CRIME BY YOUTHS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 288, 17 September 1941, Page 3

CRIME BY YOUTHS

INFLUENCE OF HIGH WAGES. COMMENT BY CHIEF JUSTICE. (P.A.) WELLINGTON, September 16. Comment on the wave of crime by youths throughout New Zealand was made by the Chief Justice (Sir Alichael Myers) in the Supreme Court to-day. He attributed it in part to the high wages now being paid to youths and young men. Among youths so minded, his Honor said, large wages seemed to give them no idea of the value ot money and made them careless of the property of other people. Two youths, aged 18 and 10 years respectively, who were before the Court, were reported to be receiving £4 4s and £6 10s a week. They were Patrick John Holmes and Joseph Benjamin Richard AylWard. .and both were described as labourers and had pleaded guilty at Petone to breaking and entering a shop and committing theft. The* Chief Justice said that the Probation Officer reported that there were charges of ear conversion to be faced in the Lower Court. Each prisoner was ordered to lie detained in the Borstal Institution for two years. Tne Probation Officer had recommended probation, “but,” his Honor said, “the responsibility is not that of the Probation Officer, it is that of the Court.” Probation had been granted in a great many eases by himself and other judicial officers. Sir Alichael (Myers added. If probation were to he granted in all these cases the Courts might just as well give carte blanche to young men minded similarly just to go about doing what they pleased. It had to he stopped and the Courts must do their host to stop it.