Instead of attempting to prevent crime, we wait until after the crime
is committed, then burden ourselves with the expense of apprehending,
trying, convicting and imprisoning the criminal.
Our first duty is to adopt those measures that will prevent the
further commission of crime.
Among the problems of Chicago there is no one, perhaps, that is more
baffling than that of the vicious boy.
His years protect him from the rigors of the law, and it is a
difficult matter to know just what to do with him.
There are all sorts of organizations formed for his aid and his
reformation. There is the Juvenile Court, for instance, and there are
innumerable homes and shelters, and still the problem is not solved.
The boy looms large in the public eye these days, when he is sent
to prison for life for murder and spends long years in durance for
burglary and other serious crimes.
The story of the car-barn bandits and their tragic end is too recent
to need more than a passing reference.
The car-barn bandits met an ignominious death on the gallows. Rudolph
Gamof will spend the remainder of his years behind prison bars and
it is quite likely Alfred Lafferty will know what hard work means
in Pontiac or some other such institution before he is once more at
liberty.