JUVENILE CRIME IN BERLIN

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5279, 16 December 1946, Page 3

JUVENILE CRIME IN BERLIN

I " FOOD SHORTAGfE! CAUSES SHARP RISE IN EIGURES. RERjLIN. With the four occupying powers leading energetic support, Berlin police aitd welfare organisations are waging a vigorous compaign against juvenile delinquency as the youth'ful crime rate soars to new post-war heights." Police -headquarters announced that arrests of juveniles set a record in September when 364 persons under 18 were apprehended, most of thein for theft. Of these, 2&3 were under 14. Battered Berlin — with its housing and food shortages, its thriving black market and its heterogeneous population, including four occupation armies — is one of the world's worst places to bring up children — German children, that is. Because of war and divorce, tlxere are thousands of homes where there is no father to contribute to parental discipline. Uhurches and the civilian German Government, backed by the four military governments, are energetically combatting the problem from several angles; and they are working together to cheok the rising^ divorce rate, already in excess of the marriage rate. The American Military Government and the U.S. Army are taking a leading part in rehabilitation of German jmuth with their programme of reereation and re-education. •Colonel Frantk L. Howlejq of Philadelphia, Director of the American Office of Military Government for Berlin, personally intervened in the juvenile detention problem in the U.S. sector. of the city. Gaoled With Criminals. After a visit to gaols where he found yonng first olfenders confined with hardened criminals and others held for weeks and months vvithout trial, Howley institutecl immediate reforms which segregated the first ofFenders and granted them speedy hearings. The tragedy of homes without men, families without fathers, was lamented recently by Der Morgen, newspaper of the Liberal Democratic Parfcy. During one month in the borough of Neukoelln alone, the paper reported, there were cases in which the j authorities tooli children from their mothers and placed them in children's homes because the mothers wei'e not properly taking care of them oix, indeed, were directing them into delinquency. "This is one of the deepest trage- | dies of war's aftermath," 'said the paper, "that eertain mothers go to any ends to try to satisfy an in.-ait-able hunger for pleasure. Instead of seeking pleasure in the thankful oyes of their children, they trade their children's food ration eards for cigarettes and with these seek favour in tlance halls and the companionship of men elsewhere. Then they give their children a piece of di'v bread for their day's ration."