Crime In The Lindbergh Kidnapping Law

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The Crime of the Century
The 1920s was a time of celebration and challenges. People celebrated events such as the passing of the 19th amendment and having more money than ever before. Women were ecstatic that they finally got the chance to vote. Also, people had more money to spend, so there was really no problems during this time. Everything was booming into better and bigger things. However, there was one event that brought the mood of the 1920s down. The event was the increased amount of crime during this time. An example of crime getting worse was the amount of people in the Ku Klux Klan; however, the crime of the century was yet to happen. This crime would start a chain reaction throughout the whole nation.
Perhaps the worst crime in …show more content…

In 1931, 279 kidnappings occurred in 501 cities. Out of these 279 kidnappings, only 69 convictions were made. In these cases, 44 of them crossed state lines. Police officers in St. Louis were getting fed up with the state lines, so they organized a committee and drafted a bill to Congress that would make kidnapping a federal law. It was likely this bill would have been swept under rug, but the Lindbergh Kidnapping helped the bill get passed (Bomar 435). The public was so attached to the Lindbergh Kidnapping that the Congress felt like they had to do something. The bill was not passed until the baby was found. The Congress thought it would be less likely to find little Charles alive with this new law in action. The bill was debated between House Judiciary and Senate Committees. The House Judiciary Committee was fine with the death penalty; however, the Senate Committee was not fine with the death penalty (Bomar 436). The bill was passed in June of 1932 with the worst punishment as life in prison. President Hoover was the president at the time and his signature made the Lindbergh Kidnapping Bill a law (Bomar 437). In May of 1934, 26 cases of state line kidnapping were examined. Out of these 26 cases, 24 of these state line kidnapping ended with prosecutions. Likewise, within months federal cases went up to 29. Out of these cases, 27 cases had the guilty party caught or convicted. The amount of people convicted went up to 62. These records compared to the 1931 records were not believable to many people. The Lindbergh Kidnapping Law had amazing results in less than two years. It decreased the amount of kidnappings and made the 1930s a better time to live through. If it was not for Lindbergh Kidnapping, the 1930s would have been an extremely sad

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