The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1902-07-25
CH|LD-L|YES BENEFITED,
A Practical Test of Probation in
Milwaukee, e,
THE JUVENILE COURT.
Considered 235 Cases in the First Year
of Its Existence-Some Repre-
sentative Cases,

The Juvenile court of Milwaukee coun-
ty has just passed it's first birthday and
mas left its impression on upward Of 2OU
| child-lives since last July. About 23J
cases have passed through the court III
it's first year; 80 children have been
committed to state and county institu-
tions and 10 others have gone, on recon-
mendation Of the judge or Oh probation,
to new surroundings. Apart from these
latter cases, many Of which were first
investigated by probation officers, about
sixty children have been befriended in
their own homes. This is not great
record, but it certainly has a meaning, fol
these sixty children would formerly have
gone, either directly or after a useless
term in Jail, back to the very conditions
which had led to their offenses. :
Some one has said: children under
arrest for the first time are more Pc
culiarly susceptible to influence than
even other children, and the impressions
made at this crisis go far to fix their
lives" Probation is an attempt to stop
vicious habits before it is too late. Re-
peated arrests so soon take these mere
children beyond the bar Of childhood, anG
then it is too late. For example, Joe
is only Is. A year and half ago he
cried himself to sleep in the midst Of a
group of boys in the county Jail, but he
has grown accustomed to many things
since then, and when he came up last
in the juvenile court he dared to discuss
his sentence with the judge.
A Probation Officers Work.
The work of probation officer, with
it's lights and shades. is full of human
71-vnOr-nl1
brought in for stealing. Fred had done
this thing before in depreciation days
and gone to Jail for it. Jail did not
help him bit; only made him a little
more wary perhaps. His straight-for-
ward confession that he had been in
court before was in his. favor: He was
sent home on probation. While his
tie lad, away from the desk and back
among the benches, sobbed bitterly from
sheer exhaustion and fright. Before he
went home, plan Of action was mapped
out for him so far as a hasty diagnosis
Of the case would permit. Boys who
steal want something. and if boy Of II
wants something curing the summer va
that is not all; he needs help to rise
above the thriftlessness of his home. 1t
is good for him to visit the Office occa-
sionally, to talk about the work or the
play he likes best, and perhaps to Dor
row book or a game. Fred was
very satisfactory probationer because ne
always reported as ordered. He was a
sensible little fellow and never had oc-
casion to. consider the officer as other
than a friend. Poor little chap! A
glimpse at his home showed that he had
not much there to inspire him. His pro-
baton ended long ago. When last heard
from he was the only regular worker
for large family.
On the other hand, there was little ia
at his house and Jacob manifested the
fact by transgressing the law. Perhaps
if someone befriended him things would
go better, so a probation officer was put
in charge of Jake, but he seems not to
have understood the situation at all and
never to have given the officer even a
chance to help him, so the little runaway
had to be brought back to court and SEN
fenced to the industrial school; and in
spite of the shabby way in which he
treated the officer who sought to be his
guardian, that good man knew the boy
was not to blame.
Then there was James. His father
pronounced him incorrigible. but the pro-
baton officer found that the father was
brutal. and any sensible boy would have
been incorrigible under such government.
Henry was bad boy--a very bad boy
at school. His mother was afraid of him
because he frequently struck her, or to
be strictly truthful, he frequently struck
his mother because she was afraid of
him. Such bad boy could not be ex-
pected to respond to friendly advances,
but one might try. so the officer tried.
did he like to draw?'
"Would he draw something now?"
eyes, he would draw a horse"
So he sat down at the table and began,
but the horse was perplexing and he had
forgotten how it went; he would draw
a house instead.
Henry and his new friend had made a
good beginning. The former was doing
a favor and there was nothing personal
about the house. It was engrossing and
he forgot that anyone had ever called
him bad.
Such queer house it turned out to be!
What poor muddled little brain! But
the boy liked to draw.
Henry was much too good a boy to
stay in a home where no one could make
found where the judge sent him on pro-
baton for while, with the hope that he
will learn in time to feel kindly pity
for the poor mother who so, utterly
spoiled him. ; ,
One day John came into court, the
most forlorn and hopeless looking of
mortals. He had stolen iron and Spent
the money for ice cream. He pulled
himself together and said: "I'll never be
In such trouble as this again. Probably
he meant it, but he might as we'll have
undertaken to guide all army as himself
Everything was wrong in his unhappy
life. He was slave to cigarettes, and
a nervous wreck. His loving but igno-
rant mother was helpless to make mat
ters right. Nothing but the most insist
ent supervision made even an impression.
The officer gasped when he learned that
this boy of Is could neither read nor
write one word. He is learning to do
both now. The day of his arrest opened
up new life. The. stealing was All in.
cident. The conditions leading up to it,
were deep-seated and momentous.
The Case Of Dishonest Jack.