Juvenile Courts for Hong Kong
By a Chinese Correspondent
"TO
give
ve the youngsters
a Chance" was the plea of Dr. Robert
H. Kotewall at a recent meeting of the Hong Kong Legislative Council
when he introduced a resolution that steps be taken by the Government
to institute JuvenileCourts where offenders under the age of sixteen
can be separately tried, with a view to the early establishment of
some training institutions where such offenders can be segregated after
conviction.
Dr. Kotewall stated that during 1929, 985 Chinese boys and 137
girls, allunder the age of sixteen, were charged before magistrates and that of these 268 boys and seven girls were charged with felonies,
377 boys and 37 girls with hawking, and 340 boys and 57 girld with
other offences. Of these young offenders, 131 boys and five girls were
sent to prison; and 433 boys of whom 125 were convicted of hawking
without licences, were ordered to be whipped.
These figures reveal conditions that call for immediate remedy.
In dealing with offenders of this class, Dr. Kotewall insisted that it
is bad in principle to subject them to treatment which would cast on
them the stigma of criminality. It is with the object of avoiding
this stigma and of helping children who have committed offences, to be-
come good citizens, that legislation is so necessary, The chief
measures which require the sanction of legislation are the provision