Evening star., 1932-03-06

nile crime doubled in the war period,
and has been rising ever since. The
number of under-sixteenS found guilty
of indictable offenSeS shows the biggest
increase of any of the age groups. 1t is
46 per cent above the prewar figure.
The 16-to-21 age group comes next, with
an 18 per cent increase.
The young criminals of 81 to 80 are
responsible for the bulk of the crimes
of adventurousneSs and IawlessneSs (the
older crooks don't like the risks). They
were aged, in 1915, from to 13. With
out doubt they are the residuum of the
thousands of juvenile offenders who in
the war period ran wild and carried
juvenile crime to its peak
Police and prison authorities are not
worried so much about the mature,
brutalized and dangerous criminal, the
bulk of whom they have herded in the
prisons (the creme de la creme Is at
Dartmoor) as about this rising tide of
crime among the young. Reforming the
young criminal is, indeed, the major
problem now occupying their energies.
measure backed by seven cabinet
ministers is now before Parliament 1t
will probably pass into law and exercise
a far-reaching effect upon crime in Eng
land in the future. Among other things,
it prohibits juvenile courts being held in
police courts or stations, provides for a
panel of justices especially selected for
their qualifications for dealing with juve-
nile cases, aboliSheS the power of courts
to punish children by whipping, gives 8
parent or guardian the right to elect
that child shall get jury trial, raises
the death sentence age from 16 to 18,
switches children under 10 from indus
trial schools to foster parents and allows
a court to commit to a "fit person" in
stead of to home a child or young per-
son requiring care or protection.
THE juvenile prisons are the only ones
that are overcrowded. There were
three Borstal institutions up to 1890, but
the pressure on them caused the authori-
ties to acquire an estate of $40 acres in
the Midlands and build a new institu-
tion there. They put the boys on the
job of building their own prison. The
boys seemed to like it. The Borstal gov
ernors picked a number from each of
the three institutions and marched them
under the charge of their officers to the
site of the new institution. 1t was
march of 10 days. There were no hand
cuffs and no locked doors. Discipline
was reported good, and the whole ex-
pertinent was pronounced great success.
In the prisons for more hardened GRIM
inals, statistics and reports indicate that
the inmates are better behaved than they
were. But a qualification is necessary.
Prisoners are no longer herded together,
the wolves with the goats and the sane
with the mentally defective. Classifica-
ton is the order of the day now. 1t
makes a difference.
Formerly weak-minded prisoners were
treated as ordinary criminals. They col
lected gratuity when they came out,
spent it in few days Of riotous living,
and reverted again to crime, and to
prison. Modern methods have ended this
state of affairs. The medical officers look
at every convicted individual with an eye
to spotting insanity or mental deficiency,
and no subman, in the mental sense, gets
through that net. On release, If he has
no responsible friends he is sent to an
institution.
Various experiments have been tried
in recent years with the object of pro-
noting a better spirit among convicts,
certain prisons being picked out for tests.
The system, for instance, of paying pris-
oners has always made difficulties. Con-
victs used to be paid gratuities for marks
Then it was thought that the system for
earning remission of sentence provided
enough inducement for industry and