FEWER OFFENCES

Hokitika Guardian, 26 June 1933, Page 8

FEWER OFFENCES

DELINQUENCY tN YOUNG PEOPLE DECLINE IN NEW SOUTH WALES SYDNEY, June 17. An astounding decline in delinquency among boys and girls of New. South Wales is regarded by. the officers of the Child Welfare Department as one or the paradoxes of the times. It was expected that there would be an increase in offences by minors in these days, when probably more than 60,000 of them are unable to obtain employment. It was anticipated that with nothing to occupy their minds and to guide their energies into proper and directed

channels mere and more would fall into mischief. Yet the figures show that since 1929 there has been a drop in the number of coinmitals to State institutions of more than 30 per cent. Searching for an explanation of this, welfare officials have come to the conclusion that it is due largely to fathers who, because of unemployment themselves, have been spending more time with their children, and hav6 been exercising greater disciplinary control oyer them. From experience, welfare people have found that the danger hours in the day of a young boy or girl having nothing set to do—the hours when they are most liable to get in to mischief—are between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. During these hours, now that many fathers are home, a parental and guarled eye is kept on the children, a task which the mother, busy with her household worries, was not able to carry out to the same extent.

Delinquency among juveniles costs the State 0 f New South Wales about £60,000 a year. There are four institutions, but the welfare officers claim that the money is well spent, and that no expenditure gives a greater return. They say that a great majority of .the boys and girls leave the institutions worthy citizens, trained to take some useful part in society. > A community spirit is taright the inmates of the homes and they develop a love for sport as well as for higher things in life. Many of the boys become professional wool-classers and shearers, and scores of them are today successful farmers. The theory that delinquents come from the sub-normal type has been largely disproved. Most of them are apt scholars.