Wide spectrum of probler
Society cause of crime rate increase
By HOWARD PANKRATZ
Kansan Staff Writer
Characteristically, Americans have tried to deal with the problem of crime as they have with all problems, by appointing committees with the task of dissecting and analyzing the conflict.
Reaction has been similar to that of many individuals faced with complex personal problems, they sweep them "under the rug" and hope they'll go away. By abdicating our responsibility, we pass the buck to law enforcement agencies. These agencies alone can't cure a society crippled by conditions and attitudes that cause crime in every part of the country and every stratum of society.
CRIMINOLOGISTS, sociologists, psychiatrists and police officials have all come to the conclusion that the criminals they deal with are not very different from the average citizen on the street. Not all criminals are motivated by dark and sinister passions or strange quirks of the mind, and only a small number of them are pathological or mentally unbalanced.
Further, in the more recent forays into the realms of so-called "white-collar crime," it is apparent that the divisions between law-abiding and illegal behavior are so faint as to appear indistinguishable.
HANS VON HENTIG and the French psychiatrist Lucien Bovet believe that, in a pinch, many of us would turn to law-breaking if no other roads were left open. Von Hentig says that each of us is vulnerable to the commission of criminal acts if the pressure of events becomes sufficiently great—in other words, if we feel trapped.
The reason that only a few turn to crime is that, normally, the press of circumstances does not reach critical proportions. However, in an age of increasing complexity and pressures—pressures felt on every level of American society—the prospect of more and more persons seeking solutions through unlawful means is a real possibility.
Television and advertising have produced a yearning among people of all levels of society to attain a luxurious standard of living.
THE EFFECT ON society—the effect of over-crowding, intense competition, luxurious but expensive goods and the esteem in which people who achieve material success are held—increases the frustration of every level of American society.
Von Hentig's doctrine of temptation, the temptation to achieve goals by unlawful means when under stress, becomes a common denominator to every American, whether rich or poor, black, white or red. With it comes the increased crime rate.
THE LACK of early training in the home can lead to a juvenile's first encounter with the law. The ghetto children, for the most part, receive no training that teaches them how to manage their emotions, confront rules and authority with respect or at least outward obedience, and how to develop meaningful and trusting relationships with others.
Once the poor have run afoul of the law, their troubles have only begun. Yet, the poor sometimes are better off in court than some middle-income Americans. In the 1963 case of Gideon v. Wainwright, a case won by Abe Fortas, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision which made it clear to the nation's state courts that "equal justice under law" meant that a man was entitled to legal representation whether he could afford a lawyer or not.
The court explained that the United States Constitution says: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to . . . have the assistance of counsel for his defense." Thus, said the court, lawyers must be considered "necessities, not luxuries" in the United States.
Legal aid to the poor is provided in several ways, the most popular being the public defender system. At present, there are approximately 272 agencies of this type working in the nation's 3,100 counties.
nearest available lawyer. The result may be slip-shod legal service for a poor defendant.
IN ABOUT 2,700 of the nation's counties, judges simply appoint a local lawyer when a defendant can't afford one. Some of the lawyers appointed are skilled and conscientious but, more often than not, the judge points at the
The gist of the court problem, and a problem which affects not only the poor but the majority of Americans with moderate incomes, is what Alistair Cooke calls "the right to go bankrupt for interminable litigation." After obtaining a lawyer, half of the impending battle involves hiring skilled investigators and expert witnesses to counteract state or federal investigators and witnesses.
It has been suggested that aid of the type extended to the poor under the Gideon decision be extended to all defendants with regard to experts and private investigators. Another proposal is that the defense should be able to use federal or state investigators, crime lab technicians and other skilled personnel on the government payroll. This seems only just in a country that proclaims a defendant innocent till proven guilty.
WHITE-COLLAR CRIME is a broad classification of crime which includes everything from pilfering by truck drivers and supermarket stock clerks to embezzlement by top executives.
The general characteristic of this crime is that it is not committed by the destitute, professional or organized criminal. Persons involved have better educations and are better equipped to earn their livings legitimately than are criminals from poor backgrounds.
This does not mean that those who practice white-collar crime are to be treated with less sympathy than the poor. As stated earlier, much of the criminality today is the direct result of people feeling trapped. When they feel trapped, they are, in Hans von Hentig's words, "tempted" to use illicit means to achieve what they feel they've failed to achieve.
This, of course, does not explain the activities of huge, highly profitable corporations that indulge in activities such as price-fixing. Over the years, some white-collar crimes have become "normal" business procedures passed down through the business community's subculture.
Government programs underw
"Together we have damaged the environment and together we can improve it," said President Nixon when he established the Council on Environmental Quality and the Citizen's Advisory Committee last May.
The Citizen's Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality replaced the Committee on Recreation and Natural Beauty. Its considerations and recommendations have been increased in order to "insure the basic requirements that an expanding, improving society needs."
The cities are probably faced with the biggest problems for environmental improvement. The committee has made a number of new recommendations for their improvement.
A CONSTANTLY increasing amount of garbage and refuse poses one serious problem. Within ten years, the committee said, the amount will triple.
Present methods of disposal are expensive and outdated. Sanitary landfill takes more of the cities' precious space than it can afford to relinquish. Burning, an alternative to landfill, eliminates refuse at the cost of adding to the mounting problems of air pollution.
Urban living today is also made unpleasant by the increasing volume of noise. The constant din created by city traffic coupled with the shriek of sirens and the growing discord of new buildings beings constructed make urban living increasingly unbearable.
Tapping the unlimited potential for reclamation and recycling of refuse into useful products is the best solution, the committee says.
A recent English survey of one of its major cities has linked the volume of city noise as a contributing factor to increased rates of mental illness in urban areas.
The Citizen's Advisory Committee pointed out that research is being done on increasing jet noise and the sonic boom. Some cities, it said, have controlled auto horns. The improvement of city building codes offers another means of coping with the pervasive noise of the city.
SINCE LAND and facilities are most precious in the cities, urban recreation, a factor of environmental quality that is sometimes overlooked, has suffered greatly.
One government program that helps cities establish parks is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This program has been less than effective, the committee said, because only one third of the money allocated for its use goes to city programs. The rest is given to the suburbs where the need is not as great.
THE PROBLEM is great because the amount of federal funds for the maintenance of those parks is less than the funds appropriated 30 years ago, said the committee.
As a result of that system, facilities in the cities are so poor that the cities have bused core city people to out-of-city parks.
The plight of urban recreation can be fully realized when a city doesn't build a park even when it has been given federal funds for that purpose.
To alleviate the problem, the committee has
suggested innovative research into the prospects of mobile parks, use of rooftops, and better use of air rights.
A TASK FORCE composed of electric utility executives and public officials appointed to study the problem recommended that the federal government initiate a grant-in-aid program to communities to intensify its research program to bury transmission lines. Clearer federal policy guidelines on routing of lines was also suggested.
The electric utility industry is another tactor lessening the environmental quality of our cities. Transmission lines, distribution lines and power plants disturb natural settings.
Improvement of the environment may never be effected, the Citizen's Advisory Committee says, if attention is not given to three key factors—the population explosion, environmental education and enough funds to implement the research programs necessary.
"OUR LAND, water and air has a limited carrying capacity for people just as it does for every other living organism," the committee said. "If we exceed this capacity, the quality of the environment must deteriorate."
The committee proposed that a national goal reducing the rate of increase of the population should be established.
Maintaining a stabilized population increase is the key factor in restoration and maintenance of environmental quality.
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