INFLOW OF YOUNG OFFENDERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 17 October 1942, Page 4

INFLOW OF YOUNG OFFENDERS

INITIAL LAPSE INTO CRIME fFiom Our Own Parliamentary Reporter l Wellington, Oct. 16. The importance of averting the initial lapse into crime is stressed by the chief probation officer in his report which was presented in the House of Representatives yesterday as part of the Prisons report. "Reclamative policies in penal methods —be it by an ellicient probation system or by wise prison treatment —are at best.” be says, "an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff." Last year 879 persons were admitted to probation. The majority, states the report, were in the post-adolescent age group, 458 being under.2s and 38 per cent, of the total being under 20. There was no material increase in the aggregate number of offenders dealt with, if those committed for breaches of the National Service Act were excluded. Thus the fact emerged that while it might be satisfactory to observe a steady diminution in the number of older offenders who relapsed into crime it was less satisfactory to observe that the criminal ranks were so readily filled by a steady inflow of young offenders, and largely first offenders. “Is it that our methods of penal treatment arc not adequately deterrent to prevent such a lapse.” the report continues. “or is it that our social code and our ethical standards are at fault? The initial lapse is not the fault of the J penal methods, but is rather an indictment of our social institutions whose | function it is to instil the fundamentals ■j of moral conduct—the home, the school, j and the church. It has to be admitted : that the war has undoubtedly brought I in its wake a crop of social problems. ! The quickened tempo of life, the ; I anxieties, and the loosening of conven- || tional restrictions, these all tend to- ! wards a drifting from socially accept- ‘ j able standards —sacrilege and sacrifice 1 l are the strange bedfellow of war.” i;