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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.