DELINQUENT YOUTHS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 121, 24 May 1944, Page 6

DELINQUENT YOUTHS

METHOD OF TREATMENT TRAINING DEPOT SUGGESTED (0.C.) GISBORNE, this day. The introduction of a special training depot similar to the facilities provided by a training ship to handle delinquent youths was suggested to the Cook Hospital Board, which decided to ask the M.P. for the district, Mr. D. W. Coleman, to submit the proposal to Parliament and to invite the support of interested bodies.

The sponsor of the proposal, Mrs. A. E. Beer, declared that the placing of these boys in country districts was imposing a terrific hazard upon women in homesteads. Unfortunately, there was no way at present of handling these boys in an institution, as they, could not be taken into a Borstal institute under 17 years of age. The removal of these youths from the opportunity for backsliding should be a cardinal point.

Mrs. E. R. Black stated that country organisations of women have been urging action of some similar kind for years The position in the country had become particularly difficult since so many men had been drawn off for the war. When terrible tragedies occurred it was too late to do anything for the victims, but it was possible to do something to avert recurrencies of the tragedies. The chairman. Mr. M. T. Trafford, said the position was getting worse and a great deal of trouble was being experienced in country areas, What the country now had to deal with was the result of bad training.