The major difficulty, however, is not this failure to report, because the police somehow sometimes find the criminal in spite of all that. is done to guard him by his victim, The veal danger lies in the fact that there is too lenient an enforcement of the law in the new Provisional Court, which seems to! Punish crime so lightly that, the risks to the criminal are sufficiently, amall to make crime a profitable Fursuit. This may be in keeping: with some humanitarian doctrines. that the criminal is not really responsible for his bad nature, but the effect upon law and order is very bad. For instance, the following figures are extremely interesting.
In July, 1926, when the old Mixed Court functioned, there were 13] armed robberies in Shanghai; in January 1927, immediately after the rendition of the Mixed Coure there were 97; in July, 1927, there were 72, There are many excuses wh can be given for the January figure, 'The new court had just taken over, the Judges were feeling their way; they were uncertain of their positions because of the imminence of a change of administration and the robbers took advantage of' the situation. The July, 1927, figure cannot be so easily explained away, Apparently, the robbers feel that they can afford to take chances and they take them, The leniency of the Provisional Court undoubtedly has something to do with the increase in armed robberies. For instance, only one person has, during the six months ending June 30, 1027, been sentenced to death for. armed robbery, whereas 40 persons. were ordered to be sent to the Chinese authorities for execution for crimes of armed robbery, murder, ete. during a corresponding: period in 1926, The Law's Unhappy Delays 'The new Provisional Court also stems to find it more difficult to get through its calendar than the old Mixed Court." For instance, from January 1, 1927, when the Mixed Gourt "was randited, to June 20, 3027, 1,280 persons' were' detained for periods lasting longer than one week awaiting. trial, "while for a corresponding period in 1926 only 490" persona' were s0 detained. "Te a welltenown maxim. in law enforcement that the speedier the trial and sentence, the less crime is semmitted, because the few chances there are for the criminal to gel through a technicality, such as nesses disappearing, evidence being estrayed, eve The fact that trials the new Provisional Couré seem to take longer than in the old Mixed Court undoubtedly hampers the police in their work, Under the old d Court the police had recourse to the expedient of expulsion which was very useful to them, az it meant that they could over after pick up a suspect and punish him for returning to the Settlement. During 1926, 1,969 Persons were expelled from the International Settlement. The judges of the new court declined to regard returning to the Settlement as a charge. Immediately, the Settlement "became over-run with notorious characters who openly flauntd the Police because they knew that the Provisional Court would not assist the Police in protecting the Settlement against these evil-doers,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.