Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1909 — CRIME AND PUBLICITY [ARTICLE]

CRIME AND PUBLICITY

The Newspaper In Its Relation to the Under World. THE FORCE OF SUGGESTION Superintendent Whittaker of the Indiana Reformatory Pointe Out How Embryo Criminale Are influenced by the Publication of Vivid Detalla ol Crime—A Paper Read Before Recent Meeting of Indiana Republican Editorial Aaaociatlon. In a thoughtful paper on the subject 6! "Crime and Publicity, * read before the Indiana Republican Editorial association at Indianapolis, Superintendent William H. Whittaker of the Indiana State Reformatory said: Personally I believe much good to society can come from the newspapers becoming better acquainted with the question of crime and criminals. Not only from the view of publicity or matter that goes into your newspaper columns for the reading public, but you should understand more thoroughly the characteristics and peculiarities of the criminal. Alike the World Over.

The human family is divided and subdivided into classes whose likes and dislikes, whose natures and peculiarities are affected alike. The same force of suggestion, as it were, will affect those of us who belong to a particular class in practically the same way. So when we are dealing with the subject of crime and publicity we have in mind that class of citizens who are weak, who are easily tempted, who have been trained in the environment in which they have lived to think that the world owes them a living and that they must have what is coming to them the easiest way possible. This, then, brings us to the thought: "How does the criminal class of our country receive its education?”

Those who have given the subject careful consideration find the criminal tendencies of the individual appear at the age of eight to ten, and that our graduates in crime or the most dangerous criminals, jare found at the age of twenty to twenty-five years. This class of citizens was not schooled in our public schools. Statistics show that but 2 per cent of them ever attended high school; that 20 per cent are illiterate, and that 60 per cent never attended school farther than the third or fourth grade. If it had been possible for these young fellows, who we find In our reformatories and prisons, to have had ,training in Sunday-school, In church and in our public schools until they were eighteen or twenty years of age, 50 per cent of them could have been saved from the disgrace that has been brought to them by their bad environment and bad schooling. Contributory Causes of Crime.

In talking with this class of boys ■nd getting from them their personal experience, it is very easy to judge those things that contributed to their downfall. Truancy from school and church, running the streets at night with rowdy companions, blood-and-thunder literature, visiting the cheap theaters and smoking cigarettes these are some of the causes which contribute to their delinquency. It is hard to say which one of these negative forces contributes the most to ruin the boy. No doubt each does its full share. A boy who expects to reach his highest possibilities can never hope to do so if he is addicted to these pernicious habits. When we go into the cities and visit the loafing places of this class of our citizens, and take an Inventory of their belongings, we will find a package of cigarette papers, a package of smoking tobacco, a blank book with the addresses of their pals who will help them when called upoon to carry out a contemplated “job,” a ten-cent novel or a copy of a yellow journal that gives in detail the criminal news of the day: and the paper that furnishes the Information in detail and has the larger headlines in reference to criminal news, is the one usually read by these people and to be found in their possession. Susceptible to Baleful Influences.

Huma beings are great imitators, and no class of the human family is more susceptible tp baleful inift|gnce or more easily persuaded than the fellow who belongs to the criminal class. Under proper Influence and environment they can be persuaded for the better life just as easily as they can be led into crime.. Hence the modern methods used in our reformatories and prisons in handling criminals is so much more successful than the old plan of inhuman methods which appealed only to the animal nature of these individuals. The criminal can be appealed to by high-class literature and good books from the library more than In any other way. I have had them tell me that they got their first lesson In good citizenship in the Institution from the books given them from the library; arid when asked why they had not read this class of literature before coming to the Institution, they said that their environment was such that they never beard of reading matter excspt ths

dime'hovels, the yellow journals; and that, when they get hold of a highclass newspaper, their only thought was to find the criminal news and to see what was done in the police courts with their pals who they knew had been arrested for some felony. All this leads me to believe that the newspaper of today gives too much attention to publishing the criminal news and elaborates too much on the action of our criminal and police courts. We must admit that more criminala are'acquitted than are convicted, and the fact that such information is dallj given to our criminal population constantly gives the fellow who is a crim inal hopes that he will be the next lucky one, and he proceeds upon the theory by robbing your house or hold ing up the first man or woman he seei who he believes has what he wants because of his education from the newspapers, bpcause the chances are in his favor of being released through some technicality of the court. To Restrict Newspapers.

I believe if the newspapers of the country would only give the criminal and police court findings where convic tlons are had, saying nothing whei the criminal was found not guilty, 11 would be the means of saving many « boy from taking a step that will lead him to the prison gate. I further be lieve that when crime Is committed newspapers should give but little 11 any notice to the public. Under the system today you give glaring head lines and much space to some worth less fellow who has taken a horse oi robbed a store in your community. It would be much better, in my judg ment, to use this same space for a good wholesome story that would be elevating to the boy or girl who would read it, and leave in the minds of those who read it an Impression for good The glaring headlines and wild wesl methods used today in many of oui newspapers in giving accounts ol crime has but one effect, and that la to induce some weak-minded, crimlnally inclined individual to proceed tc do the same act.

For twelve years I hate been con nected with the penal institutions ol this state. In that time a number ol Inmates have taken their lives by the suicide route, and I cannot recall one instance where the attempt was sue cessful, but that another and some times as many as three attempti would follow In rapid succession which only shows the condition oi mind of these weak and unfortunate human beings, and that many of then act wholly upon suggestion. The Tendency to Imitate. In studying the mental character of criminals In prison It becomes notice able that suggestion plays a large part It is by suggestion that a man Is led to make the effort to reform himself, abandon crime, and settle down to a decent living. It Is largely the tendency to Imitate that makes the man or woman of a community good or bad Life is full of instances where some good man with courage In his hear! has changed the sentiments or habits of a bad neighborhood, and by exhibiting a strong and admirable character, has gradually won admiration and respect, thereby through Imitation help and benefit his entire community. If an Individual has the personality to do this, would not a newspaper go ing Into the homes from jiay to day and from year to year, wield a fai greater Influence in directing its readers for good or evil than can any Individual through his personal influence and work? Take any institution and by assuming In your talks to the men that they as a body sure really In favor of do cency and order and really find more oomfort -and content in decency and order than in disorder and confusion, you can create and maintain In them a preponderance of Sentiment in favor of decency and order that will have marked effect for good. If officers In our Institutions take a hopeful view of things and are of the opinion that the men as a body are really trying to behave themselves and keep straight, and that the exceptions of misconduct and meanness on the part of the few “only go to prove the rule," as the old saying Is, there will result a better feeling among the men themselves and a higher average ol good conduct will result. How “Waves of Crime” Start. On the other hand, if the notion that a “wave of crime" is about to sweep over the prison, and everybody, officers and prisoners alike, are stretching their necks to see the wave, it will probably come and a lot of trouble will result. One of the things that disturb a prison greatly is the publication of a story of some occurrence In the prison in which some writer uses his imagination freely and describee “the

hundred desperate men’’ “caged by the prison bars,” and gives the outsider to understand that the whole prison population Is thirsty for blood ‘and ready for riot. The effect on the prison population Is to make the men believe that the story is Inspired by some official Idea, and that they are so regarded by the penitentiary authorities. This increases the tendency of a few really bad and desperate men to "show off" and do the things expected of them. On the othty- hand, If some bad man, who beldams to a minority of really desperate meh, actually does some desperate deed, the newspaper accounts are apt to make it appear that be was “rendered desperate by the treatment” or the "horrors of the place.” eta, and the prison population gets the notion that it is being cruelly and unjustly treated.*"' Censorship of newspapers and the cutting out of articles such as th 3 above is generally futile, for the article In Its actual form or greatly in-

greased In the harrowing natrirsof Its . details by oral transmission, inevitably gets into the prison in some shape, ■ and the fact that it has been carefully! hunted up and cut out of the newspaper by the prison officials only tends' to confirm it. If such stories could be limited to bare statements of the facts without exaggeration or wild or fanciful description of unnecessary details, there would be little harm done. Two Communities Compared. ( Now, as it is in prison, so it is with the criminal element in the outside world. Take any community in which the papers enter into details and garnish them with fanciful assignment oi causes which are half apologetic oi mitigating in tone (and which are often untrue, being the culprit’s excuse for his act), and I will guarantee that more crime will be found in that community than in one in which mere statement of fact, attended with the condemnation or the regret with which the community does or ought to view such deeds, is the rule of press treatment i

Newspapers men are loyal cßlzins; are enthusiastic Americans; are naturally against tyranny, oppression and wrong; none are more generous than they. They, I believe, •'will put their shoulders” to this thing and push it to success if they come to understand it With relation to newspapers and prisons it is a Well-known fact that certain newspapers, one printed in Ohio, one in Kansas, one or two in New York, and others elsewhere, are eagerly subscribed for by the professional and habitual criminal in prison, who has any extensive criminal acquaintance or range when outside, for the reason that these certain newspapers are to him like stock reports to ‘a broker; they give him Information as to what his partners and business associates are doing outside, and sometimes help him to plan crimes while he is still within prison walls. The Danger of Details. But the most alarming danger to the community at large lies in the detailed

description of criminal .and police methods which American newspapers, especially, make a point of publishing. The energy, Industry and keeness of our newspaper friends must awaken our admiration, and from the point of newsgathering, American papers have no equal. It must be said also, In justice to the craft, that very often criminals are hunted down and crimes are exploited and punished more because of the Indomitable courage and unflinching perseverance of some newspaper man, who, like the thoroughbred bloodhound, never leaves the trail and keeps up such a din that public sentiment compels police authorities to exert themselves. But what we are now .considering is the effect upon the criminal to be, that publicity of details produces. I think entirely too much is written and too many details of the crime are published before the individual who is accused has been given a trial by jury. Human nature is of such a make-up that on reading a story prepared by some actitve newspaper man, a man’s mind is unnecessarily influenced in forming hl. opinion as to the innocence or guilt of an individual before he is tried by jury. And with the great circulation of the newspapers of today, the man who is intelligent enough to sit upon a jury and pass upon the case of a person who commits a crime, although he may think his mind has not been influenced by the story he has read of the crime, yet the first impressions left upon this man’s mind from the pen of the energetic correspondent, is bound to leave an impression that he cannot shake off, even though from a preponderance of evidence the facts are contrary to the story written by the newspaper man. ' ■ , Perfect Justice Not Possible. Justice Brewer of the United States supreme court, after forty years of judicial experience, says that perfect justice is not possible. He says it is a .human impossibility to know all the 'factors of heredity and influence which should be taken into account in deciding the guilt of a prisoned. And if, as Justice Brewer says, perfect justice is not possible, then how far are we drifting from any semblance of justice when the clamor of a mob or a sensational press demands punishment for one accused Of crime, even before the facts are known or before the defendant has had time to enter a plea of any sort The energetic newspaper of today has the power to hang an innocent man or free a guilty one. I believe thgt too much emphasis cannot be laid upon this fact. Safeguards Against Crime. Again, on the other hand: It has

been said that newspapers are. safeguards against crime; that more crimes would be committed if it were not for the fear of publicity. I contend that this is not true, except in the cases of persons holding prominent social positions, which this class of prisoners does not represent to exceed 1 to 2 per cent of the total number of criminals'in our country. The true criminal, or the fellow who expects to make a living by following the occupation of a criminal, cares Very little whether the history of his crime is published or not In fact, he prefers to see his name at the head of a column of the yellow journal exactly as the great financier Is glad to see, his photograph or a picture of bis fins country residence, or a detailed account of some great corporation that he controls. In print Therefore, I believe that the claim, which is oQen made by newspaper men, that they prevent crime by giving due notice to the public when crime Is committed. Is erroneous.