JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23705, 12 January 1939, Page 8

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

The difference between 48 and 111 in the number of juveniles coming before the Children's Court in this district in the final quarters of 1937 and 1938 respectively seems sufficiently large to require some explanation. It may not be that the increase is altogether one in juvenile delinquency, for the court deals also with indigency, detrimental environment, and neglect. But it is reasonable to assume that a definite increase in delinquency is pointed to, and it will be interesting to discover, when opportunity offers, what the records of the Children's Courts for the Dominion for the year ending with the present quarter may actually disclose in regard to the position. That 111 children should come before the court in the Dunedin district in the quarter just ended must appear rather striking when it is noted that the total number appearing before the court in this district for the year ended March 31, 1938, was 157, a figure comparing favourably with 527 for the Christchurch district, 467 for the Wellington district, 191 for the Hamilton district, and 374 for the Auckland district. The total number of children appearing before the courts in the Dominion for all causes for the year ended March last was 2982, as compared with 2584 for the previous year, and 2273 for 1935-36, and the rising tendency disclosed will not appear negligible. In 2447 cases out of last year's total of 2982 there were charges of offences covering a wide range, with theft very much at the head of the list, and breaking and entering, "conversion" and "mischief" also well to the fore. , In his last annual report the Controller-general of Prisons took occasion to observe: "Crime prevention commences in the home and its environment. There are marked indications of an urgent need for an earlier inculcation of the principles and obligations of citizenship It is evident that the majority of criminal conduct among young New Zealanders arises from a slackening up of moral standards, and a drift from a socially acceptable ethical code." If youthful delinquency is on the increase in New Zealand it must be important to know why, in order that more effective steps may be taken to combat the tendency. If standards of good conduct among children are not being maintained as they should be a problem of undeniable gravity is presented. It would be regrettable to think that education should be fighting a losing battle so far as it is concerned with the inculcation of the virtues of honesty, truthfulness, and a due regard for the rights of others. Apart from its home circumstances the child of to-day moves and develops in an environment which is far from being calculated to exert influences that are all for its good. Out of school hours it receives a good deal of sporadic education in precocity and sophistication. Educationists have not failed to comment upon this. They haVe referred to the nervous strain of modern life, to the influences of the "pictures" and the radio, the eternal round of amusement and disturbance, the multifarious attractions and distractions in which the child of to-day participates, and the decay of home life. If all that be where the corrective is chiefly needed, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is so, then the problem must appear the more difficult. It means that baneful early environmental influences are far from being re-

stricted to home circumstances. A " Fishing * j good deal is said, in a complacent | K the word "fishing" n&air be interm!.ji 0 u„„t +v,a fr oo Hnm nf ihp preted to mean not only ttne catching spirit, about the freedom of the JJ £ fish also J attempting child to-day. From another quartei . tQ catch fish( then there J. ere a num . will come a lament over the decline b er 0 f peo 'ple fishing at ijhe Dunedin of discipline. More light might be wharves yesterday afternoon. One thrown upon the whole subject if thing that impresses the obaerver about *u- „„ +v,„ +„i a n f fishing from the wharvesi is that it more were thrown upon the tale of, prov .| eg ample opportuni } y for con . delinquency unfolded in the Chil- j templation of the kind, tttat needs to dren's Courts. | be carried on with an absolute mini-