CHAPTER VII

CRIME AND VICIOUS ENVIRONMENT

The crime rate of Negroes is so largely controlled by a tangle of predisposing circumstances that it is hardly possible to isolate and measure its factors. The most important element is the general lawlessness, crime, and vice in the whole population, irrespective of race.

I. GENERAL CRIME SITUATION

During 1919 there were 330 homicides in Chicago. In 1920, in addition to 162 murders, 559 persons were slain by automobiles, largely through carelessness. According to the Chicago Crime Commission's report for 1920 there are 10,000 professional criminals in Chicago, and the annual loss from larcenies, robberies, and burglaries aggregates $12,000,000. Chicago pays a higher rate for burglary insurance than any other American city.

Crime conditions in Chicago are even worse than is indicated by these figures, which are based on incomplete police records. In 1919 the police records showed 1,731 burglaries or persons arrested for burglaries, while _Bulletin No. 9_ of the Chicago Crime Commission reported 5,509 burglaries during the first eleven months. During the same period the police records showed 1,975 robberies or persons arrested for robbery, while the Crime Commission bulletin listed 2,470 robberies. This bulletin says:

An investigation in August, 1919, to determine whether all crimes were being reported from the Eleventh Precinct and the Englewood precinct showed that in forty instances burglaries and robberies committed during the ninety days preceding had not been reported. A detailed statement of these offenses was prepared giving the victim's names, addresses, date and amount of loss, and presented to the general superintendent of police. The list was checked by the departmental inspector and found correct.

Another investigation by the Crime Commission showed that in one month a certain police captain reported only thirty-seven of the 141 criminal complaints made to him for his district.

In his book, _Crime in America and the Police_, Raymond B. Fosdick wrote (1920):

London in 1916, with a population of seven and a quarter million, had nine premeditated murders. Chicago, one-third the size of London, in the same period had 105, _nearly twelve times London's total_. In 1916 Chicago with its 2,500,000 people had twenty more murders than the whole of England and Wales with their 38,000,000. The Chicago murders during the year totalled one more than London during the five-year period, 1910-14 inclusive.

In 1917 Chicago had ten more murders than the whole of England and Wales, and four more murders than all England, Wales, and Scotland. In 1918 Chicago had fourteen more murders than England and Wales, and in 1919 the number of murders in Chicago was almost exactly six times the number committed in London.

Chicago in 1916 had 532 more burglaries than London; in 1917, 3,459 more; in 1918, 866 more, and in 1919, 2,146 more. In 1918, for example, Chicago had twenty-two robberies for every robbery in London, and fourteen robberies for every robbery in England and Wales.

Chicago's arrests for 1917 exceeded London's by 61,874.

Thefts of automobiles reported in 1919: New York, 5,527, Chicago 4,316.... London, 290, Liverpool, 10. Comparative statistics as to the number of automobiles in English and American cities are impossible to obtain.

It is apparent that this reign of violence and lawlessness must have a potent effect upon the crime rate of Negroes in Chicago.

II. PREVALENT IMPRESSIONS REGARDING NEGRO CRIME

In its inquiry the Commission met the following current beliefs among whites in regard to the Negro criminal:

That the Negro is more prone than the white to commit sex crimes, particularly rape; that he commits a disproportionate number of crimes involving felonious cuttings and slashings; that the recent migrant from the South is more likely to offend than the Negro who has resided longer in the North; and that Negroes willingly tolerate vice and vicious conditions in the midst of their residence districts. These and similar impressions are compared with the facts as found by the Commission.

III. CRIMINAL STATISTICS

In its effort to secure information regarding Negro crime the Commission sought the only available records kept of all crimes--the police records, especially the annual report of the Department of Police. On examination these records were found to be of questionable value for any accurate presentation of Negro crime, or, in fact, of general crime. In 1913 the City Council Committee on Crime made a study of crimes in Chicago and encountered the same difficulty. Says the report of this Committee: "The police and criminal judicial statistics in Chicago are wholly incomplete and are not even assembled or published by any authority." Further commenting on this inadequacy, it says:

Unfortunately, there is in Illinois no central bureau of criminal statistics through which statistics from the police department, the courts, the jails, prisons, and the probation department are collected and correlated. A state bureau of criminal statistics does exist on our statute books, for, by a law approved June 11, 1912, the State Charities Commission was directed to establish such a bureau with the secretary of the Commission as director in charge. This proposed bureau was charged with the duty of collecting and publishing annually the statistics of Illinois relating to crime, and all courts of Illinois, police magistrates, justices of the peace, clerks of all courts of record, sheriffs, keepers of all places of detention for crime or misdemeanors or violations of the criminal statutes are to "furnish said bureau annually such information on request as it may require in compiling such statistics." Up to the present time, however, owing chiefly to the fact that no appropriation has been made to cover the expenses of this work, no steps have been taken by the executive secretary of the Commission towards putting this law into effect. Moreover, there has never been in Chicago any attempt at an annual "stock-taking" in which the statistics furnished by the various departments and agencies dealing with the problem of crime might be brought together and examined with the hope of determining how far the problem is being adequately met.

Because there has been no systematic handling of criminal statistics, no method has been developed for accurately measuring the prevalence of crime. The Crime Commission expressed its difficulty here in this manner:

It is very important to note that the number of arrests is not synonymous with number of crimes, among others reasons because (1) a large number of persons may be arrested for complicity in a single crime; (2) many innocent persons are arrested through misapprehension and later discharged; and (3) the vast majority of arrests are for petty offenses that are not serious enough to be called "crimes" at all. Some consideration should be given to the question of "new crime." When laws are passed creating new offenses, there may be an increase in arrests without any corresponding increase in criminality. As a matter of fact, however, the new offenses are chiefly those involving misdemeanors and violations of ordinances. New felonies are rarely created. In Chicago the police classification does, however, include two new offenses improperly classed as felonies, "contributing to delinquency" and "pandering."

To the difficulties experienced by the City Council Crime Committee in determining the extent of general crime may be added the even greater difficulty of comparing the crime record of Negroes with that of other racial groups. The sources of the police statistics are the bookings by the desk sergeant in the police station. These are taken from arrest slip notations made by police-station desk sergeants, before whom persons arrested are brought. The ability of these desk sergeants correctly to ascertain the prisoner's race or nationality is open to question. Reports from the Immigrants' Protective League show that the foreigners arrested are often given wrong racial designations. On the other hand the classification of Negroes, even of half blood, is never in doubt. This fact should be remembered in interpreting the figures, for the Negro will be debited with all the crimes he commits, while figures for other groups will probably not indicate the full extent of their criminality. Added to this is the disposition, conscious or unconscious, to arrest Negroes more freely than whites, to book them on more serious charges, to convict them more readily, and to give them longer sentences.

This bias does not appear in the bare figures, which thus seem to substantiate the already existing belief that Negroes are more criminal than other racial groups. An example of this is found in the bookings in murder cases. For the six-year period 1914-19 inclusive, 1,121 whites and 193 Negroes were booked for murder, while 501 whites and only twenty-one Negroes were booked for manslaughter. While Negroes were charged with 17.1 per cent of the murders, they were charged with only 4.1 per cent of the cases of manslaughter. This, of course, takes into account bookings before trial. On the other hand, according to the testimony, they are more easily convicted on the charges on which they are booked. This fact introduces another element in the figures, which, although not representing the actual criminality of Negroes, yet gives plausibility to records. These situations presented such obvious dangers that the Commission considered it best to avoid giving currency to figures which carried such clear evidence of their own inaccuracy and misrepresentation. Since it is necessary to employ some of these figures despite their inaccuracies, the effort has been made to use them only where clear comparisons are possible.

The Commission is aware that statistics have been prepared giving the relative crime rates of different national groups, and has inquired into the sources of such statistics. In one case, for example, population estimates were based on 1910 census figures, arbitrarily increased by one-third. But when the abnormal situation with respect to immigration caused by the war, to mention only one important disturbing factor, is taken into consideration, it will be appreciated that any estimate is of doubtful value for careful calculation.

After much study and experimentation, and particularly after the counsel of statistical authorities had been obtained, the Commission's plan to work out comparative racial crime tables was abandoned.

Aside from the striking discrepancies between the crime figures of the Police Department and those of the Chicago Crime Commission, it is doubtful whether a reliable index to Negro crime as a separate item could be obtained even if the police figures showed the whole, instead of one-fifth or one-half, of the crimes committed.[45]

It was brought out in the testimony of judges and other authorities that Negroes are more easily identified and more likely to be arrested, and it is reasonably certain that a smaller proportion of Negroes who commit crimes escape than whites. But there is absolutely no means of determining what proportion of crime unrecorded by the police or other authorities is committed by whites or Negroes.

Adequate comparison of criminal statistics requires at least comparable units. This is rarely taken into account in comparing Negro and white crime. For example: a true comparison of relative crime rates between the two groups would require that the age distribution in each should be the same. For, although the population figures include children, women, and old persons, the greatest proportion of crimes is committed by persons within what is known to criminologists as the "violent ages," or between eighteen and thirty. If the population is overbalanced in these ages the crime rate will be exaggerated. Such an overbalance exists in the Negro population because of the migration to Chicago of more than 50,000 Negroes, mainly adults. Besides, a greater proportion of these adults were men without families, another factor known to overweight crime figures. It is a curious fact, however, that, although the Negro population of Chicago increased from 2.1 per cent of the total in 1914 to 4.5 per cent in 1919, an increase of more than 100 per cent, the Negro crime rate during the same period increased 50 per cent, or less than half as rapidly as the Negro population.

The court cases studied intensively by the Commission show that the majority of Negro criminals are recruited from the lowest economic class of the Negro group. The frequency with which these persons are taken to the Bureau of Identification; their inability to provide bonds; their lack of means to employ attorneys, and their commitment on account of inability to pay fines, all tend to emphasize the relation between poverty and crime. The economic factors, as well as the actual commission of crime, determine largely the size of groups eligible for arrest and conviction. For example, laborers are likely to contribute more crimes proportionate to the total than salaried men, and salaried men more than professional men. The proportion of white laboring men to the total white population is considerably smaller than the proportion of Negro laboring men to the total Negro population. As a consequence, the "eligibles" for arrest and conviction are fewer in the white group than in the Negro group.

The reports of the City Council Committee on Crime, known as the "Merriam Report," and of the Chicago Vice Commission, both indicate that the economic factor is an important cause of both vice and crime. The following is from the Vice Commission report:

Among the reasons why women or girls enter the life of prostitution, the economic question plays a more or less conspicuous part. The low wages paid, the long hours of standing, insanitary conditions under which girls work in factories--all these have a powerful effect on a woman's or girl's nerves or physical force.

First among these causes [for prostitution] should be named unfavorable home conditions.... Often when the home is not entirely degraded there are conditions of crowding and poverty which lead to misfortune. Working all day, the girls are often obliged to work at home in the evening, and if they live in a crowded house they must go on the street to receive their friends. They are thus practically forced on the streets for social life.

Among the economic conditions contributing to the social evil are the following: low wages, insanitary conditions, too long hours and high pressure of work; the over-crowding of houses upon lots; of families in the house, and of persons in single rooms.

The Merriam report similarly said:

The pressure of economic conditions has an enormous influence in producing certain types of crime. Unsanitary housing and working conditions, unemployment, wages inadequate to maintain a human standard of living, inevitably produce the crushed or distorted bodies and minds from which the army of crime is recruited. The crime problem is not merely a question of police and courts; it leads to the broader problem of public sanitation, education, home care, living wages and industrial democracy.

The greater liability of Negroes to unemployment introduces another factor. A plant official told the Commission that his plant had dismissed more than 500 Negro girls for business reasons. These girls, it was stated, could not easily find re-employment and were therefore probably exposed to certain necessities and temptations from which white girls of comparable status are exempt.

_Ratio of convictions to arrest._--Police statistics of the relation of convictions to arrests do not involve the question of faulty source and bias and can therefore be used. They show that Negro defendants are more frequently convicted than whites, and this difference is even more pronounced in the more serious crimes. This excess ranged from 3 to 8 per cent during the period 1914-19.

_The Negro and sex crimes._--Examination of the records of sex offenders brought into the criminal court in the two-year period 1917-18 showed a total of 253, of whom thirty-two, or 12.6 per cent, were Negroes. This was lower than the Negro rate, according to police statistics, for felonies in general. The sex offenses of Negroes were committed for the most part only against Negroes, and the specific charges were rape, attempted rape, accessory to rape, crimes against children, indecent liberties, contributing to delinquency, incest, adultery, murder by abortion, bigamy, crimes against nature, seduction, and bastardy. Of crimes against children two out of forty-six were committed by Negroes, or about 5 per cent, substantially the proportion of Negroes to the total population. The figures, however, are not a reliable index either for white or Negro crime because they include only cases passing through the social-service department of the criminal court.

IV. THE NEGRO IN THE COURTS

During the Commission's inquiry an effort was made to ascertain conditions in some of the various courts into which Negroes are brought; to learn the comparative attitudes of judges, prosecutors, and policemen toward Negro and white offenders, and to learn some of the pertinent facts in the social history of Negroes brought into these courts.

In all, 703 cases were studied, 538 white and 165 Negro. The social histories showed a conspicuous lack of schooling in the Negroes arrested, more than half of whom had left school before reaching the age of twelve. This is two years below the minimum age for children in Illinois. Only eight had gone beyond the fifth grade. More than 76 per cent were engaged in unskilled work, and more than 70 per cent had incomes of less than $25 a week. Few were property owners. More than 50 per cent were locked up because of inability to furnish bonds.

Compared with white prisoners there was little difference in economic class, ability to provide bonds, or legal representation. There was some noticeable difference in the character of offenders, varying with the type of neighborhood, but no general comparisons were possible because the courts were selected in a manner to get the greatest number of Negro cases.

While judges in most courts treated Negro defendants as considerately as they did whites, conditions in other courts were quite different. One judge frequently assumed an attitude of facetiousness while hearing Negro cases. The hearings were characterized by levity and lack of dignity. In one instance the judge was shaking dice during the hearing of the case.

1. JUVENILE COURT

Between 1913 and 1919, inclusive, the number of Negro boys brought into the juvenile court increased from 123 to 288, and the number of Negro girls from 71 to 112. The proportion of Negro boys to the total during this six-year period decreased from 9 to 6.8 per cent; and the proportion of Negro girls increased from 5.6 to 14.8 per cent. The proportion for Negro boys represents a little over twice the proportion of the Negroes to total population, and for Negro girls about three and one-half times. Although the proportion for both Negro boys and girls increased from 7.9 per cent in 1913 to 9.9 per cent in 1919, the Negro population for the same period increased over 100 per cent. The constant disproportion in the number of Negro boys and girls coming into the juvenile court points again to infective environment and to other circumstances heretofore mentioned involved in the crime rate for Negroes.

_Northern and southern Negro delinquents._--Miss Mary Bartelme, assistant to Judge Arnold, before whom all cases of delinquent girls are tried, said: "In recent years we have had a large number of colored girls who have come up from the South to Chicago because their fathers sent for them. Their education has not been equal to the education of white girls and their mental development has not been the same."

Joseph L. Moss, chief probation officer in the juvenile court, believed that Negro girls might be more affected by the war situation, the abnormal excitement, the lure of the uniform, than white girls.

Mr. Moss further said:

My impression is that southern Negroes contribute just about their portion to the total number of delinquents. If any difference could be noted I might say that the delinquencies of the southern Negro might be more often classed as misdemeanors than as the more serious offenses. One noted at times a sort of irresponsibility on the part of southern Negro delinquents which seemed to me to be traceable to the difference in standards between former environment and the present one.

_Differences in delinquency of Negro and white children._--No information could be secured to show that the conduct for which Negro children are brought into court is in any way different from the conduct of all delinquent children. On this point Miss Bartelme testified: "I get all offenses committed by girls under eighteen years of age. I want to say that the offenses of white and colored are very much the same as far as those offenses come before me." Mr. Moss testified before the Commission: "From my experience I would say that there is no significant difference between acts for which colored delinquent boys are brought into court, and the acts for which white delinquent boys are brought into court, with this exception: that larceny, as an offense, seems to have a considerable lead over other offenses."

_Comparative environment._--Since many of the delinquent children who come into the juvenile court, particularly first offenders, are placed on probation, comparative environment of white and Negro children is important. This subject does not lend itself to statistical presentation, but Miss Bartelme said:

Negro girls have not the same supervision that many of the white girls of their same class have, because in so many instances both parents are working, and the girls are left alone. They come home from school to a house that is closed. There is no one to receive them, and that, with a child, is always a very serious matter. The environment in which they live is not equal to the environment of the white girls. In these homes lack of privacy is greater than in the homes of the same class of white girls, therefore making life much more difficult and temptations more numerous. These conditions are much worse on account of the recent congestion, but they have existed right along. Negro children have been allowed to live in worse quarters, more crowded quarters, than the other children.... We feel that in placing the children on probation, especially colored girls, they are placed in a home which often is not a home because the mother is away at work.

Mr. O. J. Milliken, for many years a public-school principal in Chicago, and now superintendent of the Chicago and Cook County School for Boys, to which the milder delinquent cases are committed, testified:

I should not like to be recorded as giving a criticism of the Board of Education, because I know that the present Board of Education believes in what I have to say now, but this is true: the colored boys are in the district that has practically been abandoned by the white people and the schools are only boxes for them to go to school in. You don't find any of the $900,000 school buildings in the colored population district, and I think that the time is approaching when the old system will be changed and we will have the vocational work, etc., thoroughly organized in the schools in these districts where most needed.[46] In dealing with boys I think more complaints come along that line than in any other, and I have made a report to the superintendent of schools on that at different times.

Boys who are "trusties" in the above school are allowed to secure jobs in Chicago. Their difficulties were outlined by Mr. Milliken as follows: "After a boy has been committed by the Juvenile Court, he is known by the police, and I have four or five colored boys today who are carrying letters from me asking the police to please allow these boys to go to work, and if the boys are in trouble to notify our institution."

Mr. Milliken told how, when the boys are seen on the streets, they are picked up by the police. He referred to "one of the finest lads we have had" and said, "I think probably within the last three months I have had to get him out of the hands of the police by calling up the police department twenty times, to get him to work." This difficulty, in Mr. Milliken's opinion, was more common in regard to Negro than white delinquents.

2. BUREAU OF IDENTIFICATION

While only 11.5 per cent of all persons arrested in Chicago in 1919 were Negroes, more than 21 per cent of all persons held on criminal charges in 1919 and taken to the Detective Division Identification Section were Negroes. In proportion to total arrests about twice as many Negroes as whites were taken to the Identification Bureau. Explanations of this disproportion by officials indirectly connected with this branch of the department and familiar with its methods are illuminating.

Judges of the criminal court have stated that "Negroes look alike," and that it is "more difficult offhand to place them than it is to identify a white criminal"; that Negroes are frequently taken to the Bureau for identification when white men would not be arrested or would be at once recognized, picked up, and booked.

Again, it is explained that it is unquestionably safer "to pick up and mug" a Negro than a white person, because there is less fear of an unpleasant "comeback." Negroes have fewer resources and less influence with which to insure their fair treatment, and so are more likely to be subjected to annoyance.

The fundamental reason, however, is perhaps more economic than racial. The _City Council Crime Committee Report_, or "Merriam Report," says:

The department of police maintains a bureau of identification with a system of photographs and finger prints, but it is largely a matter of chance as to who is photographed, and as to whether the record of criminality is asked for before he is sentenced, the judge relying largely on the statement of the prisoner and the memory of the officer. In general, all prisoners who are held to the Grand Jury and are not released on bail are taken to the bureau, photographed, and their finger prints are taken. This seems a very unfair and illogical arrangement. If there is a reason for photographing a man before he is tried and while he is still only a suspect, the reason should apply equally to those in jail and those on bail. The practice of taking the finger prints and photographs of only the men and women who cannot afford bail, seems hard to justify.[47]

3. PROBATION AND PAROLE

It appears from the testimony of officials and others interested in the care of offenders that the Negro on probation or parole is handicapped by his color. He is more likely to be interrogated as a suspect; is more frequently arrested, and perhaps "mugged," and is in more danger of being molested even while on legitimate business. The principal sources of information on this subject were:

1. Statistics from the Municipal Department of Adult Probation.

2. Statistics from state institutions.

3. Testimony of John L. Whitman, state superintendent of prisons; John M. Houston, head of the Municipal Department of Adult Probation; and Dr. F. Emory Lyon, superintendent of the Central Howard Association.

The figures provided from institutions are probably accurate, since they are based on actual count, and do not involve any of the factors overweighting crime statistics.

_Number admitted to probation._--From 1911 to January 1, 1920, 27,252 whites and 1,917 Negroes were admitted to probation after conviction in the municipal and criminal courts. Negroes were thus slightly less than 7 per cent of the total. For the six-year period ended January 1, 1920, Negro arrests for misdemeanors, according to police records, averaged 8.20 per cent and for felonies 11.13 per cent. On convictions for misdemeanors, Negroes average about 8.5 per cent of the total, and for felonies, over 13 per cent. The percentage of Negroes among all offenders placed on probation is thus less than the percentage of Negroes among those convicted in either group. In other words, the convicted white man seems more likely to be put on probation than the convicted Negro.

Probation depends largely upon the attitude of the judges. The total number of persons placed on probation has remained virtually the same from year to year. In fact, 164 fewer persons were put on probation in 1920 than in 1919; so that the migration of southern Negroes does not seem to have affected this situation.

_Extent to which probationers "make good."_--There are no exact figures showing the relative degree to which white and Negro probationers justify the leniency shown them, but Judge Houston testified before the Commission: "I do not think there is any difference. I am satisfied that the results are equally as good in the colored cases as in the white. I don't see any material difference between a colored man and a white man, so far as their truthfulness and reliability are concerned."

_Institutional figures._--Official reports were submitted by the following state correctional and penal institutions: Chester State Hospital for the Criminal Insane, Pontiac Reformatory, Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Menard, and Joliet Penitentiary. No prisoners are paroled from Chester State Hospital.

Pontiac reported that last year 45 Negroes and 294 whites had been paroled. Of the Negroes 88 per cent, and of the whites 80 per cent, had "made good."

Menard reported that 50 Negroes and 168 whites had been paroled. Of the Negroes 76 per cent, and of the whites 81 per cent, had "made good."

Joliet reported that 61 Negroes and 223 whites had been paroled. Of the Negroes 69 per cent, and of the whites 74 per cent, "made good."

Totals for all the above institutions show that the percentages of Negro and white paroled who "make good" are nearly the same, the Negro rate being 76.9 per cent and the white 78.2 per cent.

John L. Whitman, state superintendent of prisons, who has had a continuous experience covering more than twenty-six years in correctional and penal institutions, testified before the Commission:

If there is a consistent effort being made to prepare inmates of prisons for good citizenship when they are released, the colored man responds as readily as the white, but it is a question in my mind whether the colored man can profit as much by it when he gets out as the white man can. That, however, is not due to a natural inclination; perhaps his opportunities on the outside are not as good.... I think if the reports of those on parole from the state institutions now are closely studied, it will be found that they have more difficulties to surmount on the outside than the whites. If you assumed the white and colored ex-convicts on a par when they get out, the colored ex-convict would find it more difficult to lead the "straight and narrow"--on account of the forces set against him he is more greatly handicapped.

Dr. F. Emory Lyon, superintendent of the Central Howard Association, an organization which for twenty years has been dealing with ex-convicts, testified:

We have found this greater difficulty in dealing with colored men--in finding suitable rooming places within their means. Of course we could always find rooms recommended by the colored Y.M.C.A., or some such source as that, but generally for desirable places charges were beyond their means.

My experience in dealing with the colored and white, and in getting them employment, and in observing their satisfactory fulfilment of their paroles, is that possibly a little larger percentage of colored men make good on their paroles. They take any kind of employment by which they can make an honest living. I notice in our report of this year that out of 972 assisted, discharged and paroled men, ninety-two were colored men. This would be just about 10 per cent. I think that is probably a fair proportion each year in the history of the Association.

Colonel C. B. Adams, managing officer of St. Charles School for boys, said: "We have seven farm cottages.... but we rarely send a Negro boy to the farm cottage for the reason that it is almost impossible for him to secure employment on the farms. The farmers in northern Illinois.... are prejudiced against colored help, and it is almost impossible for us to secure employment on the farm for a colored boy."

Dr. Clara Hayes, managing officer of the State Training School for Girls at Geneva, said: "I think the proportion of the colored girls who are returned for one cause or another is practically the same as the proportion of white girls.... I think the proportion of those recurring from misconduct is practically the same."

Mr. O. J. Milliken, of the Chicago and Cook County School for boys, said that Negro boys equaled white boys in fulfilling satisfactorily the requirements for those paroled.

4. INSTITUTIONAL INQUIRY

Through the co-operation of John L. Whitman, state superintendent of prisons, information was secured regarding comparative treatment and conduct of white and Negro inmates of Illinois. The data covered the State Penitentiary at Joliet, Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Menard, State Reformatory at Pontiac, and State Hospital for the Criminal Insane at Chester.

_Total number of prisoners._--In the total number of inmates in those institutions, the percentage of Negroes is much larger than the percentage convicted of felonies in Chicago. The percentage of Negroes among all persons convicted of felonies in Chicago for a six-year period averaged 13.1 per cent, whereas their proportion among all inmates of these prisons is about 23 per cent. Omitting the Southern Illinois Penitentiary, the proportion is about 20 per cent. This disproportion is in part explained by facts brought out elsewhere showing that Negroes receive much longer sentences and fewer paroles (see p. 330).

All these institutions reported that in no cases were Negro and white prisoners kept in the same cells. Mr. Whitman stated that this arrangement was preferred by both whites and Negroes. Negro and white prisoners are not segregated in separate cell sections but occupy adjoining cells in the same block. "They are all in the same cell house; they are together in the shops; in cottages; in the farm where there are dormitories."

Negro and white prisoners eat in the same dining-room at the same time and at the same table. "The tables are for six or eight and there will be colored and white at the same table." They also attend public meetings together. Mr. Whitman also stated that in all the institutions Negroes and whites mingled without distinction, and that the result had been satisfactory. There was no difference in food, clothing, employment, cells, or discipline for Negro prisoners as a group from that of white prisoners because of the Negro's character or deportment. In no case was racial discrimination in such matters used as a means of discipline or punishment.

_Conduct in prison._--There is no exact system for appraising conduct within the prison, but at Mr. Whitman's request persons were appointed in each institution to examine the record of each inmate as to conduct and tabulate the results. These and other data secured by Superintendent Whitman indicate that Negroes are less amenable to prison discipline than whites, but that their violations of rules are not so grave.

The percentage of Negro inmates whose conduct was marked "satisfactory" was smaller in all institutions than the percentage of whites. At Pontiac the difference in conduct was negligible. The greatest disparity was in Menard (in the southern part of the state), where the difference amounted to more than 20 per cent.

5. OTHER CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS

_St. Charles School for Boys_ receives delinquent boys between ten and seventeen years of age from the whole state. Negro and white boys are accepted up to the capacity limit. Negro boys are 12.5 per cent of the total, or slightly above the proportion which the Cook County Juvenile Court report shows Negro boys bear to the total of delinquent boys. Since 1915, the Negro population at St. Charles has increased from 8 per cent to 12.5 per cent of the total, or approximately half as rapidly as the Negro population in Chicago. St. Charles is conducted on the cottage plan, there being twenty-two cottages. Negro and white boys live in the same cottage, eat in the same dining-room, and use the same playground.

Four out of the twelve cadet companies have Negro captains, and these have more white than Negro boys under them. There are no racial difficulties in regard to employment or discipline, and the general conduct of Negro and white boys was reported to be the same. Colonel C. B. Adams, managing officer, said: "I really think mentally, and I am sure physically, the colored boys, such as come into the institution today, are superior to the white boys. We make much of athletics in the school and the best athletes we have are colored boys."

_Geneva State Training School for Girls_ had 417 girls in 1917, 475 in 1918, and 445 in 1920. The increase over 1917 is proportionately the same for white and Negro girls. In 1920, out of 445 girls, eighty-three, or about 18.5 per cent, were Negro. Conditions at Geneva are substantially similar to those at St. Charles, with the exception that in one cottage, Negro and white girls eat at different tables. This, the managing officer, Dr. Clara B. Hayes, says is mutually agreeable. No difficulties exist with regard to employment or discipline. As to conduct on probation and parole, Dr. Hayes thought there was no material difference between Negro and white girls.

_Chicago and Cook County School for Boys._ This school is located in Riverside, just west of Chicago, on a farm belonging to the City of Chicago. The county feeds and clothes the boys; the city erects the buildings, and the Board of Education manages the school and pays all salaries. There are three buildings holding forty boys each. About 600 boys go through the institution in a year. It is a "testing out" school and working boys' institution to which first offenders between the ages of ten and eighteen are committed through the juvenile court. In 1919 the Negro boys were 15 per cent of the total; in 1920, less than 7 per cent. This decline Mr. Milliken, the managing officer, thought to be due to the cessation of Negro migration.

The treatment accorded Negro boys in cottages and at meals, play, and work is identical with that given white boys. There is no difference in discipline. Race prejudice is not prominent, and the boys are said to be most democratic with each other regardless of color. The director says: "They work together, beautifully; the idea [of prejudice] never enters into their heads. I think it is the outside influence that brings about these conditions [of prejudice]."

_Chicago Parental School._ To this school, situated on the North Side of the city, truants from the public schools of Chicago are committed by the juvenile court. The total number of pupils last year included 993 boys and eighteen girls. The Negro boys numbered eighty and the Negro girls five.

The treatment accorded white and Negro children is the same. No difference in regard to discipline or punishment exists. Race prejudice is not apparent, and the children's attitude toward each other seems not to be influenced by color. The deportment of Negro and white children is reported to be the same.

_House of Correction._ To this institution adult misdemeanants are committed. Information concerning conditions was furnished by Joseph Siman, superintendent.

The total number of inmates in 1919 was 5,723, and 1,151, or more than 20 per cent, were Negroes. This percentage is larger than the percentages of Negroes among persons arrested on misdemeanor charges and among those convicted.

Negro inmates are not put in the same cells with whites, but are frequently lodged in the same tier of cells. There are separate blocks of cells, but no separate tiers for whites and Negroes.

The prisoners eat together in the same dining-room. They march from their cells or work to meals, meetings, and church services and usually sit in the same order as that in which they march.

No race prejudice is noticeable among prisoners, and no racial clashes or unpleasant experiences have occurred in the institution.

_Cook County Jail._ The greatest discrimination noted in the course of the institution inquiry was at the Cook County Jail, where segregation has been carried out in nearly every department. The statements below are based on interviews with Chief Deputy Sheriff Laubenheimer and with Mr. King of the sheriff's office, who was chief clerk at the jail at the time of this study.

Negroes are completely segregated in cells on the first two floors in the new jail. Sometimes, when the jail is crowded, a few Negroes are put in among the whites, but whites are not often put in the part of the jail where Negroes are segregated. A condemned Negro murderer is placed with white condemned murderers in the section set apart for condemned murderers. Similarly Negro boys are placed with white boys in the boys' section of the jail.

Meals are served to all prisoners in their cells. The Negroes have a separate "bull pen" for exercise but are given the same facilities as the whites. They have separate church services. Negro guards have charge of the Negro prisoners. The conduct of Negroes, according to the observation of Mr. King, is practically the same as that of the whites.

Out of a total of 8,616 inmates in the county jail in 1919 there were 1,655 Negroes, or about 19 per cent. This is larger than the proportion of Negroes among all arrested or convicted. The report of the City Council Crime Committee showed that inmates of the county jail were confined there to a large extent on account of poverty.

V. NEGRO CRIME AND ENVIRONMENT

_Housing._--Housing must be considered as an important element in the environmental causes of crime. Elsewhere this report presents a more detailed study of housing and it will suffice here to call attention to the prevalence of taking lodgers which is economically necessary in many Negro homes, and the consequent danger to the integrity of the family; to the laxity of law enforcement in certain sections; to the condition of streets and alleys; and to frequent instances of defective housing which have the effect of driving the children into the streets or to questionable places of amusement.

_Recreation._--A comprehensive inquiry into the relations between recreation and delinquency, made by the Cleveland Foundation in 1917, showed that the use of leisure time had a relation to delinquency in 75 per cent of the cases observed, and that 51 per cent of the leisure time of the delinquent child was spent in ways that were aimless and undirected; while in the case of the "wholesome" child, only seven-tenths of 1 per cent of the spare time was thus spent. Local studies made by T. J. Szmergalski, of the West Chicago Park Commission, show that the establishment of a supervised park or playground tends to decrease complaints of delinquency from 30 to 40 per cent within the range of its usefulness--a radius of about three-quarters of a mile. With these facts as a background it is significant that there is no recreation center and only a few small playgrounds freely available for Negro children within the congested Negro district. In many of the crowded areas inhabited by foreign colonies are well-equipped recreation centers with model field houses, used by thousands of persons from these districts. The facilities available to Negro children and young people in this respect are much less adequate.[48]

Bathing-beaches, which are a summer-time boon to Chicago residents, foreign and native, are not freely accessible to Negroes. The tragic incidents in which the riot of 1919 began, illustrate the discriminatory attitude frequently observed when Negroes attempt to enjoy some of these recreational facilities.

The importance of these recreation opportunities is further emphasized in the _Annual Report of the Crime Commission_ in its section on recreation.

The answer to the lack of a sufficient number of well-ordered places of recreation and amusement is to be found in the thriving condition of Chicago's cheap dance halls, underworld cabarets, unsupervised movie theatres of the cheaper class and the large number of pool-rooms scattered throughout the city. These establishments are the worst breeders of crime with which this community has to contend and they should be subjected to rigid police regulations on the part of the municipal authorities.

The chief counteracting influences of such places of amusement are the parks, playgrounds and other municipal recreation centers, and there is a great need for the establishment of more of these, particularly in the congested districts.

_Psychological._--It is the opinion of criminologists that a "warped" mind is responsible for many crimes. This general condition is true of Negroes as well as whites. But another factor appears in many crimes of Negroes. The traditional ostracism, exploitation and petty daily insults to which they are continually exposed have doubtless provoked, even in normal-minded Negroes, a pathological attitude toward society which sometimes expresses itself defensively in acts of violence and other lawlessness. A desire for social revenge might well be expected to result from the facetious and insulting manner in which Negroes are often treated by officers of the law.

_"Infective" environment._--Much of what is said in the _Annual Report of the Crime Commission_ for 1920 regarding the relation of infective environment to crime, can be fairly applied to the congested South Side areas of Negro residence:

Infective environment as a cause of crime is classified separately from problems of home environment because where the latter may be conducive to the proper rearing of children into manhood and womanhood, the influence immediately outside the home may be exactly the opposite. There are, in a great city like Chicago, certain neighborhoods in which influences are at work continuously to produce criminals. While the production of criminals is by no means confined to any one section of the city but is widespread throughout the community, still there are sections in which conditions are such that the growing child is indeed fortunate if he can attain manhood without being led to commit some offense against society.

In Chicago our chief district of this character is, or was until recently at least, "Canaryville" and much of the other territory immediately adjacent to the Stock Yards. It was this section which produced "Moss" Enright, "Sonny" Dunn, Eugene Geary, the Gentlemen brothers and many others of Chicago's worst type of criminals. It is in this district that "athletic clubs" and other organizations of young toughs and gangsters flourish, and where disreputable poolrooms, hoodlum-infested saloons and other criminal hangouts are plentiful.

Often it has been the case that public officials having such constituencies have utilized these conditions to further their own political advantages without making the slightest effort to bring about improvements, in some instances, actually assisting their constituents to violate the law in order to aid the building up of their political machines.... Improvement of districts of this character and the elimination of such conditions within them is highly essential if organized crime is to be reduced.

_Vice._--Vice districts and Negro residence districts are now and have long been close together. As late as 1905 a segregated vice district was tolerated on the West Side, on Green, Peoria, Sangamon, Morgan, Curtis, Carpenter, and Randolph streets, and Washington Boulevard. Just north of this district on Lake, Walnut, and Fulton streets, lived Negroes, segregated by public sentiment. Another vice district was along Custom House Place, now Federal Street, near which Negroes lived, similarly segregated by public sentiment. When this vice district was moved southward to Twenty-second Street it had a fringe of Negro residence. Later this district was abolished, and now vice of this kind is scattered and more clandestine and is to be found farther south, largely between Thirty-first and Fifty-fifth streets. More than 75 per cent of the Negro population of the city lives in this area.

Concerning the proximity of Negro residence areas to vice areas, the Chicago Vice Commission report in 1911 said:

The history of the social evil in Chicago is intimately connected with the colored population. Invariably the large vice districts have been created within or near the settlements of colored people. In the past history of the city every time a new vice district was created downtown or on the South Side, the colored families were in the district, moving in just ahead of the prostitutes. The situation along State Street from Sixteenth Street south is an illustration.

So whenever prostitutes, cadets and thugs were located among white people and had to be moved for commercial or other reasons, they were driven to undesirable parts of the city; the so-called colored residential sections.

The chief of police in 1912 warned prostitutes that so long as they confined their residence to districts west of Wabash Avenue and east of Wentworth Avenue, they would not be disturbed. This area contained at that time the largest group of Negroes in the city, with most of their churches, Sunday schools, and societies.

The Vice Commission report further said:

In addition to this proximity to immoral conditions young colored girls are often forced into idleness because of prejudice against them and they are eventually forced to accept positions as maids in houses of prostitution.

Employment agents do not hesitate to send colored girls as servants to these houses. They make the astounding statement that the law does not allow them to send white girls, but they will furnish colored help.

In summing up, it is an appalling fact that practically all of the male and female servants connected with houses of prostitution in vice districts and in disorderly flats in residence sections are colored....

The apparent discrimination against colored citizens of the city in permitting vice to be set down in their very midst is unjust and abhorrent to all fair-minded people. Colored children should receive the same moral protection that white children receive.

The prejudice against colored girls who are ambitious to earn an honest living is unjust. Such an attitude eventually drives them into immoral surroundings. They need special care and protection on the maxim that it is the duty of the strong to help the weak. Any effort, therefore, to improve conditions in Chicago should provide more wholesome surroundings for the families of its colored citizens who now live in communities of colored people.

That many Negroes live near vice districts is not due to their choice nor to low moral standards, but to three causes: (1) Negroes are unwelcome in desirable white residence localities; (2) small incomes compel them to live in the least expensive places regardless of surroundings; while premises rented for immoral purposes bring notoriously high rentals, they make the neighborhood undesirable and the rent of other living quarters there abnormally low; and (3) Negroes lack sufficient influence and power to protest effectively against the encroachments of vice.

The records of convictions in the morals court and the evidence of the Committee of Fifteen show the gradual drift of prostitution southward coincidentally with the expansions of the main area of Negro residence.

Between 1916 and 1918 houses of prostitution decreased from forty-eight to twenty-five in number in the territory between Twelfth and Twenty-second streets, and from 130 to 107 between Twelfth and Thirty-first streets. Between Thirty-first and Thirty-fifth streets, the number had slightly increased, while there was an increase of nearly 80 per cent between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-ninth streets. In the combined districts between Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth streets the number increased from sixty-two to eighty-four; and between Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fifth streets the increase was from eleven to fifty-four.

These are probably only a fraction of the number that really exist there, and while they are too few to be conclusive, they are significant when considered in relation to the movement of the Negro population. The accompanying maps show that the figures coincide substantially with the expansion of Negro residence areas southward and eastward.

Further evidence of this movement of vicious resorts, and an abnormally large number of them, into the Negro areas was obtained from the state's attorney's office, the Commission's investigations, and from confidential reports submitted by other organizations. Most of these places are maintained by white persons, because in this district there is less likelihood of effective interference, either from citizens or public authorities.

_Cabarets and gambling._--In close relation to the disorderly houses are the vicious cabarets in the Negro areas on the South Side. Their reputation and the conditions existing in them have been given much publicity by the local press.

Gambling was found to be prevalent at many places in this section, and only slight effort was made to conceal violations of the law. Under the guise of "clubs" some places were being operated as gambling houses with dice and card games predominating. Other places, apparently with little fear of the police, both conducted and permitted gambling with cards and on pool games. Baseball pools and "policy," as well as betting on horse-race returns, were prevalent.

VI. VIEWS OF AUTHORITIES ON CRIME AMONG NEGROES

Much information was secured from conferences with numerous authorities on crime: judges of the juvenile, municipal, circuit, superior and criminal courts; the general superintendent of police and police captains, former high police officials; heads of correctional and penal institutions; the state's attorney; experts on probation and parole, representatives from the sheriff's office; and social workers having intimate knowledge of crime conditions.

The views of those authorities are an important aid in giving proper interpretation to the factors which cause crime among Negroes, and to the circumstances connected with crime prejudicial to Negroes as compared with whites. For example, the testimony is practically unanimous that Negroes are much more liable to arrest than whites, since police officers share in the general public opinion that Negroes "are more criminal than whites," and also feel that there is little risk of trouble in arresting Negroes, while greater care must be exercised in arresting whites.

The Negro crime rate is exaggerated quite as much by the fewer arrests of whites than Negroes, in comparison with the number of crimes committed, as by the ease with which many Negroes may be arrested for one crime. We have already noted the remarkable discrepancy between the police reports of crimes committed and the actual crimes listed by the Crime Commission. Fewer Negroes than whites escape arrest and prosecution. When comparisons are made on the basis of statistics for arrests and convictions, there is presented, unless proper explanations of the statistics are made, an exaggerated picture of Negro crime.

The views of many of these authorities on various branches of this inquiry are here given:

1. FEWER PROFESSIONAL AND BANDED CRIMINALS AMONG NEGROES

Judge Edmund Jarecki, municipal court:

I know of no built-up organization of Negroes that would have any particular control over criminals.

Judge Daniel P. Trude, municipal court:

I think Negro criminals are more isolated. My experience in the boys' court was with the colored boys who would go out and steal clothes, a new shirt or some socks, or something of that sort that they could pick off the back porch. I found that there was considerable of that, but they are very partial and take from their own people.

Judge Charles M. Thomson, criminal court:

Negro crime is not organized, but individual, I should say, almost without exception.

Judge Kickham Scanlan, criminal court:

In May, 1920, I was assigned to the North Side to try some unbailable murder cases. It was found that there were over 500 homicide cases ... these were nearly all cases in which gangs of young white men confederated together to go out and hold up places, and they made a business of it, and some of these gangs have committed any number of hold-ups, and one member of the gang explained that he had killed as many as twenty victims. The evidence showed that they killed when they didn't have to kill, just recklessly and wantonly. In none of the cases of the character I have talked about were there any colored defendants. They were all white men ... there were some of the most vicious cases I know anything about in my thirty-four years of experience.

I just want to make that one point to this Commission, that never in the history of this community has the white race stood so low from the standpoint of crime as it does at the present time. White young men are banding together in gangs and deliberately going out and holding people up, right and left, and shooting them down. I notice that there are a few colored imitators of the white men, but the bad man of the city of Chicago at the present time is the young white man.

General Leroy T. Steward, former chief of police:

I think generally speaking that the Negro criminals work as individuals. I only recall one instance where there was a gang of colored men that came to my attention, but I know of many white gangs.

Dr. Herman Adler, state criminologist:

You asked a question in regard to gangs--whether there is a combination among Negroes. There are not many. They are more individual, but on the other hand the lower grade of Negroes are likely to be the tools of the others at times; they have been used that way. Where you are dealing with murder, with sex crimes, with certain forms of burglary, larceny, you are usually dealing with individual criminals....

Now there is here, in Chicago, professional organized crime. The colored people as a whole are less engaged in professional crime and they are more the accidental, casual criminal or the low-grade person with a strong temper and a strong physique etc., who slips into crime by following the line of least resistance.

Major L. M. C. Funkhouser:

Negro criminals are not organized.

Professor Charles E. Merriam:

My belief is that the Negro criminals are not so well organized as the white. They don't go much in bands; furthermore, they are not so much in the class of professional criminals as they are in the class of occasional criminals. It seems to me that the colored offender is the individual offender; his crimes are more of haste or passion. He is in the occasional offender class.

2. SEX CRIME AMONG NEGROES AS COMPARED WITH WHITES

Judge Edmund Jarecki:

So far as sex crimes are concerned, during the time I have been there [in the boys' court] I have not noticed anything that would indicate any difference between colored and white boys.

Judge Charles M. Thomson:

In my work with the criminal court, I was astonished at the large number of criminals involving the sexual abuse of children, but I remember no case in which a colored defendant was charged with that crime. Almost all races were represented, but I don't remember one colored man charged with the abuse of a child. There were many, however, accused of adultery.

Judge Hugo Pam, criminal court:

I have had more serious rape cases against white than against colored people. The most serious case I had was about ten days ago, and I sentenced the man to life imprisonment. I never had such a case involving a Negro.

Judge Kickham Scanlan, criminal court:

I do not think Negroes are more liable to sex crimes than whites. I tried a colored man six or eight years ago for rape. He founded an alleged orphan asylum. The evidence showed that he had held a number of young children in that place. He got life in the penitentiary. He was the only colored man ever tried before me with any offense of that character. The children in that case were colored children. But I have tried a number of white men for rape, and while I have had ten or a dozen cases of crimes against children, in my twelve years' experience on the bench, I have never had a case of a colored man charged with crime against children.

3. OFFENSES AGAINST MORALS

Judge Arnold Heap:

The number of colored cases in the morals court is largely disproportionate to the number of Negroes in the total Chicago population. There are more colored cases now in the morals court than formerly because in the past the houses kept by white people with colored inmates were alone held responsible. Since colored people are now doing business on their own responsibility, they are at present brought in the same as white people. At first the Negro newcomers were strangers to our surroundings and were not such frequent offenders, but as that strangeness wore off they became familiar with vice as it exists among us today. The offenses of these new comers are about the same as those of the northern Negroes. Some persons think that the immorality of the colored is more gross than that of the whites, but I have my doubts about it. One factor in the problem is that colored people of the poorer class crowd together in smaller quarters than whites, and this tends to a lesser type of morality because they are so crowded.

Judge Wells M. Cook, municipal court:

Prostitution among the white people in Chicago in 1918 was more or less clandestine, in flats and cheap hotels and in private homes, and more or less under cover. The colored people, living largely in one section of the city, and being naturally of a social, emotional temperament, are apt to congregate in places and in resorts where the police could more easily raid them, and are much more easily apprehended. That is about the only reason I can see for the disproportionate number of colored defendants brought into the morals court. It is not that there is any greater percentage of immorality, but prostitution among whites was more clandestine.

O. J. Milliken, superintendent, Chicago and Cook County School for Delinquent Boys:

I don't think that homosexual relations are a racial matter with the boys. The sex problem, I think, doesn't manifest itself between races as much as it does in the lower classes of whites that come in.

4. LYING AND STEALING

Judge Daniel P. Trude:

"I think the colored man, if he is not a desirable citizen, is undesirable because he has not been given a chance; he has not been given the advantages that a white fellow has from birth." Judge Trude agreed with the view expressed in a question that if the Negro were found careless as to the truth and as to his promises, it was due to his heredity and lack of training rather than anything inherently bad in him.

Judge Wells M. Cook:

I think there is a great deal of nonsense in the talk about the colored man being more apt to lie or steal than the white man. I think that is largely a question of environment and training. He is not more inclined, in my judgment, to tell a lie or steal than a white man.

Judge Charles M. Thomson:

I would say there is a far larger number of larceny cases involving the white than the colored man, even in proportion to the population. The larger proportion of cases involving the colored is in having to do with fights, involving murder in some instances.

Judge Edmund Jarecki:

No, I don't think Negroes are more likely to be guilty of theft than whites; that is not usually the case.

5. TYPES OF NEGRO CRIMES

Judge Hugo Pam:

The colored man is frequently charged with robbery with a gun, and a great many have guns. Relatively speaking, more colored men have guns than white men.

Judge Kickham Scanlan:

The most prevalent crimes or types of crimes amongst Negroes, according to my observation, are gambling, assault cases, caused by drinking or women, petty theft.

F. Emory Lyon, superintendent, Central Howard Association:

My experience in dealing with colored offenders would indicate a slightly larger proportion of crimes of violence than in the case of white men.

Dr. Clara Hayes, Geneva School for Delinquent Girls:

I think there is a little more tendency on the part of colored inmates toward violence than there is among white girls. I mean such misconduct as attacks on other girls, etc.

6. MENTAL

Judge Daniel P. Trude:

I today received a letter from a young colored man who has been in the boys' court several times. His father is a mental defective, and he is a mental defective. That is the reason he keeps committing these crimes. He is in the Dixon Home for Feeble Minded. There are a number of colored boys that come up from the South that way, and it is my judgment that southern institutions are turning them loose. I think Illinois does as well as other states. They all discharge mental defectives as cured, and they wander all over the face of the earth, in and out of other institutions.

Judge Charles M. Thomson:

As a rule the mentality of colored offenders was not high. I had a few cases where the reverse was true, and one which involved a man who was as smart a man as I ever tried.

Mary Bartelme, associate judge of the juvenile court:

As to mentality, I would say that in recent years we have had a large number of girls who have come up to Chicago from the South and their educations have not been equal to the educations of the white girls and their mental development has not been the same.

Dr. Herman Adler:

At Pontiac we find in general that the average of intelligence in the colored people is rather less than in the whites. Take the white people separately and you will find about the same proportion of low grades as in the colored race. In actual group comparison, the colored race is somewhat below that of the whites. That is, in general the distribution is about the same, but there is always a slight lag of the colored below the white. The lower the intelligence, on the whole, the more likely it is that the individual is in the institution for a crime of violence or a sex crime or incendiarism; the higher the intelligence, the more likely that the crime is forgery or some crime involving fraud.

7. CHANGE IN CHARACTER OF CRIME OR INCREASE IN CRIME DUE TO MIGRATION

Judge Hugh Stewart:

I am of the impression that the colored men from the South are in the courts in larger numbers than are those who have lived here a long time.... A great many of the colored people from the South are very dark skinned, and there is a larger proportion, in my estimation, of offenses among dark-skinned colored people than among those of the light color. I sometimes try to trace out where they come from. I find a great many of these cases come from the South.

I think there is a difference between offenses committed by colored persons from the South and colored persons who have resided for a long time in the North. I think there are more hold-ups and burglaries committed by men who come from the South than by the colored population before the influx.

I am of the opinion that Negroes who have recently come from the South and find their way into the police courts do not typify or reflect the general character of the southern Negroes as a class, any more than the white people who find their way into the police courts typify other whites who manage to keep out of them.

Judge Daniel P. Trude:

It was frequently true that the boys would jump freights from down South and come up here and be picked up and brought into court and be left in jail for a while with nobody to keep after them, or furnish bail. The South has never given the Negro adequate educational advantages, so they come up here more or less uneducated, many of them, and they are not given a helping hand as they should be.

In the boys' court the number of southern boys recently arrived in Chicago was startling. While I was in the boys' court, I made it a practice to give every one of them a card to the Urban League, so that they would know where to go to get advice on any difficulty.

Judge Wells M. Cook:

I would say that of the colored men and women brought into court in the summer of 1918, the greater percentage were colored people who had recently come to Chicago. In most instances the colored man brought in had money; he was receiving more wages than in the South; the city was "wet"; he had come from districts in the South where he could not get whiskey; in a great many instances he had not brought his wife and family with him, so he was easy prey for those engaged in commercial sexual vice. In consequence he would be arrested in these raids, made usually by the police on the night when the underworld was supposed to be the busiest, usually Saturday and Sunday nights. I do not think there are any more vicious colored men than there are vicious white men, but the colored man who was brought in largely was a newcomer. There had been no particular increase in vice that I observed among the native-born colored people or the man who had come to Chicago a reasonable number of years back. As to the women, they were almost entirely typical southern prostitutes, who had come here from New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, Galveston, and other large cities in the South, attracted to Chicago by reason of the fact there were a lot of colored men up here who were making good money. I would say that so far as the colored women of Chicago were concerned, there was no noticeable increase in immorality among them.

Mr. O. J. Milliken:

In 1919, we ran up to 15 per cent colored. This year, 1920, it is less than 7 per cent. The reason is found in the boys from the South. They have stopped coming now and we are getting back to normal. The boys from the South have been very illiterate. We have received a number who could not write their own names and would almost be counted subnormal on first examination but are often found to be very bright. A great many asked to come back or asked to remain in the institution until they could get some education. I never noticed any difference as to color in the handling of the boys in any department.

8. LIABILITY OF THE NEGRO TO ARREST

Judge Daniel P. Trude:

I think that at the time of the riot there was more disposition on the part of the officers to make arrests of colored offenders, frequently for protection. I think it was due to what Dr. Shepardson used to call, out at the University, "the mind of the mob"--a disturbed view of things which makes one likely to go too far one way or the other. These people were that way. They had to arrest a certain number and try to check the riot, and they went too far in many cases.

Judge Charles M. Thomson:

I have seen cases where Negroes were arrested on suspicion; I would not say there was any large proportion. I remember one case was a young colored fellow arrested purely on suspicion. The jury disagreed the first time. The next time he was tried before me, and the jury found him guilty. Because it was a second trial, and because of the disagreement, I watched it very carefully as the evidence went in, and I became convinced that it was a pure case of the officers having had some trouble with this fellow before. A crime occurred in their district, and they pounced on this chap. I felt pretty sure he was not guilty. The state's attorney called the trial off. He became convinced himself.

Mr. O. J. Milliken:

After a boy has been committed by the juvenile court, he is known to the police, and I have four or five colored boys today who are carrying letters from me asking that the police will please allow these boys to go to work. Prejudice on the part of the police in picking up alleged offenders is more apt to occur against Negroes than whites.

Judge Kickham Scanlan:

Negroes are more likely to be arrested on suspicion than white persons. If you will tell me why race prejudice exists in this world, I will tell you why this is so. I don't think the police are quite as careful with reference to the rights of the colored man as with the white man. I think they hesitate a little longer when a white man is involved; I am certain that it is so.

State's Attorney Maclay Hoyne:

In the race riots, the police arrested almost exclusively Negroes, and practically no white men.

General Leroy T. Steward:

Recently there have come to Chicago from the South large numbers of colored men who have formerly lived in the country and are not accustomed to city environments. These men have largely been employed at the Stock Yards and, being unknown to the police, there is concerning them naturally a greater suspicion than would attach to the white man who had lived for a greater length of time in the same district, and who also would be more easily identified and traced, if need be, and he would not, therefore, perhaps, be arrested but simply be observed, while the police would, no doubt, feel if they permitted the colored man to pass on at the time, they would lose him completely. This would seem to me to be the real basis of the feeling that has maintained on the part of these men, that they are discriminated against as compared with the whites.

Another matter in this same connection that no doubt has a bearing on the subject is that these same men who have been accustomed to rather close surveillance in the South, seem to feel that when they come to the North they must conduct themselves in a manner to evidence to all concerned that they have equal rights of every kind and character, with the result that they sometimes are guilty of unnecessarily accentuating these matters, and thus bringing on disputes which occasion bad feeling and perhaps lead to disturbances resulting in arrest.

Dr. Herman C. Adler:

Repeatedly colored men have been convicted on evidence which I know perfectly well would not have been satisfactory in white cases. I know that was so in the case of the East St. Louis riot where a colored man was sent down to the Southern Illinois Penitentiary for participating in the riots on the charge of murder. Even the prosecuting office, on reviewing the facts, a year later, admitted he did not believe the evidence sufficient. If that had been a white man the chances are that he would not have been convicted upon that evidence.

We had the same thing here in Chicago: a colored man sent to the penitentiary on a charge of attempted rape where the identification was made by a child of six or eight years who picked him out of a crowd under suspicion. No such evidence ought to be accepted. We know there is prejudice, and when there is prejudice we know the person against whom the prejudice is directed has a hard time.

9. DISCRIMINATION IN THE COURTS

Judge Daniel P. Trude:

I think in the main the Negro gets as good a show as the white man when he gets before the judge. Whether the other forces before he gets up to that point treat him right or not, I cannot say.... A certain number of policemen have "got it in" for him and are going to "take a crack" at him because he is a colored man.

Judge Hugo Pam:

In a murder case lawyers will challenge a Negro; if there were a colored man in the box he would soon be put out.

Judge Charles M. Thomson:

Take for example a gun case, with twelve men in the box, and one a colored man, and suppose that the lawyer challenged the Negro. If you went to the lawyer and said, "Give me your reason," I don't think he would give you any reason.... If you had a case where the defendant was colored that juror would stay in the box so far as the defendant was concerned.

Judge Kickham Scanlan:

Of course there is another thing about the colored man in the criminal court that must be kept in mind. It is a peculiar thing about human nature, that no man wants to admit that he has prejudices. He will talk loosely on the outside that he doesn't like the Negro, or doesn't like the Jew, or doesn't like this person or that person, but you get him under oath in the jury box and in my twelve years on the bench I never knew a juror to admit that he was prejudiced against anybody. It goes without saying that in such a state of affairs you will probably get men on the juries that try colored men who have some prejudice against Negroes. I would say that when there is a colored defendant and white prosecuting witness there would be grave danger that the jury might unconsciously favor the white side of the case. Juries will convict a colored man with less hesitation than they will convict a white man on the same kind of evidence. For that reason, in the many cases in which the colored man is involved, I watch the evidence like a hawk. The verdict has got to pass me.

10. EASE WITH WHICH NEGROES ARE CONVICTED

Judge George Kersten, criminal court:

There is unfortunately a difference in the ease or difficulty with which white and colored persons brought into court are convicted, and the misfortune operates adversely towards colored people. In many cases jurors have been excused from service because upon examination under oath to test their qualifications to act as jurors they said they could not give a colored person a fair trial. In my experience I have known verdicts to be set aside by the presiding judge, because he was convinced that the jury was influenced by color prejudice. As to the prosecution of colored offenders by white plaintiffs and white offenders by colored plaintiffs, I believe that the influence of color prejudice is sometimes felt in our courts. I think it is easier under similar facts and circumstances in evidence to convict a colored defendant than a white one. And for the same reason, a white person on trial is less liable to conviction if the prosecuting witnesses are all colored. Perhaps an enlightening phase of the whole situation is to be found in the fact that colored offenders, on being brought in for trial, usually ask to be tried by the judge instead of a jury.

Judge Hugo Pam:

In light cases involving pocket-picking, larceny, stealing a bag of sugar, a barrel of flour, clothing, etc., I think the races stand on an equality, but in a serious offense I think the colored man has the less chance. I feel that the colored man starts with a handicap. I haven't any question about it in my mind. In the more serious crimes, where a hold-up is committed or guns are used, I think there is great prejudice. I think very few white or colored men are convicted that shouldn't be; no judge would allow such a case to stand if he thinks there has been unfair trial, but, for instance, where a white man will be found guilty of manslaughter, a colored man will be found guilty of murder. A white man might escape with three to twenty years in the penitentiary, while the colored man would get ten years to life.

I think the colored man would not be convicted if he is not guilty, but I am not certain that the white man would be convicted if he is guilty.

I see colored men, very resigned men, very often feeling that most people are not interested in them. They come and take their medicine, and go away. I feel that they are being disposed of without the interest being shown that should be.

11. LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR NEGRO DEFENDANTS

Judge Daniel P. Trude:

My experience in court work is that Negro lawyers in the main lack education such as is necessary, but there are among the members of the bar some very good colored attorneys. Many Negroes cannot afford to pay the attorney's fees necessary to obtain these, so that they are handicapped in court by lack of competent counsel, and it becomes necessary for the judge to give them more careful hearings and more careful consideration to protect their interests.

Judge Wells M. Cook:

The handicap that the colored man seems to be under in the severe cases is that he frequently does not get a good lawyer. As a rule he is not represented by as good a lawyer as the white. Of course there are capable Negro lawyers in Chicago, but there were few such retained in the cases tried before me.

Judge Hugo Pam:

I do not think that Negroes have as able lawyers as whites. I had a case of a colored man who I felt was misrepresented instead of represented. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. I felt that the sentence was too severe. I set it aside and granted a new trial and it resulted in a verdict of manslaughter which was the thing that should have been done.

Judge Kickham Scanlan:

The Negro hasn't the money to employ proper attorneys, competent attorneys. In two out of three cases tried before me in which there were colored defendants, I have appointed attorneys to defend them. I appointed white attorneys. I asked the defendants whom they wanted. They told me and I appointed the white lawyers mentioned and made them serve.

12. IDENTIFICATION

Judge Daniel P. Trude:

I did find where certain of the police were going into Negro clubs and arresting Negroes they found there, bringing them into court without a bit of evidence of any offense. Somebody would tip off the police that there was gambling going on so they would raid the place, locking up all the men they found there for the night and send them to the Bureau of Identification, but that was all. Some policemen take many people to the Bureau of Identification who absolutely should not be taken there, but the judge only knows about it after they have been taken there, when they are brought into court after the damage has been done.

13. PROBATION ON PAROLE

Dr. F. Emory Lyon, superintendent, Central Howard Association:

In dealing with colored men on parole, our experience has been that fully as large a proportion have completed their parole with credit as in the case of white men under parole. I should say that the task of securing employment has been less difficult because colored men as a rule have been less critical as to the kind of employment they would accept. They have been willing to make an honest living at any work that is offered.

John L. Whitman, superintendent of state prisons:

I have seen many colored men, young men or boys, who gave every evidence of a sincere desire to do well on the outside. They meet with disappointment that they did not expect, hardships, difficulty in securing work as well as homes, and they fall. The desire was there just the same. The opportunities were not. But when the employer gives him a chance, the Negro appreciates it and he sticks--and we have had employers say during the last year many times, "If you have got such colored men as you have sent before, give them to us in preference to the whites, because there is a lack of appreciation on the part of white men."

14. ENVIRONMENT: VICE IN NEGRO RESIDENCE AREAS

General Leroy T. Steward:

Where Negroes have come in and as a result white people have moved out and the neighborhood has, plainly speaking, deteriorated, there is a great tendency to permit infractions of the law, as in any neighborhoods which are regarded as not as important as high-class residence neighborhoods. For instance, Calumet Avenue from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth streets is entirely colored. Fifteen years ago it was entirely white. Now it would be much easier to establish vice there than it would have been fifteen years ago when a lot of well-known people lived in the neighborhood.

Major L. M. C. Funkhouser:

Most of the Negroes found in disorderly houses are employees. There was one notorious place down there that we closed where they were all colored. That was the most notorious one we had.

Professor Charles E. Merriam:

I think there is this to be said about the colored side of it there [on the South Side]: I am asked whether the colored protest against disorderly resorts would be as effective as a protest made by an equal number of white men. Making allowance for the fluctuating conditions in a long period, I don't believe it would be quite as effective. Not only that, but I don't think the colored people are so well organized to fight these evils as a class of men ... they have not the wealth. In the territory upon the North Side or in any territory where there are many lawyers and people of some means, if they found a place like that they would never rest until they got it out. They would just keep at it with time and money until they forced it out.

Dr. F. Emory Lyon, superintendent, Central Howard Association:

Our observation would indicate that the Negro delinquent has suffered under the handicap of unsatisfactory home conditions. Owing to the general public discrimination, fewer opportunities have been offered him. In addition to adverse conditions in the home, some opportunities in public places have been denied him. Some of the discrimination and ostracism on the part of his associates has been unconscious in many instances. The colored boy has especially few recreational facilities.

Mr. O. J. Milliken:

It is up to us to give them the best that there is, and we can clean up those districts. I don't believe the question of color is going to enter into the matter at all if we once clean up the districts where they are obliged to live.

Myron Adams, former pastor of the First Baptist Church:

North of my church for a block or two along Thirty-first Street at the time I went there was almost exclusively a white residence district. The moral conditions could not have been worse. I had a list in my church study of the houses of prostitution and other lawless agencies gathered by the police and the Committee of Fifteen. I don't know of a district in Chicago where there were more gunmen, more high-class criminals, more high-class prostitutes than there were within three blocks of the First Baptist Church when I came there as pastor.

Speaking from my observation I think that any colored community is liable to be imposed upon by white men who are vicious, and the colored people get no encouragement when they themselves endeavor to rout out that vice. White prostitutes and white gamblers and vicious resorts come into the "Black Belt" because it is black; they operate with more safety than they do in the white belt. That is true of every American city that I know of personally.

15. ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS OF NEGRO CRIME

Judge Charles M. Thomson:

Colored people who were up before me in the criminal court were mostly men who did not have steady employment.... My experience was that the environmental conditions out of which the colored defendant arose were an environment of idleness, very largely. I would say, as to the economic factors, that I don't remember a case that I had involving a colored defendant whom I would call prosperous, whereas there were many white defendants who were very prosperous. Most of the colored people tried were in stringent circumstances and poverty.

Judge Kickham Scanlan:

My experience in the criminal court is that the colored defendant, even in bailable cases, is unable to give bail. He has to stay in jail, and therefore his case is very quickly disposed of by the prosecutor. Defendants locked up are usually tried first. The colored man is more apt to be out of work than the white man, and that is a possible reason for the large number of arrests of Negroes. His sphere is very limited, and if there is any let up in the industry that is involved in that sphere, he is a victim. I have often wondered if you could change the skins of a thousand white men in the city of Chicago and handicap them the way the colored man is handicapped today, how many of those white men in ten years' time would be law-abiding citizens.

Professor Charles E. Merriam:

This problem as I see it is very complicated. We have to deal first with the matter of economic class which is at the bottom of a good deal of it, then with the matter of race, which is at the bottom of a good deal more of it, although perhaps not as much as class; then there is the matter of politics or a system which has grown up for thirty or forty years back, which makes the class and race relations a good deal more difficult to deal with.

If every man had good housing conditions and a steady job, at a living wage, a good opportunity for education, there would not be very much crime.... Particularly in the case of the colored people, the crime is on the part of the community, on the part of the city that allows bad conditions to exist. Negroes ought to be protected. They don't get protection for the same reason that it is always hard to protect the economically weak against the strong. There is not any use of making a lot of fine phrases about it--that is largely where the trouble lies.