PRESS IGNORES POINT OF REPORT POUND BELIEVES

Interviewed regarding recent press discussions of the Report on Criminal Statistics of the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Dean Roscoe Pound of the Harvard Law School said that an altogether incorrect light had been thrown upon the work of the Commission.

Programs Must be United

Dean Pound, who is doing extensive research on the Wickersham report, feels that the Boston papers do not emphasize sufficiently the fact that, as the Report says, "what is most needed is that all organizations...interested in putting American criminal justice upon a more scientific basis, unite in a program for accurate nation-wide criminal statistics. As matters stand," Dean Pound went on to say," you read a set of statistics issued by one department, and think you have something. Then you read other sets compiled by other related departments (of the Government), and realize you have nothing."

To remedy this defect, the Crime Commission would "correlate state and Federal statistics in one Federal bureau."

"Serious Abuse"

Dean Pound reiterated the view of the Report that "a serious abuse exists in compiling them (the statistics) as a basis of requesting appropriations." Since "each department compiles statistics to show that it needs large appropriations," Dean Pound would "put some detached bureau, unaffected by the desires of the bureau whose activities are to be pictured, in charge of all criminal statistics."