Crime: It’s Really Rising

The volume of crime in the U.S. has risen 58% since 1958, and is growing six times as fast as the population.

That was nearly the biggest and most generalized statistic that Cartha Dekle (“Deke”) DeLoach, 45, who is regarded as heir apparent to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, cited to the American Farm Bureau Federation convention last week.

A onetime Stetson University football star, DeLoach joined the FBI in 1942, and save for a two-year hitch in the wartime Navy, has climbed steadily through the ranks ever since. Since 1959, when he was put in charge of the bureau’s crime-records division, DeLoach has spent a good part of his time on the rostrum, explaining the FBI and its functions. Some of his facts for farmers:

> More than 2,600,000 serious offenses—a record—were reported to U.S. police departments last year.

> A serious crime was committed once every twelve seconds.

> A murder, assault to kill, or forcible rape was committed every 21 minutes, a robbery every five minutes, a burglary every 28 seconds.

> There were 52 automobile thefts per hour.

> In 1964 one out of every ten U.S. police officers was the victim of a deliberate assault; 57 policemen were murdered.

> Americans in the 10-to-17 age group comprise about 15% of the population, but were charged with 43% of all crimes against property in 1964. In rural areas, those under 18 accounted for almost one-half of the arrests for burglaries and auto thefts and for more than one-third of all larcenies.

An FBI study of 93,000 offenders arrested during 1963 and 1964, DeLoach added, showed that 76% had been in trouble at least once before. Of these, more than 50% had been granted parole, probation or suspended sentences at some point, and thereafter averaged more than three additional arrests.

Nearly one-third of all suspects arrested since 1960 for killing a police officer were on parole or probation at the time.