826

3

Just as the more desirable people prosper under stringent laws against
all forms of social evil so they increase in number and assure social better-
ment with larger provisions for education and usefulness of all kinds.

The Negroes of Washington homes and schools have a few undesirables among
them, but the small number is reinforced by an influx of unskilled and untaught
from other places. If there is any inefficiency in a police force, othervise of
the highest character as to organization and men, except that it is by far too
small for the important work which devolves upon it in Washington, that inefficiency consists in not identifying the shifting population and the resident, the
industrious and the idle, the law abiding and the vicious in every precinct in
order to reduce to the narrowest confines the number of those who may have par-
ticipated in any crime.

In addition to such identification there should be a half dozen Negro detec-
tives for familiarity with the habits and customs of their people, just as there
are Italian, Greek and Chinese detectives in other cities of mixed population.

It is true of course that there are no Negro criminals here such as found
in other cities anong distinctly foreign people, but the employment of a few
Negro men trained in observing the haunts, habits and customs of their people so
as to bring miscreants to book quickly would act as a powerful deterrent to the
element which comes to Washington commits a crime and loses itself before and
after punishment in the large population already here and struggling to realize
a modicum of that promise of life, liberty and happiness guranteed to all men who
keep the law.

In adition to such detectives Washington needs a psychological clinic for
the examination of miscreants as to the chances of reform, for careful observation
will reveal families with 5 delinquent members, with 3 generations of delinquency
or with 4 to 6 children to delinquent parents.

83506