Essay On The Wickersham Commission

The Wickersham Commission is the popular name for the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, which was appointed by President Herbert Hoover in 1929. The commission, which derived its name from its chairperson, former U.S. Attorney General George Wickersham, conducted the first comprehensive national study of crime and law enforcement in U.S. history. Its findings, which were published in fourteen volumes in 1931 and 1932, covered every aspect of the criminal justice system, including the causes of crime, police and prosecutorial procedures, and the importance of probation and parole.
Hoover established the commission to address several important issues. With the passage of the 18th Amendment, prohibition had begun in 1920,
Vollmer was assisted in his research by David G. Monroe and Earle W. Garrett, both of whom were in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Their final report articulated standards and goals in policing that if read today would still remain valid. The police report section authored by Vollmer spoke of the low standards of policing and the disconnect between the police and the public: “Law enforcement agents are usually held in contempt, and law enforcement is one of our national jokes.” As a result, Vollmer made recommendations at the end of the report that echoed the recommendations he would continually make – both before and after the Wickersham Report: Remove the police from politics; make chiefs of police independent of politics; maintain high recruitment and training standards for police officers; establish good working conditions for the police; maintain good communication and records systems; establish active crime prevention units. On the state level, he recommended that each state establish a police organization that would consist of bureaus of criminal investigation and information (Carte and Carte,