LESS JUVENILE CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 36, 12 February 1925, Page 4

LESS JUVENILE CRIME.

Juvenile crime has for long formed one of the most difficult problems with which social reformers are called upon to grapple. Especially in the United States was there a large amount of delinquency amongst the young. It was stated a few years ago thai eighty per cent of the criminals convicted in the American courts were under the age of

twenty-five. Now, according to the report of the National Probation Assoeia. tion, juvenile offenders are decreasing

throughout the country, despite crime waves recurrent in the larger cities. The decline is moat marked in New

York, where the figures for last year show 30(10 fewer cases than there were ten years ago. In Chicago there has been a decrease of thirty per cent. Mr. Justice Hoyt, the presiding judge of the Children's Court in New York, says the decrease is the result of civic and social efforts to eliminate the causes which have been responsible for delinquency and neglect. "The work," he says, "of prevention which has been engaging the attention of so many agencies and organisatTons. the wakening public conscience and intelligence as evidenced by the activities of the settlements, community centres, clubs, parents' associations and the like; the development of the probations rv system; the intensive efforts of the court itself—these are some of the things that have improved the conditions surrounding the children of our community." In the whole State of New York the population of all reformatories and institutions for juvenile delinquents has been decreasing. In spite of the increasing population in the State at large, in some of these institutions the population to-day is only onehalf of what it was ten years ago. In 1923 the Probation Commission reported a larger percentage of successful probation oases than in any previous year. Seventy-seven per cent of those who finished probation during that year are said to have been successful, than ten per cent of those placed on probation had to be rearrested and committed to correctional institutions. At one time social workers were inclined to lose heart, as pood results were slow in showing themselves. The good fruits of their work are now observable. "But the real fruits,' , says the "Dayton Journal' , in the course of an able editorial on the matter, "of the efforts of our social workers will come in the growing generation, which will find its crime problem simplified and made easier because of what we are doing to-day." In a lesser degree we have the problem of juvenile delinquency with us. and the fruits of some of our efforts may not be immediately apparent. The statistics from the United States ought to bring fresh encouragement, since they show that if we sow the seed the harvest will come in due season.