JUVENILE CRIME

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 139, 8 March 1941, Page 11

JUVENILE CRIME

Great Increase Seen In London WAR CONDITIONS BLAMED

(Received March 7, .9 p.m.)

LONDON, March 6.

“The Times” gives prominence to a speech by Mr. Watson Boyce, probation officer for the Southwark Juvenile Court, in which he said that conditions arising from the war had greatly accentuated juvenile delinquency. He attributed the increase among younger London groups, aged 8 to 14 years, to the loss of sense of security—destruction and sudden death had become almost commonplace. Life was a matter for today, for tomorrow might not come. Fathers, uncles and brothers were away perhaps not to return; mothers were hard worked and depressed. His unofficial view was that if non-evacuation were the cause of the trouble, there should be evacuation.

Additional to other causes of delinquency among older children was a wild sex urge, the struggle for expression, particularly in the male. He had known adolescents in whom the urge was so irresistible that it drove them out in the wildest air raids, seeking a safety valve, resulting perhaps in supreme acts of bravery or depravity. Mr. Boyce said he knew a boy of 15 years who burgled a number of shops. He said that day after day he went to work in the dark and returned home in the dark. He felt he would burst or go mad. He defied his mother, went out in air raids from sheer want of excitement, burgled a tailor’s shop and felt happy. “I did not want the clothes,” he said. . • Such stories could be multiplied manyfold. There was a new problem as a result of wages of adolescents being from £3 to £6 a week. This gave boys too much to spend. Drunkenness was increasing. The wages of these young workers must come down. He urged that their' labour should be conscripted equally with adults, not only for their present good, but to save them from a crash after the war.