« these cities in Class IV, with only .9 of one policeman per 1,000, had an aver- age of 952.7 robberies per 100,000, and so it went through the entire field of crime. In short, our study showed rather definitely that it is false economy for a city to decrease the number of its policemen and that, in the Jong run, a municipality, county or state with inadequate police protection will pay through the nose in an increased crime rate. From this study we have made of local crime throughout tie United States, we can tell the crime that is going to head the list, the one that will be second, third, fourth, fifth and so on down the list, in any city throughout