A few months’ practical working of the act has shown what a wonderful agency for good the probation officer is. I shall speak of the officer in the feminine, because most of them are women.
She has, by reason of her appointment by the Court, an official position. Her station is one of grave responsibility and great honor, but of no profit. The act distinctly says that the officer shall receive no compensation from the public treasury. This will keep them from the contaminating touch of party politics, and prevent this particular office being sought after.
The probation officer is the child’s friend, but the Court’s adviser. Each boy is kept under surveillance. If, after the promises he and his parents have made to the Court, he stays away from school (if his parents can send him) or refuses to work or goes with his former associates, if they are bad boys, he is warned, and if he will not mend his ways, he is brought back to Court, and then the Judge has more knowledge of the case to guide him in intelligent action.
The first session of the Juvenile Court in Philadelphia was held July, 1901. Since that time there have been, up to May 21, 1902, 1,378 cases before the Court. Of these, 481 have been dependents, and 897 delinquents. But fifty-six have been sent to the House of Refuge, and of the rest (returned to their homes in almost every case) but thirty-three have been before the Court a second time. Most of these were given a second chance, and in but one case has the Court had a boy brought back more than once. He was, on his fourth appearance before the Court, committed to the House of Refuge.
One probation officer to whom since last July nearly one hundred children have been committed, told me recently that she had had but one child backslide. Surely such a record would be, if there were no more like it, sufficient warrant for saying that the act will do great good.
The whole scheme of the act is to prevent delinquents from becoming criminals. It is an act for child-saving. Its benefits, though conferred directly upon the child, are reaped by the entire community. It is the ounce of prevention which is far, far better than the pound of cure. It aims to place the erring child, of years too tender to yet fully appreciate the dangers ahead, under the restraining and guiding hand of an officer of the Court, who is at the same time the child’s friend.
The restraint is that of oversight; the guidance that of kindly admonition and advice, backed by that power everywhere recognized, the power of the law.
JUVENILE COURTS IN BUFFALO
By Frederic Almy
Secretary and Treasurer Charity Organization Society, Buffalo