WOMEN AS LAW OFFICERS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17645, 23 December 1922, Page 2

WOMEN AS LAW OFFICERS.

♦ AMERICAN PROBATION SYSTEM. Margaret "Wynne Nevinson, an English justice of the peace, tells in the "National Review" of a visit to the United States for the purpose of studying the law courts and the probation system. Everywhere she was addressed as "Judge," and when she sat beside the officiating "judge" (or mag» trate) the prisoners ccller her ' Mam. Women play a great part in tlie courts as judges, barristers, probation officers, and "big sisters." Instead of mixing all offenders together-murderers, burglare, forgers, drunkards, and cyclists whose lamps have Mown out—New York makes careful divisions. There are women's ,courts, traffic courts, and domestic relations courts, 'ihe municipal term courts consider alleged, violations of laws and orumancee to compulsory education, labour, health, and tenements. i'or peisons arrested after the day court has adjourned there are the night courts, saving loss of time from work and the humiliation of confinement in gaol. The district'courts deal wijh disorderly conduct, - intoxication, druji cases, sex offences, vagrancy, begging, and oilier matters. The juvenile, women's, and domestic courts are not open to the. public, aud are conducted informally. "America is the country that at least knows how to treat women," says Mrs Nevison. Every respect, courtesy, and consideration are shown, trouble or expanse is spared to restore the most to a decent, life. In most cases oj wife desertion the man is found and to pay. The cass of the deserted «'«•« U heard with sympathy and ready hcl) is given by trained and competent women with "heart-to-heart talks." Probation is found much cheaper than punishment, and it is claimed that it ni]*3 crime in the hud. The probation officers are a highly trained and efficient body of men and women. They are encouraged to attend national, State, and city conferences at the expense of the city, and to make full use of a library containing the latest books and pamphlets on social work. They have unpaid but enthusiastic helpers of all reliffion-s, known as "big brothers" and "big sisters." Men and women judges attend "difficulty case conferences," at which the psychological theories of Freud and Jung are freely cited. Legal and medical experts, judges, doctors, and barristers work harmoniously together at the problems of insanity and mental deficiency. TEe mixture of races brings problems to America that do not exist in England. There are many interpreters waiting about the Courts. Sometimes a judge manages his own German. Many immigrants from all lands make no effort to .learn 'the language. They work furiously and live thriftily with the intention of returning to idleness in their own country. Drunkenness' under "prohibition" pauses trouble. One man was released on condition that he took the pledge! Negro psychology raises another problem. And ready divorce causes children to suffer from frequent changes of "mother" or "father." In such cases a "big sister" or "bigbrother" gives protection. A High Court judge chewed tobacco or gum steadily, and dozed peacefully, raising no objection when the barristers for both sides left their places to bully the witnesses and the jury. In other cases judge and counsel used such terms as "bell hop," "parking without v lights," " boot-legging,'' "lounge lizards," "tea hounds," "moonshine stilts," "jumping bail," and "souse bodies." In one case there was the sentence: "You're a crook, but I'll crook you and land you till you are eighteen in-a place you';won't like." Mrs Nevinson's unadorned English caused her. hearers to be "tickled to death." A young barrister described the judge as "a snappy., woman," explaining to the Bhocked visitor that in New York snappy meant smart and bright. Mrs Nevinson quotes the American journalist H. L. Mencken as Writing in the New York "Nation" of December 7th, 1921:—"It is one of my firmest and most sacred beliefs, reached after due prayer, that the Government of the United States, in both its legislative and executive arms, is corrupt, ignorant, incompetent, and disgusting—and from this judgment I except no more than twenty - law makers and no more than twenty executioners of the law. It\ is a belief no less piously cherished that the administration of justice in the republic is stupid, dishonest, and against all reasbn and. equity, and from this judgment I except no more than twenty v judges." "Perhaps," comments Mrs Nevinson, "my limited experience has been among those twenty judges, for, I certainly hold to my optimistic views of the administration of justice in the inferior Courts, especially with regard to the working of the probation system in the Women's Courts, the Courts of Domestic Relation's,-, and the Juvenile Courts."