Does this prove that the courts are coddling crime and that what is needed is more police?

If by "police" is meant a reign of terror, no. Repression along has proved itself inadequate. It merely makes criminals more careful.

On the assumption that the police stand for terror, it is often advocated that they have nothing to do with the juvenile court; and this is probably a wise yielding to the present state of public opinion when it comes to the uniformed police officer.

But if in the police function we include the protective and preventive; and, if among the police personnel can be included trained social workers of either sex, detailed to such work, the police will be carrying out the spirit of the juvenile court but will be going through and beyond it, back to the normal non-court agencies of the community. The more of that sort of police, the better.

The juvenile court has failed to stop crime because the community has overrated its possibilities, and has failed to recognize its limitations; and because the court has usually failed to secure from the community the necessary reforms which would really prevent delinquency. The juvenile court and the police, like other corrective and remedial agencies, have a constant obligation to interpret their grist of cases in terms of social causes, and to point out to the public these causes and the appropriate preventive measures. Juvenile courts and policewomen should, for example, point out the need of playgrounds, supervised amusements, clinics and visiting teachers.

Protective Officers

This is not to say that juvenile courts are unnecessary or are in any danger of being in danger of being eliminated by the preventive services mentioned. The juvenile court was a step in the right direction, and must be thanked for pointing the way to the proper handling of behavior problems.

The courts should have ample jurisdiction, but should not use it except where persuasion fails. Nor should probation officers clutter their work and confuse the public's attitude toward court functions by accepting and treating "unofficial" cases. Those cases which can be handled out of court should never come to court at all; or, if they do, they should be referred straight back to the appropriate educational and protective officers.

Among these protective officers policewomen are outstanding.

Policewomen can and should achieve a deserved reputation as advisers in behavior problems. Visiting teachers can care for those in school, but, under present conditions, working children and minors need equivalent protection. Policemen, trained as juvenile police, should share this task for the boys.

Pre-delinquents should be brought first, not to station-house or court, but to adjustment bureaus in the schools, or (if a non-school child) to the protective officer, for social case work. The court is available in case persuasion fails to reconcile and adjust the situation. Policewomen have an opportunity to correlate closely educational treatment of behavior problems. They can seldom do the sort of things which visiting teachers and psychiatric social workers are doing. But by understanding those techniques, they can fit in with the work of clinics and schools and carry over their attitudes into protective work. So doing they will, as social workers, win the confidence of these other preventive and adjusting agencies, which can occasionally use the policewomen as a valuable cooperating asset, or can refer to them stubborn cases for emergency service.

Sympathetic educative treatment of juvenile delinquents is comparatively recent. In our own colonial times, children were unmercifully abused, and were persecuted for such misdemeanors as the desire to play.

Two years after sentencing fifteen-year old Jesse Pomeroy to solitary confinement for life the Bay State enacted the first probation law. Gradual improvement in reform schools followed, but as late as 1919 the Federal Children's Bureau reported that in ever state in the Union children could still be found in jails. The next milestone of progress was separate courts for children in Australia, in Canada, and, later, in the United States. Like the juvenile court, the policewoman does not seek to punish the guilty but to help the neglected, the tempted and the fallen.

Sentimentalists may say of a vicious child, "Oh, he's never had a chance; he's not responsible -- turn him loose." On the contrary, the more irresponsible the offender, the greater the need of reeducation; the more thorough, therefore, the treatment which the scientist prescribes, so that both he and society may be protected.

Real Prevention

Educators throughout America are now striving mightily to help the unadjusted child. The juvenile court built the bridge out from the criminology side as far as it could toward noncompulsory educational treatment. The schools have been building out from the educational side, assuming increasing responsibility for behavior problems. It only remains to close the little gap between the courts and the schools. The keystone will be set in the arch. The path of childhood will be guarded and guided at every turn by education rather than by punishment.

The policewoman has, further, a unique opportunity to secure the abatement of conditions conducive to delinquency. Someday our laws may give to juvenile courts the right to enjoin and close such places on the ground of imminent, irreparable damage to children's character -- a protection now granted chiefly to property. Policewomen, among others in touch with the causes of delinquency, could then apply for summary proceedings against the persons or places contributing to delinquency without demonstrating actual ruin of character; they could close the stable door before the horse is stolen.