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This article examines the proposed Illinois Bureau of Criminal Records and Statistics. In the fifty-first and fifty-second sessions of the General Assembly of Illinois, a bill for an Act in relation to the collection, use, and preservation of data, information and records concerning crimes and criminals and complaints relating to crimes, and providing penalties for misconduct in relation thereto, was introduced. The Department of Public Welfare shall collect information, reports and data of and concerning complaints of felonies committed, or suspected to have been committed in this state. However, the proposed bill was defeated. And it will be again introduced in the fifty-third General Assembly in 1923.

In 1919 the murders of record in Chicago, Illinois numbered 330. There were 6,108 burglaries and 2,912 robberies. During the same period, 4,447 automobiles were stolen, and the property loss from thefts of all sorts was in excess of twelve millions of dollars. For the first six months of 1920 the burglaries have numbered 3,227, robberies 1,269, while the total number of homicides is 498. This latter figure includes all sorts of deaths by violence, including killings by automobiles, some 300. When these figures are analyzed it will probably show that the murder rate has decreased, owing largely to the great activity in the prosecution of murder cases during the spring, with the result that 15 men are now under sentence of death, while a very considerable number have been sent to the penitentiary for terms ranging from 20 years to life, some of them having pleaded guilty to manslaughter in order to avoid going to trial for murder.

The article discusses parole administration in Illinois. Parole administration is the subject of adverse criticism in almost every state of the union. Much of it has been justified, even though the problem of parole has been misinterpreted and misunderstood. The success of parole administration depends not only upon its administrators, but upon a reasonable and informed public opinion. Prodigious promises and meager performances have been too common. In some states parole administration is a farce. In others it is so interwoven with politics as to be a menace. In a few states conscientious efforts are being made to administer it in the interests of the public welfare. The time has come to begin a campaign of education so that the public may understand what is being done; to be made acquainted with the fact that parole is a step forward in penology; that it is sound in theory, although in many instances its administration is bad. One of the difficulties has been the secrecy as to method, the political appointment of incompetents and the failure to realize that it is time to break down the traditional attitude of secrecy and give intelligent, constructive general information, keeping in mind that the basic idea is to guard the interests of society rather than cater to the convenience and comfort of the parolee.

This article looks at the legality of a Special Grand Jury that has been in session in Cook County, Illinois, largely devoting its time to an investigation of the Chicago Police Department, for several months. Based on an examination of the law, it appears to sustain the soundness of the position that a Special Grand Jury in Illinois may continue indefinitely and is not restricted by the rule applicable to regular Grand Juries. No definition of the grand jury is found in either the Illinois Constitution of 1818 or the Illinois Constitution of 1870. Its constitution, organization and method of proceeding were all well known features of the common law before the organization of the State of Illinois and have been recognized and adopted in all constitutions and in legislation as it existed at the organization of the state. The conclusion follows that the state from its origin has provided for the prosecution of violations of the criminal law by means of indictment by a grand jury, and that the grand jury is that which existed in the common law of England prior to the fourth year of King James I, which began on March 24, 1606. When it was so referred to, the common law grand jury became a part of the fundamental law of the state for the prosecution of crime, and no authority has ever existed in this state for the prosecution of felonies except upon the indictment of a grand jury.