POLICE MATRONS

Otago Witness, Issue 3419, 26 September 1919, Page 42

POLICE MATRONS

DEFINITION OP DUTIES. One section of the police regulations (New Zealand) 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 publio 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 i>laces are cariied on. ■ .

To visit railway stations to afford assistance to inexperienced woimen 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' waiting-rooms; and to wa-tch for suspected female persons arriving and departing by train.

To assist in obtaining from young women and girls statements respecting sexual assaults or act of indecency committed upon or. against tHem, and to render assistance generally in the collection of evidence in these cases. To detect persons practising fortune-telling, palmistry, and similar offences. To patrol approaches to public schools when complaint is received that children have been molested by men. To attend the Juvenile 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 port of children in industrial schools To attend with or without a constable to the examination of children who are alleged to be neglected or ill-treated by parents or guardians. To watch shops, rooms, or other placea 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. ,