A REPORT ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 229, 24 June 1944, Page 6

A REPORT ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

The special Committee appointed by the Wanganui Education Board to examine the incidence of child delinquency in the board’s, administrative area, investigate the causes, and make recommendations for dealing with the problem, has compiled a very valuable report. The facts collected were obtained in answers to a comprehensive questionnaire circulated among the teachers throughout the. district, and evidence given by various citizens to the Committee .in oral testimony. The result is a voluminous document, representing an earnest and painstaking attempt to get right down to the roots of a social problem that has become in recent years a matter of widespread concern. It well merits printing, and extensive circulation, for its content is both enlightening and constructive. Deprived of the publicity due to its social and moral importance in this respect, it may, regrettably, be doomed to ultimate oblivion in official pigeon-holes. Of immediate interest is the Committee’s finding on the incidence of child delinquency. The data in this connexion is classified in relation to juveniles respectively of the school and after-school periods, and shows that delinquency is more rife among those who have left school. On the whole the conclusion arrived at is that the indidence of child delinquency in proportion to the juvenile population in the Wanganui district is “relatively small, yet sufficient to constitute a definite problem.” As the method of fact-finding adopted was subject to the definition that child delinquency was to be taken as “such continued breaches of our civil, social, and moral codes as to make the perpetrator a real behaviour problem,” this finding must be regarded as a conservative estimate of the position. Even as it is, the investigation year, 1943, produced a total of 314 offences involving 281 delinquents. The analysis of cases revealed that no fewer than 71 were for theft, a disturbing proportion. Of the remaining 23 categories listed, “defiant, disobedient, insolent,” numbered 51; “obscene language,” 40; “continued truancy,” 22; “breaking and entering,” 21; “wilful damage (including vandalism),” 11. All these are indicative of lack of discipline. The remedial recommendations follow generally the lines of approach frequently stressed in these columns, with special emphasis on the importance of home influences and discipline, charactertraining, and religious teaching. Certain features of the cinema and radio, as making for undesirable “emotional disturbances,” are deprecated. Particularly to be noted, however, are two factors in the problem that were placed on record—the degeneration of character induced by high wages paid to lads of an irresponsible age, and the growing disrespect for law and order fostered by the breakdown in so many instances of law enforcement. Here is the testimony of one witness on the subject of high wages: * I had a lad in to see me yesterday (he said). He is sixteen years, and is receiving £5/17/- a week. That boy spends every farthing he gets. He pays 7/6 per week board to. his grandmother, and occasionally he gives her 10/- as a special treat,, and he spends the rest, every farthing, regularly on rubbish —Tatt's tickets, billiard saloons, etc. The foregoing is but one of several statements to similar effect. On the other side of the picture is the failure of the adult community in many important aspects of civic life to set a wholesome example to its younger generation. The Committee’s comment on this is worthy of special emphasis: If (says the Committee) community standards of right and wrong are not consistently adhered 'to, if local by-laws or laws placed on the Statute Book are not consistently enforced, what right has the adult community to expect any better standards of conduct on the part of its youth? . . . The failure of some workers in different occupations to give of their best throughout their working hours has a most detrimental effect on young workers associated with them. The necessity for the observance of by-laws—such as those relating to traffic—is instilled into most children at school. What is the effect on these children when they daily see many adults breaking these regulations with impunity? . . . If any law is worth passing by the people's representatives, either in local government or in Parliament, the Executive is gravely lacking in moral leadership if such a law is not consistently enforced. On the whole this valuable and timely report should be taken as an index of the current of thinking by responsible people on present-day social and moral questions.’ It should also be taken by Al misters as a direction that the problems raised by it are of such vital importance to the public welfare that they cannot properly be excluded from the agefida for the general conference on education now being arranged by the Government.

It appears a matter for public satisfaction that as a result of careful husbanding of resources and prudent budgeting the Wellington City Council is finding it possible to increase allocations to spending committees for the current year without interference with the general rate. This week the Mayor (Mr. W. Appleton) pointed out that committee allocations were improved by an average of something like 5 per cent, on the past year’s actual expenditure. This is all the more real an advance in view of the fact that actual expenditure last year was in excess of the allocations, the figures being £270,239 (allocated) and £271,613 (spent). This year’s 5 per cent, increase in allocations represents, therefore, a substantially wider margin for committee enterprise, and may enable some of the leeway of the war years in the sphere of important city works to be overtaken. There is additional reason for confidence in the Mayor’s statement that rehabilitation funds set aside to overtake maintenance arrears as men and materials become available, far from being encroached upon, have actually been increased by £4OOO. These funds now total £24,000—a useful nest-egg, in view of the strong possibility that local authorities will be required to play a large part in providing employment during the most pressing period of immediate post-war transition.