Evening star., 1936-05-19
NEGLECT CHARGED
IN AID FOR GIRLS
Conditions at Boys Training
School Cited in Plea
for Funds.

Delinquent girls at the National
Training School for Girls are being
neglected by District appropriations.
Boy malefactors at the National
Training School for Boys are given
every opportunity to become wage
earning, self-respecting young men.
Judge Fay L. Bentley of the Juve-
nile Court yesterday contrasted con-
ditions at the two institutions, due
to the difference in appropriations
The boys enjoy staff of vocational
training instructors, print shop IN
which they may learn to be printers
apprentices, an automobile repair and
refinishing shop, four-chair barber
shop, a tailor shop. shoe shop, a
brass band and farm producing tons
Of food annually. The boys may learn
to care for live stock or to typewrite
and take shorthand They have track
meets and foot ball games and weekly
assemblies featuring motion pictures
Have No Teachers.
The girls have no teachers, no shops
In which to learn how to support
themselves. They have no psychia-
trist to analyze their anti-Social be-
havior and guide them to sound wom-
anhood. They have no gymnasium,
no movies.
Judge Bentley expressed hope that
the 100000 appropriation passed by
the Senate and now before Senate and
House conferees, will end discrimina-
ton. Dr. Carrie Weaver Smith, new
superintendent of the girls school,
already has presented a plan of re-
organization to the Board of Public
Welfare, asking for her charges the
same benefits provided delinquent
boys.
When I commit a youth to the
National Training School for Boys I
feel that he has an excellent chance
for rehabilitation Judge Bentley said,
Whereas in the past few years have
sent girls to their institution only
when no other solution presented it
self Because their school, for want
Of teachers and equipment, is a prison,
not a training school"
Seeks Means 10 Help.
While not unmindful of the judicial
aspect of the cases brought before her,
confronted with administering the
District Juvenile Court under an anti
quated criminal law, Judge Bentley
says she recognizes the responsibility
of the social group for the behavior of
the individual and seeks to find out
not only what the offender has done
but why he did it, and what methods
other than locking him up will pre-
vent him from repeatedly offending
society.
That boys are better boys when
they leave the Bladensburg road
training school after the average 1a
or 40 months stay is shown by parole
statistics. Of 140 boys paroled dur
ing the last fiscal year, only 13 were
returned, five on their own volition
owing to the pressure of economic con-
ditions. During the same period the
aggregate earnings of 131 paroled
youths totaled S27,451.51.
OF the present population at the
Conduit road girls school, 20 girls
have run away and been returned, not
counting attempted runaways. AL
though DR.. Smith places every young
girl release on parole in Job, unless
she Is being returned to her family
or entered in a foster home, results
are usually unsatisfactory because the
girl is unskilled. She is not even
thoroughly prepared for domestic
work while detained at the school, DR..
Smith says.
Judge Bentley hopes Congress will
make it possible for every delinquent
girl to leave the training school equip
ped to be clerk, beauty operator, a
saleswoman, a waitress or a seam
stress. She hopes the new appropria-
ton will give the girls the same
chances to correct their missteps that
It does the boys.