POLICE MATRONS

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 71, 22 September 1919, Page 8

POLICE MATRONS

DEFINITION OF DUTIES.

One section of the police regulations refers to the duties of police matrons, including the following :— To visit public gardens, reserves, and playgrounds in daytime for the purpose of detecting offences committed upon young girls and children. To visit picture theatres and other public places of amusement, and, having regard to the interests of the young girls, to report upon the circumstances and conditions under which entertainments in these places are carried on. To visit railway stations to afford assistance to inexperienced women arriving and departing by train; to meet,' on advice received from their parents, girls and young women that have absconded; to detect- culprits concerned in thefts from the ladies' waitingrooms ; and to watch ■ for suspected female persons arriving and departing by train. . : To assist in obtaining from young women and girls statements respecting - sexual assaults 'or acts of ; indecency committed upon or againt them, and to render assistance generally in the collection of evidence in these cases. To detect persons practising fortunetelling, palmistry, and similar offences. To patrol approaches to public schools when complaint is received that children have been molested by men. To attend the Juveniles' Court when female children are charged with offences, or when any children are to be dealt with. under the Industrial Schools Act. To call on females who have fallen into arrear with payments under orders for support of children in indtistrial schools. ' To attend with or without a constable to the examination of children who axe alleged to be neglected or ill-treated by parents or guardians. To watch shops, rooms, or other places where it is suspected that young girls are inveigled and their morals corrupted, and to watch newspapers for advertisements suspected of being used to allure or decoy young girls.