THE CROOKS' CLEARING-HOUSE.
Many high authorities have argued that the best way to prevent crime is
to keep all known criminals under lock and key, as we do lunatics. The
theory may be right or wrong, but it is not yet possible to put it into
practice.
So Scotland Yard does the next best thing, and exercises a quiet,
unwearying, persistent surveillance on those hundreds of persons who are
likely to resume their depredations on society when they are released
from prison.
For over fifty years--since 1862--there has been accumulating a library
of biography on which prison governors and police officials have worked,
which must by now include every living criminal by profession who has
enjoyed the hospitality of the State.
The files--immense, dirty brown covered albums--each containing 6,000
photographs--overflow through room after room and corridor after
corridor. There are smaller volumes with duplicate photographs, 500 in
each, which give particulars of marks or physical peculiarities.
Hundreds of thousands of records are kept, mostly illustrated by the
inevitable full and side face photographs, and each is kept up-to-date
with scrupulous care.
The Convict Supervision Office, with its subsidiary Habitual Criminals
Registry, has within the last year or two been amalgamated with the
Finger-print Section under the general title of the Criminal Record
Office. Although the two departments work in unison and are, to a
certain point, interdependent, their work has to be conducted in
sub-departments.
The Habitual Criminals Registry--I retain the old title for
convenience--is a sort of British Museum of crime. It is a central
bureau that is constantly being consulted from all parts of the kingdom,
and not seldom from all parts of the world. It has to be ready at any
moment to lay its hands on the record of any criminal that may be
demanded, and in this it is immensely helped by the Finger-print
Department, which can usually identify the person and supply the number
by which he is known.
It sometimes happens, however, that no finger-prints are available. Then
search has to be made under the old system. The records are grouped by
the height of their subjects and the colour of their eyes and hair.
Thus, if a prisoner on remand is five feet nine, with blue eyes and
brown hair, the margin of search is limited to those indexed under those
characteristics.
The records include photographs, descriptions, and particulars not only
of licence-holders and supervisees, but of every person who has been
convicted twice or more times of any crime, with a few exceptions, and
of all persons sentenced to hard labour for a month or more.
They are a veritable "Who's Who" of the criminal world, and go even
further than that useful work of reference in supplying intimate details
of the appearance and idiosyncrasies of their subjects.
But the keeping of recidivist records is only one part of the business
of the Criminal Record Office. This is the department which is
responsible for keeping a watchful eye on those people the public love
to call "ticket-of-leave men," but who are officially known as
licence-holders or supervisees.
These are convicts who, through good conduct in prison, have been
released before the expiration of the full term of their sentence, or
persons ordered at the time of their conviction to undergo a period of
police supervision after they leave prison. This class is composed very
largely of an elusive gentry, and to keep track of their comings and
goings is no simple matter when they have reason to vanish for a season.
There are usually about a thousand of these in London; the exact number
in 1913 was 811. Strict regulations are laid down, which they must
observe for the protection of the community; but, in practice, they are
afforded every facility for earning an honest living.
Ever and anon the old myth recurs that "ticket-of-leave men" are hounded
and harassed by the police so that ultimately they are thrown back to
their old life in sheer despair.
Listen to what the "Police Code" says:
"It is of great importance to avoid giving licence-holders and
supervisees any ground for alleging that they are being interfered
with by the police, or in any way prevented from leading an honest
life. When it is necessary to make enquiries at their addresses or
places of business it is desirable, if possible, that they should
be made by officers in plain clothes who are not known in the
district, and great care should be taken that the nature of the
inquiry should not be disclosed to anyone other than the
licence-holder or supervisee himself."
That regulation is carried out with a rigid regard for both the spirit
and the letter.
The relations of the detective force with the men they watch are quite
friendly. It is a matter of policy that they should be so. Yet the
situation has its humours at times.
There is a fund maintained at the office from which many ex-convicts
have been provided with a fresh start in a straightforward career. No
inconvenient enquiries are made, and the bare word of the applicant is
often accepted--within limits, of course.
Does he want to sell flowers? A stock is provided. Is he a workman
needing tools? He is supplied. Another cannot get a berth because his
clothes are in pawn; a detective is sent to redeem them.
There is no bother or fuss. Scotland Yard knows the class too well. It
knows that it is often cheated by liars; on the other hand, prompt help
may really redeem a man. Every chance is given a man to run straight,
however often he has fallen. And most of those who are helped do not
forget.
There are, however--as there must be--many who take advantage of the
system. One man had his clothes taken out of pawn. He thanked the
office--and promptly went and hypothecated them at another place. There
was another coolly impudent scoundrel, with a turn for carpentry, who
made all sorts of odds and ends out of soap boxes. He always had some
plausible story. He wanted tools or materials, or his rent was in
arrears, or there was a doctor's bill to pay. Surprise visits to his
rooms in the East End always bore out his story. But, ultimately it was
discovered that he was doing the same thing with many charitable
societies--the Church Army, the Salvation Army, and others. He made
quite a good thing out of it while it lasted.
But usually Scotland Yard is not imposed on twice by the same person.
Police science has evolved the Criminal Record Office very gradually.
The problem of the incorrigible offender is one that many years' study
has not yet completely solved. When the licence system was first
initiated the police were instructed by the Home Office not to interfere
with the ticket-of-leave men, and, not strangely, these men found
opportunities of crime made easy for them.
But prison reorganisation and police organisation went on hand in hand
until, in 1880, the Convict Supervision Office was established. Then, as
now, its chief work lay in classifying the records and photographs of
habitual criminals, compiling the "Rogues' Gallery," which is still of
inestimable value in the prevention of crime.
The finger-print system is, of course, of enormous aid in
identification, and, as I have said, is a complete safeguard against the
possibility of a wrongful conviction. The ordinary detective is most
often engaged in tracing a criminal after a breach of the law has been
committed. The Criminal Record Office has the more delicate duty of
trying to prevent crime.
It is a distinct sociological force, incessantly watchful that none of
those persons who are allowed out of prison on probation (which is
really what the licence system amounts to) drift back into the evil ways
or among evil associates. By this means it is endeavoured to cut at the
very roots of crime in this country, for it is a proved fact that the
larger proportion of serious offences which are brought before the
courts are the work of the habitual criminals.
Thus, of 10,165 persons convicted of serious crime at assizes and
quarter sessions throughout the kingdom during 1913 nearly 70 per cent.
were recognised as having been convicted before--a significant fact
which emphasises the necessity of the eternal vigilance of the C.R.O.
While I was gathering material on this subject I was prepared to find
that the police acted with severity. I was agreeably disappointed. I
found that they go as far as possible to the other extreme.
In effect, the law says that a licence-holder or supervisee shall
produce a license when called upon, shall not habitually associate with
persons of bad character, shall not lead an idle or dissolute life,
shall report themselves monthly to the nearest police station (this
regulation does not apply to women), and report any change of address.
But the law is carried out with a broad appreciation of the variations
in human nature--even criminal human nature. There are dangerous men who
must be watched closely; there are others it is unnecessary to keep
under close surveillance.
A licence-holder, as distinct from a supervisee, is not necessarily
likely to become a criminal again. A trusted clerk in a City office who
has forged his employer's name, a solicitor absconding with trust funds,
a man who has committed manslaughter are not to be classed in this
respect with burglars, jewel thieves, or coiners.
It is true that either class may hold licences, but the former are not
often sentenced to police supervision. They are not, in that sense,
habitual criminals. So the circumstances of every case are taken into
consideration.
Sometimes a man is allowed to report himself by letter instead of in
person. Nor is a detective attached to a district, who might be known as
a police officer, allowed to make inquiries when the mere fact of his
calling might make things unpleasant for a licence-holder. A stranger
from Scotland Yard is sent. This applies especially when a man is in a
workhouse, a hospital, a Church Army labour home, and such places.
To a limited extent the work of the department has been lightened by the
scheme which resulted in the establishment of the Central Association
for the Aid of Discharged Convicts--an amalgamation of various
prisoners' aid societies--which may recommend that a discharged prisoner
should be excused reporting to the police in certain cases. The result
has been that one man in every ten has been freed from the obligation to
report.
There is a little row of figures in the last issue of "Judicial
Statistics" which affords a striking illustration of the work of the
department. It shows that during the year 1913 the number of persons
under police supervision in the Metropolitan Police district was 1,197.
This is what happened to them:
Supervision expired 229
Supervision remitted by Home Secretary 3
Removed to other districts 111
Sent to prison 133
Missing 49
Left England 30
Died 7
No less than 421 were known or believed to be living honestly, and those
who were suspected of continuing their old career of roguery, but were
not convicted, numbered only 95.
The management of the office is vested in Chief Detective-Inspector
Thomas--a shrewd, able man, with a wide experience, in which he has
gained a keen and extensive knowledge of criminals of all types--who
deals with those who come under his jurisdiction with a firm and tactful
hand. He has a staff of twenty-two assistants, which includes the only
two women detectives--if they are strictly detectives--in the service.
In point of fact these ladies are employed by the Home Office and
attached to Scotland Yard, so that strictly they must not be considered
"policewomen."
These ladies are necessary in carrying out the policy of the department,
and their duties are wide. No man is allowed to visit a female
licence-holder or supervisee, mainly for the reason that his identity
might be suspected. So the women detectives take this in hand, and with
feminine tact manage to know all about their protegees, to give a
warning here, sympathetic advice there, in a way that would be difficult
for any man to do.
Their work takes them at times into some of the worst quarters of
London, and all their pluck and firmness are sometimes needed, for
habitual women criminals are usually worse subjects to handle than the
habitual male criminal.
For criminals, as for experts in other trades, all roads lead to London.
Your expert criminal, whatever his branch of rascality, sooner or later
tries his hand in the metropolis, and so there is a continual inward and
outward flow of persons the office must keep in touch with.
This is done by the co-operation of the provincial police, and by the
issue of the "Habitual Criminals Register," which gives detailed
particulars of persons entered in the files of a department. This is
sent to every police force in the kingdom.
There is another very useful publication which has brought about the
downfall of many an ambitious rascal. It is called the "Illustrated
Circular," and its subject is travelling criminals.
These form a clever, mobile fraternity who operate swindles and
robberies in one part after another, dodging in and out of various
police districts. They are as slippery as eels, and, without some means
of codifying information as to their movements and delinquencies, many
of them would defy justice with impunity.
The "Illustrated Circular" forms a link between the police jurisdictions
in this respect. It gives descriptions and particulars of the latest
known movements of itinerant criminals, and publishes photographs of
them, to enable police officers to recognise them wherever they may go.
Every movement made by a travelling criminal is recorded in the
"Circular." Men who have found themselves too closely watched by the
Bristol police may, for example, hope to find Cardiff less vigilant. But
the "Illustrated Circular" tells of their departure from Bristol, and
Cardiff is on the alert. There is little hope of escape from that
all-pervading vigilance.
The _Police Gazette_, too, is issued by this department twice a week,
not only to all the police forces of the kingdom, but to the Colonies
and the nearest European countries. This is the latest police move to
checkmate the operations of the more widely travelling rogues.
No less important are the "Special Release Notices" or, as it is now
called, the _Weekly List of Habitual Criminals_. Since 1896 prison
officials have furnished to Scotland Yard, every week, a list of
prisoners about to be released who are habitual criminals. This list,
which gives a detailed description of each man, and his index number in
the records, is sent to every police force in the country. It is so made
easy to draw a conclusion should an outbreak of burglaries commence in a
district wherein a burglar has lately been released.
In a corner of one room in Scotland Yard is piled a miscellaneous heap
of thieves' equipment--jemmies, chisels, scientific safe-breaking
implements, and other oddments. The office periodically destroys these,
though their fashioning has probably cost skilled workmen much time and
trouble. Only a new invention is spared, and that so that it may be
placed in the Black Museum for instructive purposes.
In other rooms is kept the personal property of the prisoners still
undergoing sentence. It was, I think, David Harum who remarked that
there was as much human nature in some folks as there is in others--if
not more. A glance round this mixed assortment proves the truth of the
truism.
A bag of golf clubs, a fishing rod, cameras, books, clothes, rings,
watches, jewellery--all give an index to the temperament of the
individual owning them. Money, too, is often kept here by the wish of
the convicts themselves. Personal belongings are restored at the
expiration of a sentence, but valuable articles--and many find their way
to the store-room--are not restored except on absolute proof of
ownership. When a claim is doubtful the matter is referred to a
magistrate, and on his order the disposal of the property rests.
The department plays no small part in tightening the meshes of the net
that keeps evil-doers within bounds. It does its duty with kindliness,
but without fear or favour; but the difficulties of the work are so
enormous that they could hardly be exaggerated.