SOCIAL WELFARE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 139, 15 June 1939, Page 6

SOCIAL WELFARE

YOUNG OFFENDERS

COMMENT BY CHIEF

JUSTICE

BREAKING AND ENTERING

Comment on the alarming state of affairs, as affecting the social welfare of the community, was made in the Supreme Court today by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), when seven of eleven prisoners for sentence appeared on breaking and entering charges. With the exception of one prisoner, none was more than 27 years of age.

His Honour made his remarks before sentencing Jack Morgan, a rigger, aged 19 (two charges o| breaking and entering and theft) and Jack Reid, * labourer, aged 23 (one charge);

"There is one observation I wish to make with regard to the calendar,'" said his Honour, "and it is appropriate that I should do it now, because 1 see one of you, Morgan, is nineteen years and four months, and the other twentythree and a half.

"On the calendar today there are no fewer than seven cases in which the Court is called upon to sentence the offenders for the offence of breaking and entering. You two are the first to come before me. In another case which I shall have to deal with directly the offender is twenty-seven years of age; in yet another, where the young man has pleaded guilty to five different charges, he is twenty years and three months; in still another the offender is aged twenty years and ten months, and in another he is twenty-four years and nine months. In the last case the offender is aged forty, but in every case except one the offender is, one might say, just entering the threshold of manhood.

"It is an unpleasant and very alarming state of affairs, and it gives food for reflection as a matter affecting the social welfare of the community'

Morgan, who had not been previously convicted, was admitted to probation for two years, on the special condition that his place of residence and place and nature- of employment be subject to the approval of the probation officer. Reid was sentenced to nine months' hard labour.

Claude Cecil Watts, a labourer, aged 24, was sentenced to three years' reformative detention on one charge of breaking and entering and theft and two charges of breaking and entering with intent.

Charles Raoul Francis Gawm, a labourer, aged 20 (Mr. R. I. M. Sutherland), who appeared with Gordon Thomas Wilkie, a motor mechanic and butcher, each charged with breaking and entering with intent, was sentenced to three months' hard labour. Wilkie was sentenced to six months' hard labour.

Raymond Julian Jorgensen, a clerk, aged 20 (Mr. A. J. Mazengarb), who had pleaded guilty to five charges of breaking and entering and theft, was remanded until Monday. His Honour said that the prisoner's actions, which were deliberate ahd cunning, had been calculated to get some innocent em ployees of the same company into trouble.

Ronald McGowan Kennedy, a platelayer, aged 27, for breaking and entering a counting-house by night and theft, was sentenced to two years' reformative detention.