1941-06-18 — Page 11

By George MacManus

THAT'S THAT!

Cop 1941, King Fratures Byndicate In World rights reserved.

4-4

A PAGE FOR WOMEN

Children Aren't Born

What does the War children?

Z tor

Criminals

Monica Pearson has been talk- Ing to Magistrates who sot in Juvenile Courts, to Probation Olli- cers and Social Workers in many parts of Britain. She tells here!

the children left the court with some of the facts and opinions she an air of triumph. has learnt about the Children who

Local police, who had spent have been hit by the War.

much time and trouble in follow- *We are

breeding a

race ing up the cases, were exasperat of young criminals."

This wased. A burly inspector murmured the openly expressed verdict of in my car that a few good sound the Recorder. Mr. Noel B. Gol-thrashings would soon put a stop, die, K., M.P., at the Manchester to these cases. Quarter Sessions recently.

in- The N.S.P.C.C. has lost 80 spectors. It was their job to see that homes do not develop into

grounds breeding

for juvenile delinquency.

Another exceedingly important factor is the reduction in accom- modation m Approved Schools. For some years ther* has been He pointed out to me one boy an irgent need for more accom- of the realisa- whom he described as a "tho-modation because rough bad 'un." Perhaps he was, tion that an increase in preven- and if I had been the inspec on tion neans a decrease in prison and he had looked at me with that population.

of cheeky air

triumph. 1. too. com-might have felt exasperated.

the But he was a boy of tine phy-| being sique and good mentality, a live-|

ly and too active child. A thrash- Elsewhere the report of the ing certainly wouldn't turn him Chief Constable of Liverpool into a good boy, but the shows that the number of juv supervision, training and full oc- eniles proceeded against for lar-cupation might make him into a cenies and berakings-in during fine citizen.

Certainly the figures on the cal- endar presented to him were suf- ficiently grim to excuse a hint of pessimisin. There were 62 cases, and apart from three, the whole of the offences had been mitted by young men under age of 25, the majority youths between 17 and 20

right

of

the fourth quarter of 1940 was Mercifully, the court bousted the highest on record,

an elderly probation officer Without going into further aggreat experience and much wis ures, I can say that in almost every dom to counteract the futility of

part of the country there is an increase in figures for delinquency among juveniles and adolescents. Sometimes the rise is a steep one. There are, moreover, restlessness || and difficulties in approved schools į on an unprecedented scale. There

is a vast increase in the number

By Monica Pearson

After-Care

Evacuation of schools and the call-up of schoolmasters has greatly increased the urgency of

that need.

It has meant that all terms of commit al both for Borstal and for Approved Schools have to be shortened. which, as any good head will tell you, may lead not¦ only to the failure of the effort to reclaim the individual, but to the spread of delinquency.

seven

Here's a concrete ins ance. A lad, with a bad previous record, was recently released after only

months

He in Borstal. immediately organised fellow- shelterers to steal cars and break into premises, and became the "brains" of a gang of youths,

Mr.

H. E. Norman, secretary

of girls, some of them as young the Magistrates and the some- as 12 years, drifting into society, what crude outlook of the police. and circumstances fraught with But taking the same view as of the Probation Officers' Asso- grave moral danger.

the burly inspector, and with ciation and one of the foremost I have talked Lo men and considerably less excuse, are such authorities on juvenile problems women who are in close touch with bodies as the Nottingham Educa- In the country, writes in "Proba- this most urgent problem. I have tion Committee, whose members tion": "This resort to rapid spoken to probation officers, school were reported to have been so turn-over in re-education. teachers school psychologists, alarmed at the misdemeanour of is likely to produce new difficult- Magistrates. heads of approved boys that they sent a letter to ies in the after-care question. schools. medical men and 'police- the local Magistrates asking "After-care, for the duration them to use the birch more fre- of the war and for many years I have sat in juvenile courts, | quently!

after, will have to be regarded toured evacuation and reception. Please note this phrase! They as a specialised form of social areas, schools and shelters,

don't ask even for the birch to work

He adds a proposal

men.

As a result, I am firmly con- be used for certain types or cer- for pooling after-care work with 'vinced that there is a solution. tain offences, but just "more the appointment of whole-time I do not quarrel with the harsh frequently.” The "Flog 'em all regional social workers "without phraseology of Manchester's Re-school definitely.

delay." corder. Unless fac's are stated somewhat violently. due atten- tion will not be paid to their urgency.

Rival Cures

War Courses

But when he states, "The posi-is the one infallible cure; tion is appalling in the middle of

Sex Offences

Here are briefly the principal Also concerned is the matron causes of the increase in delin- of a girls' home in the Midlands, quency Agures for which these woman superbly successful with worthies believe that the birchher very human and progressive methods and ploneer treatment. First, evacuation, and under Girl delinquents are sent to her a war like this," I must take ex- this heading come disruption of when other methods fail. ception. I would say, rather, social services (redistribution of For almost the first time that the position is inevitable in the child population was not fol- her difficult but brilliant career a war like this-unless we extend lowed by adequate redistribu- she is, she confessed to me, trou- and adjust certain social ser- tion of these services), unsuitable bled and depressed. vices.

There

"Flog 'em all" school.

unit.

to

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billeting, violent change in sur- "I am having far too many Our main concern

institution for war when evening institute and should be, roundings and background lead-

we population of an girls absconding, and where

work came almost not to hold up hands of horror ing instability and nervous

standstill; dropped down con- and say, "Tut, tut, how shock- troubles, half-time school result-had formerly a collection of girls subnormal children — to be bil-club

Children who need stability of siderably this winter when means ing!" but that we should tackle ing in far too much undirected with a variety of offences, we are leted in private homes.

now having a great many of one the problem in the right way: leisure, break up of the family

type, sex tynes. It's the general background more than any other were found to open up these ser-

a complete vices again.. of parental are subjected to are three

unrest, weakening schools of thought, At one end is the Then there are the fatherless control, and, above all, the glam-change of life, and discipline, un-

suspecting hosts are saddled with Responsibility "Bless 'em all" attitude of aged homes. Father's dictatorship often our of uniform.

"The influence of the ab-children needing expert hand- Magistrates, often infirm, fre- has to do duty for good training,

All these thinking, experienced the dictatorship quently deaf, and at times in their and when

is sconders-they can always. take ling, and the special schools and

special classes of the reception people were agreed that the un- dotage, at whose mursery rebukes withdrawn, John and Jane pro-refuge in shelters in war time the young sinners in juvenile ceed to run amok.

is a menace to the rest of the city are swamped with the defec-certainty, the disruption, the ab

'normality, the tension" of lito There should be atives. courts, barely repress their con- Most potent cause is the black- school work.

There was no explanation, no while the world is in the melting temptuous sniggles.

out with its opportunities. for separate school for such girls. At the other extreme. is the crime and theft, its effect in "Then, too, there should be case histories with these child-pot must have its effect on, the. youngsters,. apart from the in- closing clubs and holding up the separate treatment for girls who ren: they were just "dumped,"

In another town not far distant dividual changes wrought in In between are those who have work of evening institutes... Im are emotionally and mentally

of from this one evacuees, who found their own lives. made the whole question their portant, too, is the shelter where unstable. Many of them are

way into the Children's The glamour of uniforms' has life's work and study, and who young people can not only escape average and even of high mental their

the imagination of the have many concrete proposals to from parental or other control. capacity, and should not be sub-Court were dealt with leniently seized put forward.

but where they can, and do, find jected to the same treatment, as on the tacit understanding that girls, the glamour of war has

they returned to their own much- taken hold of the young boys. refuge when they abscond from the mentally sub-normal."

We are responsible, not they home and Approved School.

Her girls, she told me, were bombed city. One way of deal-

Wo have let civilisation drift too old for psychological treating with delinquency! Actually, one set of extremists

Much of the trouble among back into barbarism. We have Then, alas the army has claim-ment."

adolescents, according to one let the spirit of force and de- helps to produce. the other. I sat ed some of the most important

the In connection with this it is of probation offeer, was, the result struction creep onward until it in: our Juvenile. court recently social service workers in

N.S.P.C.C. Inspectors, interest to note how evacuation of a determination to have a has engulfed all existence,... where an 80-year-old chairman, country, no doubt benevolent, kind and boys' club leaders, school-masters has affected the psychological de final fling before being called Are we going to find a solution

up for military service.

by the birch, and give ⠀ them. worthy, addressed one youngster and others, whose places cannot partment of a city boasting one of after another in terms so unimpossibly be allod adequately in a the best educational systems in The same officer showed me another lesson in violence, or are

how the figures in his area, we to try to make up

the des pressive even though interspers short space of time, were not sche-the country, Z

To this elty has been sent a which had shot up 100 per cent. ficiency in their lives by plan ed with legal terms that no young-duled among those in. reserved)

batch of evacuees, the completo during the first winter of the ning? eter would ever understand that occupations..

Angered Police