PREVENTION OF CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22767, 20 July 1939, Page 15

PREVENTION OF CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN

TO THE' EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —Noy that the latest case of crime against little children has revealed mental disability in the offender, may I, yet once more, stress the need of protecting our children by protecting our witless- with our own wits and goodwill? As an old prison visitor, I have had to do with some five or six men in New Zealand all guilty of offences against little children; and of these every one was mentally lacking—not insane, not imbecile, but having only a childish brain in his grown-up body. Wiser countries than our own recognise the type, - know that the condition is generally from birth, and has, so far as we yet know, no cure; and they therefore provide care, guardianship, training, good company, and keep such unfortunate people from offending by giving them happy and useful lives. England has homes of this sort. America has “colonies” of men, women, and children all together in a community. What has New Zealand? Nothing at all except a home or two for children! Nothing for adults. Yet it is precisely the friendless adult of this type who is so dangerous to little children, generally without any appreciation of his guilt. r What can we do? Why not develop in connexion with the Templeton Farm School for subnormal children, a little colony for subnormal adults? We have, I believe, the needed legislation, but without administration of it. If, as everything about the case suggests, this latest offender is of this type, we have to remember that in seven years he will be free again—“free!’ to be- homeless and friendless and roam about the country with his brain certainly not improved. Do wq want that? If we don’t, then I submit it is up to us to serve our country by demanding that his mental status shall be recognised and his need seen to. Those who wanted him to be flogged did not, I am certain, want to wreck his feeble reason, but they did want children protected frpm him and from his like. Now, while all is fresh in the national mind, is the time for them to act toward that end in whatever way appears practical to them, but. at all costs, to act—-not to leave it lazily again to be again neglected, and have some other poor little child suffer through their failure.—Yours, etc.,, B. E. BAUGHAN. * Akaroa, July 18. 1939.