PENALTIES FOR DELINQUENTS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29382, 8 December 1960, Page 7

PENALTIES FOR DELINQUENTS

Magistrate’s View Of Social Service

(New Zealand Press Association) WHANGAREI, Dec. 7.

Magistrates at times made mistakes and were open to criticism, said Mr J. R. Herd, S.M.. at Kaitaia last night when a steering committee was set up to form a Social Services Council. He said he did not blame people for saying that if magistrates were tougher they would “clean up such things as the Hastings disturbance.”

Mr Herd said there had been both support and disapproval for his efforts to direct some young offenders into week-end social service.

“If I put a young man to work in a public park and people know he is there, it rather has the flavour of the stocks, and I would not want people to come and jeer,” said Mr Herd. “I want him to feel he is doing something constructive, so that when his mates are later tempted to destroy things he would say their action would be utterly stupid.” This viewpoint was questioned by Mr W. B. Beard, who said that delinquents were often cowards, and that a little jeering might do them good.

He asked whether the Social Services Council would have any authority. Mr Herd said he did not know whether it could have any statutory authority, but it would have the authority of the people who formed it.