Crime doesn't pay

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     Attention must be paid to "crime doesn't pay."

AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF IDIOMS by Christine Ammer:
_crime does not pay_ (...) The maxim, originating as a slogan of the F.B.I.
and given wide currency by the cartoon character Dick Tracy, was first
recorded in 1927.

RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY OF POPULAR PROVERBS & SAYINGS by Gregory Titelman:
_Crime doesn't pay._  Inevitably, sooner or later, criminals will be caught
and punished.  First attested in the United States in N. Martin's _Mosaic_
(1927).

AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN QUOTATIONS by Margaret Miner and
Hugh Rawson:
"Crime does not pay--enough."  --CLAYTON RAWSON, motto of the Mystery Writers
of America, 1945.

      An editorial cartoon from the NEW YORK HERALD-TRIBUNE, 20 November
1925, pg. 24, cols. 5-7:

Title:  THE REAL CRIME EXPERT KNOWS
Panel One: Crime minus rigid law enforcement
"HA!  HA!  SURE IT PAYS!"  (Spoken by criminal, smoking outside a place that
says "soft drinks"--ed.)
Panel Two: Crime plus rigid law enforcement
"IT DOESN'T PAY!"  (Spoken by a criminal, behind bars--ed.)

     If anyone wants to know what doesn't pay, hey, well...