The Press TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1954. Legislating for Child Delinquency

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27466, 28 September 1954, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1954. Legislating for Child Delinquency

It is regrettable that the Government has thought it necessary to include in the already substantial amount of legislation to be enacted before the dissolution of the present Parliament three bills related to the question of juvenile delinquency. It is true that the Government is acting largely on the recommendations of the committee set up to investigate juvenile moral delinquency in the Dominion, and it is probable that the Government feels hesitant about ending the present session of Parliament without having done something to give effect to the committee’s recommendations. But the effect of what no-one doubts are good intentions will be that bills virtually written overnight, bills which deal with highly important subjects, will be hastened through the legislative processes without receiving all the consideration that is their due. For instance, the Indecent Publications Amendment Bill will impose on “ distributors ” of printed matter (apart from newspapers, and publications of religious, social, professional, or business character) obligations to mark such printed matter with the name and address of the “ distributor ”, Since “ printed matter ” means “ any book, “ paper, pamphlet, magazine, “ periodical, letterpress, print, “ picture, photograph, lithograph, or “ other reproduction ”, the views of the distributing trade on the practicability of giving effect to this obligation should be heard. There is a provision authorising the Minister of Justice to grant exemption of these obligations; the trade should know how far it is intended to exercise this exempting authority, and should be in a position to make representations about what may prove to be a very loose or very tight provision In the same bill is a new, sweeping, consideration that a Magistrate must bear in mind when determining whether a document is indecent within the meaning of the act. This provision enables a document to be held indecent if it tends to deprave persons of any class or age group, notwithstanding that persons of other classes or age groups may not be similarly affected. This provision could be stretched to include just about any reading matter; passages in many modern novels, and in many classics, could be held as tending to “ deprave ” persons of a particular “ class or age group ” while being harmless to most normal persons. Is the bookselling trade in New Zealand to be put in fear of importing books that are read everywhere else because of this extended definition of an indecent publication? If so, an excessive care for what juveniles may read could well promote a most undesirable form of censorship. The danger is greater because the definition of indecent matter in the Indecent Publications Act, 1910 (in vzhich indecent matter refers to broadly sexual matters), is extended to include documents “unduly emphasising” matters of “ horror, crime, cruelty, or “ violence ", If the Indecent Publications Amendment Bill should be studied most carefully and leisurely by persons outside Parliament as well as inside, and all its implications examined before it passes into law, this is equally necessary in the case of the Child Welfare Amend- : ment Bill. The most important provision of this bill is that it extends the general provisions regarding a delinquent child in section 13 of the Child Welfare Act. 1925, to include a number of sexual offences. “ Carnally knowing ” or “ attempting to carnally know ” are fairly clearly defined offences. But what is to be made of “ commits any “indecent act upon or with any “ other child ”? It is not enough to say that the definition of an indecent act can safely be left to the Courts. By upbringing, experience, outlook, and tolerance, Magistrates vary; surely something more specific than an exceedingly loose provision ‘is

necessary for the protection of children, especially as children may be committed to institutions under the section.* If the Government felt that it should go as far as it has with the investigating committee’s

recommendations that the definition of delinquent children be extended, it should certainly have noticed that the committee advised a change in the procedure in Children’s Courts. The committee did not recommend any alteration in the provision of the Child Welfare Act, 1925, prohibiting the publication of the name of any child, or of any name or particulars likely to lead to identification. However, the investigating committee said, the Children’s Court “ should not be a completely “ secret chamber, the decisions of “ which have to be gathered by “ rumour or by the seeking of “ interviews away from the Court subject to the protection of the identity of children before the Children's Court, the committee held it was “ desirable that reporters “ should be allowed to attend ”. The Government has not been diffident about giving the widest publicity to the presence of sexual depravity among children; it should be logical and provide that publicity should be given to action taken by the Courts to deal with such offences. That is one protective provision that the Government should at this stage write into what is regrettably vague, loose legislation.