﻿Slim- - A Criminologist 
 
A criminologist is a man (or woman) who wonders why people commit crimes— and whose inability, to answer why, is accepted as a basis for further codes requesting the public to restrain their impulses— 

Chicago recently was the mecca of such criminologists and prosecutors in “conclave met” to wonder the why of and, to “discuss the question of effective prevention and suppression of professional and predatory aggression upon society. 
“Habitual offenders of long prison records are expected to testify regarding the problem from their own special point of view.”— Regardless of the fact that their “long prison records” pre-supposes a certain lack of intelligence, (in so far as they are “habitual” and failed to evade the sorrowful consequences of their criminal deed) and therefore, (at this late date) they are disqualified to pass on the cause of their method of making a living. 

The masters press says— “This effort to shed light on the crime situation that perplexes American communities should have beneficial results.” (emphasis mine). Shed light! that is rich! Of the rich by the rich, for the rich. — Perplexes? — We have never been perplexed. Since we were in knee pants we have known that people steal for the same reason that an employer pays two dollars for work that brings him eleven dollars profit. Perplexed? — Never! We know people will steal when unemployment fails to furnish them nescessary biscuits— and when they steal, they are sole judge (and jury) of how much they take—this is bad and tends to disorganize business as it now is carried on. 

Roscoe Pound, dean of the Harvard law school, a recognized authority on jurisprudence, has pointed out this fact: “The modern criminal code in Anglo-Saxondom is hugely obsolete and ineffective.” Many of the basic conceptions of that code imply an “Industrial and Social” condition that long since has vanished. 

Today crime is organized as a profession — organized for the purpose of supplying food, clothing and shelter to those who are unable to find in labor sufficient returns to provide these very nescessary things (including protection against old age). 

“Many men kill and rob for money”. They prefer a career of crime to unsteady and irregular employment. — The masters’ sonerous voice, “Hurry up, John”, has lost its seductiveness in the ears of thse former servants; The meager “pay” palls on their sensitive soul and now, we have a problem. Perplexing? I should say not . . . Clear as mud. 

Society is just beginning to realize that soup as a preventative for crime isn’t “thick” enough; that the mentality of the criminal must be studied and his stomach discovered . . . 

There is no longer any doubt that numerous persons who habitually break the “Thou shalt not steal” are incapable of being reformed because they lack the “emotions” that “serve” to restrain those “members of society who are well fed — 

To deny these people the right to living wage imperils the “public” needlessly. 

The crime problem as it exists today cannot be solved until society undertakes to earn its own living instead of depending on the working class to do all the heavy lifting. 
—T-bone Slim.