JUVENILE OFFENDERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1327, 28 August 1886, Page 2

JUVENILE OFFENDERS

Invercargill, August 28

At the Supreme Court this morning, before Mr Justice Johnston, four boys of ages ranging from thirteen to sixteen years who pleaded guilty te breaking and entering the Leviathan Gift Depot and stealing goods therefrom, were brought up for sentence. The Judge said be had commonlcated with the Wellington authorities to ascertain the provisions of the Act passed last seas • i regarding first offenders. He found he had power to release persons convicted for a first time if he thought fit, but he did not consider that a proper course in this case as it was a very serious thing to find boys of respectable parents committing | such brazen [faced impudent offences If boys of the age of the accused were to go unpunished the danger was great. With regard to the period of the be a ences he had very great difficulty, because the prisons of the colony were not yet in anything like the condition they ought to be, in respect of classification, without which Judges passing sentence hardly knew what they were doing Notwithttlading all the efforts made, no system of classification approaching perfection bad yet been introduced. The reason was that it coft money and the people who had the power of dealing with the matter—the Legislature—did not consider I'. necessary to find funds for complete classification of prisoners, therefore Judges had very serious difficulty in the adminatration of justice. He learnt it was possible for the Invercargill gaoler to be able to keep the boys apart and only under those circumstances he oared to pass sentence. Had adults committed the offence they would deserve a considerable period of penal servitude. Moreoomb and Pomeroy, previously convicted, would be sentenced to six months hard labor. Rogers and Asprey, first offenders, three months hard labor. These sentences were as light as he dared pass.