April 23, 1984

''Society is pressed to its ancient defense against the violent criminal: the fear of swift and severe punishment.

Fueled by increased production and sales, first-quarter corporate profits in most industries jumped from last year's levels. The higher-than-expected earnings spread across many sectors of the economy, reflecting a broad recovery. The biggest leaps were made in industries that benefit from increased consumer and capital spending, such as automobiles, paper products, aluminum, communications, publishing, instruments, construction and home appliances. Some companies also did well in the office equipment and consumer electronics industries.

MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1984 The Economy Corporate profits soared in the first quarter. Unexpectedly heavy consumer spending and outlays for capital goods resulted in profit gains across a broad spectrum of industries. (Page D1.)

The Mead Corporation, while not neglecting its main business of paper and forest products, is keeping a sharp eye on the home computer market through its Mead Data Central division. Mead Data, which last year contributed only a speck of the overall company's $2.4 billion in revenues, oversees two information retrieval services: Lexis, used primarily by lawyers to research court decisions, and Nexis, used by others to research information published by magazines and newspapers. The outlook for Mead Data brightened late last year when it announced that its system could be used in conjunction with personal computers made by the International Business Machines Corporation. This development allows Mead Data to benefit from growth of the home computer industry. When a user calls up information on a home terminal, Mead will rack up a sale.

There were distinct winners and losers among the nation's largest banks during the first quarter as at least one reported record profits, while others did quite poorly. On the plus side, most banks benefited from higher fee income, especially on consumer business, and from higher volume of earning assets. On the negative side, the banks continued to struggle with mountains of problem loans, both international and domestic. But some analysts saw reasons for optimism because the banks seemed finally to be emerging from the depths of the recession. Although their provisions for loan losses remained fairly high, actual loan charge-offs were dropping at most banks.