Backgrounds Of Delinquents

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30747, 11 May 1965, Page 13

Backgrounds Of Delinquents

O* Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 9.

Differences between Maori and European delinquent children were explored by Mr A. Ricketts, senior officer of the Owairaka Child Welfare Boys’ Home, when he spoke at the Maori students’ conference at Ardmore.

Juvenile delinquents came mainly from broken and unsatisfactory homes and had poor school records, he said.

During the 17 years Mr Ricketts has been associated with the home about 5000 boys have been inmates. Most of the 300 boys who come to the home annually have appeared before a Court at least twice.

To give the students an insight into the factors predominating among the boys sent to the home Mr Ricketts took a random sample of 60 case histories of European boys whose ages ranged from 11 to 17 years and 60 case histories of Maori boys in the same age group. All of the boys were at the home during 1963-64. Among the Europeans, 53

per cent came from broken homes and 31.6 per cent from homes where either one or both parents were known to the police. The school progress of 78 per cent was rated as poor.

The number of broken homes in the Maori delinquent group was 41 per cent and the number of cases where one or both parents were known to the police was 21 per cent. Among the Maori boys 88 per cent were doing badly at school.

Nearly all of the European boys were born in cities, while two-thirds of the Maori boys were born in the country and came from families with an average of seven children.

The average number of children in the European families surveyed was 4.3. The European boys had a higher 1.Q., an average of 95.5 compared to 87 for the Maori boys. In the European cases 15 per cent of the boys were illegitimate compared to 10 per cent in the Maori samples. Breaking and entering, theft and car conversion accounted for 93.3 per cent of the offences committed by the Maoris, but for only 79 per cent of the offences committed by the Europeans.

Sex offences in the European group totalled 10 per cent and in the Maori group, 3.3 per cent.