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For the first time since it began publishing 33 years ago, the Gallup poll reports that crime is the nation's No. 1 domestic concern. And "crime in the streets"—a catchall phrase for everything from muggings to insurrections—may well have displaced Viet Nam as the prime issue in the presidential campaign. The FBI reckons that urban crime jumped 88% in the first seven years of the decade—and 17% over 1967 in the first three months of 1968. Granting a sizable margin of inaccuracy in reporting, the figures are probably a fair approximation of the facts. In response to such statistics, Congress last month promised local police forces major financial backing ($400 million over the next two years) for the first time in history. Even the Post Office has put its weight behind the policeman. Instead of celebrating Boy Scouts or blue jays, a recent 60 special-issue stamp showed a kindly cop-escorting a small boy, with three words in banner red: LAW AND ORDER.
Undoubtedly, the nation's police are better today than they ever were in the past. But manifestly they are not good enough. For every step forward, there have been two steps backward in the growth of slum populations; for every advance in understanding of minorities, there have been two retreats in growing ghetto resentment and despair. Widespread corruption is by no means a thing of the past. A study prepared for the President's crime commission, leaked this month, claimed that in ghetto areas of three cities—Chicago, Boston and Washington—27% of the police regularly committed offenses that would normally be classed as felonies or misdemeanors. Minor shakedowns for meals, drinks and small favors were so common as not to be included. Third degrees and savage beatings have been largely done away with since the '30s, but a New Jersey grand jury was ordered last week to investigate charges that Paterson police used unnecessary force in quelling recent disturbances in Puerto Rican neighborhoods. Without question, New York City police used extreme, sometimes brutal tactics against students during spring demonstrations at Columbia University. "As far as police practice is concerned," says Stanford Social Scientist Richard Blum, "the U.S. has to be considered an un derdeveloped country."
The Census. Whereas most European states have centralized forces with uniform, nationwide standards, the U.S. has 40,000 separate law-enforcement agencies—with 40,000 different codes, 40,000 different policies, and 40,000 different ideas as to how the peace should be maintained. Los Angeles County has 50 police forces, including the L.A.P.D. Educational qualifications range from nonexistent to four years of college. Oddly enough, almost no force gives even a rudimentary psychological exam —surely an essential requirement for one of the most sensitive of all occupations. Many suburbs and small cities attempt to solve serious crimes with techniques that would have seemed elementary to Dr. Watson; some big-city police laboratories have every detection device that modern science can provide.