Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/106

 CRIME IN RELATION TO THE STATE AND TO MUNICIPALITIES

EUGENE SMITH, ESQ. New York City

The federal government has jurisdiction in the case of crimes committed against the United States, but this jurisdiction is wholly distinct from the criminal jurisdiction vested in the sev- eral states of the Union. With this federal exception, all crimi- nal law in this country has its sole source and authority in the sovereign power of the state. The state is territorially divided into counties and subdivided into towns, cities and villages; but all these local subdivisions are created by the state. For con- venience in the administration of government, these localized political units are vested with certain powers ; still, it is true that all the powers they possess are granted and delegated to them by the central sovereignty of the state. Thus the state is the fans et origo of all criminal as well as of all civil jurisdiction.

This supremacy of the state involves, for the purposes of the present discussion, four elements: the state has the sole power (i) to enact all criminal laws; (2) to enforce those laws by the detection and arrest of offenders; (3) to try judicially, and to convict or acquit, persons accused of crime; and (4) to inflict the penalties prescribed by law.

All these powers are delegated by the state, to a greater or less extent, to the counties towns, cities, and villages (all of which are comprised under the term "municipal corporations," and are herein designated as "municipalities"); and it is the object of the present paper to discuss the question to what extent such delegation of power is necessary and proper, and to deter- mine in what cases the power ought to be, not delegated, but exercised by the state itself. The four powers above enumerated will be considered separately and in the order in which they have been stated.

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