CRIME AND RECREATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 5 (Supplement)

CRIME AND RECREATION.

Inadequate provision for wholesome re. creation is sot down as the cause of a jrreat part of the vice and crime of New iork in a report submitted to the Board of .Estimate by Dr. Frederick C. Howe (director of the People's Institute) upon the utilisation of the public school plants for educational and recreation purposes. Dr. Howe ascribes vice and crime and juvenile delinquency largely to a wrong use of . leisure time. " Studies of the records of juvenile offenders," says Dr. Howe, "show that a large percentage of arrests and commitments are for violations of city ordinances by children playing in the streets. The boy so arrested acquires a bad name. He is so marked by the police. If the offenceis repeated he becomes an 'old offender.' These offences are traceable to a lack of "■ opportunity for play, and the fact that the only accessible outlets involve a violation of the law." The same influences surround the girl, acording to Dr. Howe, who says that she- &I has even "fewer opportunities to ; play than V the boy. , >■ ' J "Hundreds of thousands of young girls," he says, "hare only, the choice of -\ crowded tenement or "the street or dance ''•'.. hall for their leisure hours. .Fatigued'by ;•; .-■;• overwork, they seek the exciting- amuse« '-■ raent which only the dance hall offers.'' t .;