Wave Of Juvenile Vice In Australian Cities

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27726, 2 August 1955, Page 6

Wave Of Juvenile Vice In Australian Cities

(From « Reuter Correepondent)

MELBOURNE, immorality among Australian adoy lescents. is increasing, according to* police and press reports. In Sydney, the New South Wales Police Commissioner, Mr Delaney, * tabled in the State Parliament a report which described the increase in juvenile crime as “alarming.” In Melbourne, the press reported a wave of assaults by youths on girls.

But the most startling stories have come from Australia’s most staid'ci|y. Adelaide, a city of quiet, tree-lined streets and tall-spired churches. In one week, a magistrate dealt with three cases of juvenile misconduct by 16-year-old girls. One girl was charged with being a neglected child.. Police gave evidence that she kept company with convicted persons, reputed thieves and young men who boasted of the ‘jobs” they had done. A second had been arrested when she was found in a car with a man early one morning. The third belonged to a cult called “The Saints?’ Police .said that the cult indulged in drinking and sex orgies nearly every night

In each case the magistrate criticised the parents of the girls for not exercising proper control over them. He said that the cult case was in the same category as the “loathsome picture” of delinquency revealed in New Zea-

land last year, and warned parents who let their children join these cults that they would find themselves in trouble.

“The Saints” is only one of a dozen similar gangs of young boys and girls who, the police say, are “sophisticated beyond their years” and wear distinctive clothes. In appearance, they are no different from a similar type of youngster who hangs round street corners and milk bars in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Every Australian city has its “bodgies”—young men recognisable by the cut of their hair as well as their clothes, whose activities range from the vandalistic to the vicious—and their “widgie” girl-friends. But the “bodgies” and “widgies” of Adelaide have become a far greater problem than in any other city. Commenting upon their existence nine months ago, the Police Commissioner, Mr Ivor Green, said: “These cults can dismiss any thoughts that they will be able to continue their behaviour. We have got control over them in quick time.” In the last few weeks, however, the newspapers have been filled with reports from juvenile courts of youthful delinquency among gangs of “bodgies” and “widgies.” Janet, a pretty young girl, whose

membership of “The Saints’* ended In court, was a typical Adelaide “widgie.” She was dressed in the “widgie” uniform—tight, black skirt, black sweater and flat-heeled shoes—and wore her hair cropped short like a boy’s. When asked how she had come to join the “bodgie-widgie” gang, she said: “Because I like being, with the other members. There is more fun in a crowd. Ordinary youth clubs are no good. They would not approve of us and they would not let us live.” According: to the police, “The Saints” was not the harmless band of innocent youngsters that Janet made it out to be. They alleged that 16-year-old Janet had admitted going to sex and drinking parties until the early hours of the morning and that she had been having relations with men for two years. Cane "Sure Core”

The police now admit that the problem is getting out of hand? The editor of the. Police Journal, Mr L. B. Fenwick, said recently that the cure for the “bodgie-widgie” problem was a cane in the hands of police officers; He criticised /the publicity given to the youth gangs. “I would suggest a sure cure. Go back to the old days and instead of running these youngsters before the courts and making heroes but of them, give the police officer the cane back and let him use it on the spot. A little physical discomfort and the youth on the receiving end does hot become a hero, but rather a joke.” A former police commissioner, Mr W. F. Johns, believes that youth clubs are the solution to juvenile delinquency. He is president of the Boys’, Girls’ and Mixed Clubs’ Association in South Australia, and said that after 44 years he had few illusions about people and their behaviour. But he had never heard a complaint about any of his 5000 club members, who were between the ages of 14 and 21. Mr Johns believes that mixed clubs are more essential than separate boys’ and girls’ clubs. “When a lot of young people get together fbr wholesome outdoor or indoor sport they have no time for morbid speculation about their bodies,” he said. “Boys and girls learn to act naturally in each other’s company.” He blamed government and public apathy for much of the present immorality of Australian youth. When this apathy ceased and people realised the true solution to the problem, juvenile delinquency, including the present cult, would quickly diminish as young people found expression for their energy in well-organised youth clubs, ke said.