RESCUE OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7786, 4 November 1886, Page 3

RESCUE OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

TO THE EDITOB. Sib, —Those whose duties require their frequent attendance at the City Police Court cannot but feel from time to time that the state of our criminal law, and in many cases the manner of its administration by lay magistrates, must and does result in the fostering of crime and the rearing of a criminal olase in the community. Little or no consideration appears to be given by our legislators to the desirability of checking and stamping out incipient tendencies to crime especially among children, and the inadequacy of the provision existing for disposing of juvenile offenders is a publio soandal and disgrace. It is a matter of common occurrence to see little boys and girls of from ten to fourteen years of age sent to Mount Eden Gaol for terms of from seven days to three months for petty offences, and it is invariably found that the prison discipline has absolutely no reformat tory influence upon them. On the contrary, after the hrst incarceration, prison life appears to lose half of its terrors, and the young offender who has served a term of imprisonment can be easily distinguished in the dock by his nonchalant demeanour from his confrere, who as yet has had no experience of life within the prison walls. The question then arises in what manner are juvenile offenders, not yet criminals, to be treated t Under existing circumstances our magistrates can only deal with them in one of three ways. They must either discharge them, send them to gaol, or, if under a certain age, commit tuenx to the Training School at Kohimarama. The latter institution is of inestimable service, and has done, and is doing, much in the way of reformatory work. But it is not a reformatory, and requires reorganisation and expansion before it can be made to subserve the purposes of an establishment for the effeotual treatment of juvenile criminals. But even the facilities whioh Kohimarama affords for the reformation of boy offenders do not exist for the treatment of girls, and it is often a heart-rending sight to see little female waifs sentenced to long terms of imprisonment in the common gaol, and led from the Court in tears, who if they had been boys would probably be sent to Kohimarama, and thus be saved from tho contamination inseparable from contact with hardened criminals. Only yesterday three little girls were sent to gaol for periods of from one to three months with hard labour, for having been found in a wretched condition amidst squalid surrounding in a barn near Mount Koskill Road. The charge was that they bad no lawful means of support, and it was proved that they had no home, and were the constant prey of hoodlums. Surely here was a case where the hand of a philanthropic woman might have effected a timely rescue, and for which imprisonment was no suitable specific. There is an urgent necessity for some institution in which destitute girls, who have just entered on a oareer of vice, might be subjected to wholesome reformatory discipline without being branded as criminals. It is unwiee, even on the narrow ground of expediency, to distinguish between immorality in rags and immorality in silks, in the one oaee sending the erring ones to goal as oriminals and in the other letting them severely alone. I believe there are many in the community who would gladly assist were a movement set on foot to provide a home for girls of the class alluded to, end it would be the imperative duSy of the Government to aid largely in such a beneficent work.—l am, &c, Victoria Arcade. W. J. Napier. _______________