LAW ENFORCEMENT AND OBSERVANCE

No one will look with satisfaction upon the volume of crime of all kinds and the growth of organized crime in our country.  We have pressing need so to organize our system of administering criminal justice as to establish full vigor and effectiveness.  We need to reestablish faith that the highest interests of our country are served by insistence upon the swift and even-handed administration of justice to all offenders, whether they be rich or poor.  That we shall effect improvement is vital to the preservation of our institutions.  It is the most serious issue before our people.

Under the authority of Congress I have appointed a National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, for an exhaustive study of the entire problem of the enforcement of our laws and the improvement of our judicial system, including the special problems and abuses growing out of the prohibition laws.  The commission has been invited to make the widest inquiry into the shortcomings of the administration of justice and into the causes and remedies for them.  It has organized its work under subcommittees dealing with the many contributory causes of our situation and has enlisted the aid of investigators in fields requiring special consideration.  I am confident that as a result of its studies now being carried forward it will make a notable contribution to the solution of our pressing problems.

Pending further legislation, the Department of Justice has been striving to weed out inefficiency wherever it exists, to stimulate activity on the part of its prosecuting officers, and to use increasing care in examining into the qualifications of those appointed to serve as prosecutors.  The department is seeking systematically to strengthen the law enforcement agencies week by week and month by month, not by dramatic displays but by steady pressure; by removal of negligent officials and by encouragement and assistance to the vigilant.  During the course of these efforts it has been revealed that in some districts causes contributing to the congestion of criminal dockets, and to delays and inefficiency in prosecutions, have been lack of sufficient forces in the offices of United States attorneys, clerks of courts, and marshals.  These conditions tend to clog the machinery of justice.  The last conference of senior circuit judges has taken note of them and indorsed the department’s proposals for improvement.  Increases in appropriations are necessary and will be asked for in order to reenforce these offices.