To Free the Captive

In his second annual message on crime, Lyndon Johnson last week proposed a program aimed, like much of his recent legislation, at spurring local initiative with federal cash. Lamenting "years of neglect" in this field, the President urged Congress to mount a realistic and comprehensive attack on a threat that, as he put it, "can turn us into a nation of captives imprisoned nightly behind chained doors, double locks, barred windows." Key proposals:

> Intensification of a Justice Department program--with a $6,500,000 increase (to $13.7 million) in financial support--designed to encourage local police to develop new techniques, such as the application of industrial-management methods to law enforcement.

> Civil commitment for narcotics addicts, a year-old presidential proposal for a medical rather than criminal approach to the drug problem, plus establishment of clinics in major cities to train local law-enforcement officials in narcotics control.

> Curbing interstate traffic in firearms. Though control of gun ownership is essentially a state concern, it cannot be effective until the Federal Government regulates mail-order sales of firearms.

> New laws to combat crime syndicates, which Johnson called "corporations of corruption." One bill would expand the immunity from prosecution granted to underworld witnesses.

> Centralized supervision of released convicts, to be achieved by unifying under the Justice Department the parole and probation functions now exercised by federal District Courts.

In all law-enforcement problems, Johnson emphasized, there is an "interlocking tie." The day before, the Senate had passed a House-amended bill creating 45 federal judgeships, and the President was quick to seize upon that action to make his point. "An expanded judiciary cannot take advantage of modern thinking in sentencing," he said, "if new correctional facilities are not provided."

As if Johnson's concern needed any documentation, the FBI reported last week that in 1965 the number of murders in the U.S. rose by 6% over the year before, forcible rape by 7%, robbery by 5% and aggravated assault by 3%. Crime of all types increased by 8% in U.S. suburbs. Perhaps the most revealing figure came from William F. Owens, an American Bankers Association insurance expert, who estimated that 850 bank holdups were staged last year v. 609 in 1932, the heisty heyday of the John Dillinger breed of gunman. Most bank jobs today, said Owens, are pulled by amateurs, who figure the bank is the place to go--with a gun--when they need cash "for medical bills, vacations, Christmas gifts, tuition payments" --even for payments on a bank loan.

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