“Adventure School” To Help Check Juvenile Criminals

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28016, 10 July 1956, Page 15

“Adventure School” To Help Check Juvenile Criminals

AUSTRALIAN LETTER

Australian Correspondent]

'Rec. 8 p.m.) SYDNEY. July 9 A tough “adventure school" will be established in Sydney soon to help check juvenile delinquency among boys. The school will try to teach boys a better way of life. It is hoped that the school will prove one way of reducing juvenile crime, which the New South Wales Police Department has reported at a record level this year. High-ranking members of the services and leaders in civil life are arranging the establishment of the school in Sydney. It will be based on schools in Britain run by the “Outward Bound” movement under the patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh. These schools are attended by 5000 boys for 26 days a year. In Britain, the boys are taken on cliff-climbing expeditions, or for fourday voyages in sailing ships on the Atlantic. Sydney’s trial “adventure” school will be “very tough,” said the New South Wales director of physical education (Mr G. Young). Boys will be taught unarmed combat, cliff climbing, canoeing and other sports. With juvenile crime, the offensive behaviour of bodgies prominently before the public lately, there has been a call by public-spirited men to help steer youths along correct paths. The “Sydney Morning Herald” urged the interested public to give support to the agencies which are doing positive work to help the young people—the church organisations, social welfare agencies, and police boys* clubs It said that Australia is not the only country in trouble with juvenile crime. “There are blackboard jungles in New York, murderous young teddy boys in London, and—no so far away—plenty of bizarre young criminals in New Zealand.” In Brisbane, Professor W. Osborne, who was Melbourne University’s professor of psychology for 35 years, said this week that bodgies and widgies were symbolic of an “upsurge of animal savagery.” This upsurge, he said, should be met with the cat-of-nine-tails.

“Wild hysteria, the adulation of film stars, and scenes at the arrival of some visiting entertainer, like Johnny Ray. are all manifestations of an upsurge of the human savage,” said Professor Osborne “So are shouting spectators, mass attacks on umpires, and attacks on policemen.” Asked what should be done for bodgies and widgies, Professor Osborne said: “Good education is one thing. Punishment like the lash is the only thing these types understand.” In Adelaide, a 16-year-old widgie told a Magistrate that she wanted to be whipped. Her request for punishment came after she had pleaded guilty to being an uncontrolled child. The girl’s counsel urged the Magistrate to meet her request by ordering 15 strokes of the birch. Her father consented to administer the thrashing. But the Magistrate refused to punish the girl in this way. He placed her under the strict supervision of her parents. The Magistrate said he would consider whipping only when-boys were involved. The prosecutor told the Court that the girl came from a fine home and her parents were stunned at her conduct. The girl admitted abnormal sex offences while a member of a gang. ¥ * * The police have smashed a juvenile gang in Sydney that played “chicken" in stolen ’cars. “Chicken” is an American “game” of nerve in which contestants race head-on toward each other at crazy speeds. The first driver to lose courage and swerve away to dodge his oncoming opponent is “chicken.” Detectives arrested several youths who had played the dangerous “game” on the main highway from Melbourne to Sydney. They had three stolen cars. Once, while the gang’s cars were speeding toward each other at 70 miles an hour, a passing motorist unconsciously broke into the “game.” There was a collision and the motorist was seriously injured. ¥ ¥ ¥ A British car plant in Sydney this week dismissed 350 men, bringing the total recent dismissals in the Australian motor industry to more than 3500. Motor traders describe the men as “the latest victims of the Federal Government’s restrictive trade and money policies.” They fear the new import cuts will cause more unemployment. The secretary of the Motor Vehicle Builders’ Association (Mr M. P. McCamey), said 225,000 Australian workers depended on the motor industry. Every cut in production meant that tyre manufacturers, battery makers, and allied traders, car sellers, garages and all other sections of the industry had to put men off.

The employment position in Western Australia is causing concern. The Premier (Mr R. G. Hawke) has told the Federal Government that Western Australia would have to reconsider its support for the present migration scheme if the serious unemployment situation in the State grew worse. ¥ ¥ ¥ Sir Frank Richardson, president of the Australian Council of Retailers, believes Australia is the only country in the world going backwards. He biames Australian control checks and credit squeezes for retarding expansion. Sir Frank Richardson, who has just returned from a world tour, said that if the policy was not changed, Australia would have the biggest man-made depression in history. Abroad he was asked: “What is the matter with you in Australia? Don’t you like prosperity?” V’ ¥ ¥ Uniform legislation throughout Australia for blood tests of drunken drivers is likely. Representatives of Government departments, the British Medical Association, police, motorists organisations and road safety councils have been conferring on this question. Their recommendations will go to the top transport body, the Australian Transport Advisory Council, which, in turn, will pass them on to the State authorities. ¥ ¥ ¥ As part of the Commonwealth Government’s £1,000.000 fisheries development programme, a top-ranking official is to go abroad to study fishing in

! Britain. America, and South Africa. The Commonwealth Fisheries Director. Mr T. Anderson, will make investigations after representing Australia at the International Whaling Commission meeting in London next month. ¥ ¥ * Automatic.n will be introduced into New South Wales Motor Transport Department soon. A series of machines are to be installed as part of a programme to mechanise the entire records section. Only 35 people will be required to operate the machines, which will replace more than 100 people at present in the section. The huge machines, imported from overseas, will prepare licence renewal notices and get them ready for distribution, deal with registration labels, recording and filing and hundreds of other jobs. ¥ ¥ ¥ The Russian and Japanese Olympic teams will be among the wealthiest visitors to the Olympic Games in Meibom ne in November. Their roubles and yen will be exceeded only by United States dollars and British pounds. The Australia and New Zealand Bank—appointed by the Olympic Organising Committee—is ready to handle 100 currencies at the Olympic village at Heidelberg. Hundreds of currency computers have been printed for distribution among the 6000 Games competitors. The sliding card scale will help visitors work out the rough rate of exchange. Part of the bank’s equipment will be a cash-sorting machine capable of sorting £ 12,000 worth of coins in eight hours. The same amount would take about two weeks to sort by hand. ¥ ¥ ¥ Professor G. K. Duncan, professor of history and political science at Adelaide University, told a radio audience this week that private schools encouraged snobbery among children. He said that children from all groups of the community should mix together in the schools. Because children at private schools came from families which could afford to pay high fees, they acquired a false scale of values and assumed themselves superior to others.