1. GETTING INTO COURT
Let us follow a boy, accused of violation of the law, through all the possible vicissitudes of a court experience in Manhattan previous to September, 1910. The task may prove tedious but not nearly so meaningless or bewildering for the reader as for the thousands of families who had to go through it every year.
Once arrested, he was led to the nearest police station, followed by a throng of curious onlookers. At the station house children were occasionally discharged, but ordinarily their names were entered on the police docket and the parents were informed. If no one was found at home, a message was left with a near neighbor. Some one must vouch for the boy’s appearance in court the next day before he could be liberated. If the boy was arrested in the evening, he might be taken directly to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children for detention and the parent notified to appear there for the child before midnight or at court the following morning.
The law provides that in cases of delinquency which do not involve a felony the police sergeant may accept the word of the parent or guardian as sufficient surety for presence at trial, without bail. However, the decision is left to the discretion of the officer, and bail was sometimes required for trivial offenses.[37] There is opportunity here for the local political “boss” to foster the belief that he is able to help a friendless family, and later to send his henchman to enlist the vote at the next election. There was no evidence that the local “boss” had any influence in the children’s court; it is significant, however, that the people thought he had.
In one case the great political “boss” of the district personally accompanied the mother to the court. This was when Mrs. Hannon, apparently believing that it was the thing to do, had “got up her ‘noive’” and appealed to him at once, without waiting for her husband to tell her. Furthermore, Mrs. Hannon triumphantly pointed out, the boy who had been brought in simultaneously with her son, was fined $3.00 “because his father was not ‘in’ with the Senator” at that time. In two other cases it was the aged mother of the “boss” who seemed to have the deciding voice as to his actions! There were other parents, one a saloon keeper, who boasted that they could have secured aid if they had happened to need it. One old woman resident said she had “enough friends to get the boy off the gallus if nade be!” These stories illustrate the Celtic feudal relation which existed between the political sponsor of the district and its inhabitants.[38]
Bail was seldom demanded at the headquarters of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. When the boy was once inside this building, the general public could learn little of what went on except through the annual reports of the society, a formal visit, or reports from the families themselves. To many families the functions of the court and “the Gerry,” as the society is called after its founder, were indistinguishable amidst the irritating confusion of their court experience. If any distinction was made, there was a dread of “the Gerry man” (sometimes used as a “bogey”) which was not felt regarding the court.
By 10 o’clock of the first court day following the arrest, the boy was deposited by the society’s agents in the waiting room on the second floor of the court building, or brought by his parents to the court room. After a tedious wait his name was shouted through the corridor back of the court, and relayed to the waiting room. He was then taken into the noisy court room, where he stood one step below the witness stand while the officer or complainants were sworn in and corroborated the data on the judge’s or their own memoranda. The judge had only a brief record of the arrest and charge at this time, with an occasional verbal report from an officer of the society or a volunteer.[39] No investigation of the case, individual or social, was made before the trial. Our records contain cases which, had they been investigated, would have shown feeble-mindedness, adenoids, bad eyes, frail constitution, self-abuse, or terrible home conditions. On the other hand, there were cases where the character and family surroundings of the child should have shown a severe sentence to be unnecessary. Sometimes faulty records failed to show a previous arrest and the boy’s word was taken that he had never been in court before.
Following the accusation the boy was allowed to speak for himself, pleading guilty or not guilty. He stood on the top step, the center of a small group, about three feet from the judge. The distracting noise of the court room had at least one advantage; it prevented the audience from hearing what was said. After the boy had spoken, the mother or guardian might be admitted inside the rail to speak to the judge. In some cases, this privilege was refused. This constituted the distinct grievance of a group of parents who were not all of low type by any means. On the other hand, in two of our worst cases the judge, ignorant of conditions, proved susceptible to a shrewd appeal by the mother. It is hard to see, however, how the court could avoid such mistakes without an adequate investigating staff.
Occasionally the parents had engaged a lawyer, who was semi-officially recognized by the court and who collected what fees he could from the defendants. Sometimes the engagement was due to the initiative of the lawyer. In fully 80 per cent of the cases there was no lawyer formally pleading, and even when one was engaged he was in most cases unnecessary. The delay, and the cost to defendants, would have been much reduced if he had not been present. Since, however, every case registered as pleading “not guilty” was supposed to have had the opportunity of counsel, a lawyer’s name was formally entered in the record after every such case.
Before disposing of a case the judge might remand the boy to the care of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children while an investigation was made, if he were not sure of the proper treatment to be given. Only flagrantly bad conditions show up, however, under superficial investigation. A case was occasionally “remanded for investigation” in order to give the boy and the family a lesson; a remand of this sort being in reality a mild punishment. Since the reformatories have refused short commitments, this has frequently been the substitute.
Unless the boy was an old case, it was only after the court had acted and he had stepped down from the stand that the volunteer probation agencies took a hand. By this time the boy and his parents were pretty well bewildered, and in the excitement it was often impossible to make clear to them what was meant by the questions asked or the suggestions offered by these volunteers. The entire court experience meant for the more sensitive among both parents and children a nervous shock, or, at least, an extremely trying ordeal which was frequently out of all proportion to the triviality of the offense in question. Where the type of family which passed through the ordeal with indifference was concerned, it was correspondingly ineffective.
The kinds of disposition which the judge might make of any given case are as follows:
(1) Dismissal for insufficient evidence. Evidence applies, as in criminal courts, only to the specific act; and if it be lacking, the court is powerless to act as guardian of the child as it could do if it had equity powers. However, in especially flagrant cases a child dismissed under one charge may be returned for improper guardianship.
(2) Acquittal, if the boy pleads not guilty, and there is some evidence that he was not involved in the escapade. This is sometimes technical and takes no account of serious delinquency which may lie back of the affair.
(3) Suspended sentence, after conviction, with a warning of reprimand, but no supervision or visiting.
(4) A fine, usually one or two dollars, though it may be as low as 50 cents or as high as five dollars. This is used ordinarily as a lesson to the parents, since the burden of the fine falls upon them.
(5) “Committed for one day to the parental care of John Ward.” This is for the purpose of having an officer give the boy a “licking” upstairs in the court, when a parent refuses to do so. Occasionally sentence is suspended, or fine remitted, on condition that the parent do this, in case the boy or his parents have not learned to say, when the judge asks the question that he has already been licked. This method is said by some of the judges to be very effective in preventing recidivation. Its reforming effect is not quite so certain.
(6) Parole in the custody of the parents, to be visited by the agents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. A boy’s parole is often continued month by month. At its expiration the boy may be discharged from parole, committed to an institution, or given a suspended sentence. In the case of school children, especially truants, the principal acts as a parole officer and signs the parole card daily, vouching for the boy’s attendance and conduct. In case of serious offense during this period, parole may be revoked, and disposition made on both offenses, one sentence being held in reserve for its deterrent effect. If a child and his parents fail to appear on the prescribed date, a bench warrant is issued and the child is arrested and brought in. The same thing is sometimes done in improper guardianship cases, if the agent’s investigation has revealed conditions unimproved.
(7) Commitment to an institution, if possible to one of the same religious faith as the child. Neglected children are sent to charitable institutions; delinquents, usually older boys, after several offenses, violation of parole, or serious incorrigibility, to one of the reformatories. The House of Refuge is in many respects a prison for minors. Boys are committed to it who cannot be cared for by the New York Juvenile Asylum, Catholic Protectory, or Hawthorne School. Truants, if committed from this court, are sent to one of the truant schools.
This résumé of dispositions forms a basis for a natural division of our case material. We have studied the effects of the court experience upon different groups of children according to the sentence received. To a large extent the home visiting was apportioned among our investigators along the same lines. The disposition indicates the judgment of the court as to the seriousness of the offense, and it is the effect of this judgment which is to be tested.
As has been stated in the introduction, a statistical study of the delinquency of boys was made in 241 West Side families. Four hundred and sixty-three arrests of boys occurred among these families during the period covered by our investigation. Data are available concerning the offenses committed and the action taken in court for 454 of these 463 cases. As some boys were arrested more than once, and as some families had two or more boys who were arrested, the 454 arrests affected but 259 boys and 221 families.[40]
There were, in the families investigated, a number of boys who were not themselves arrested, but who were, nevertheless, properly included in our study of delinquency. Their gang relations or other connections with the boys who were arrested made their cases significant. As these boys and the boys concerning whose arrests complete statistical information is lacking numbered, together, 35, the total number of boys dealt with is 294.
Not all the boys were really delinquent. Some were brought into court because of improper guardianship, an offense on the part of the parents rather than on that of the children; and others who were not incorrigible came to the notice of the investigators. The word “delinquent” seems properly to apply to 249 of the 294 boys.
We shall divide the 454 arrests studied into three main groups: (1) The group of 260 cases in which the court did nothing after the child left its doors; namely, those acquitted, discharged, released under suspended sentence, whipped, or fined; (2) the group of 95 paroled cases; (3) the group of 99 cases committed to institutions. Each of these groups will be considered separately in the following sections.