The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot

by Chicago Commission on Race Relations

1. JUVENILE COURT

Between 1913 and 1919, inclusive, the number of Negro boys brought into the juvenile court increased from 123 to 288, and the number of Negro girls from 71 to 112. The proportion of Negro boys to the total during this six-year period decreased from 9 to 6.8 per cent; and the proportion of Negro girls increased from 5.6 to 14.8 per cent. The proportion for Negro boys represents a little over twice the proportion of the Negroes to total population, and for Negro girls about three and one-half times. Although the proportion for both Negro boys and girls increased from 7.9 per cent in 1913 to 9.9 per cent in 1919, the Negro population for the same period increased over 100 per cent. The constant disproportion in the number of Negro boys and girls coming into the juvenile court points again to infective environment and to other circumstances heretofore mentioned involved in the crime rate for Negroes.

Northern and southern Negro delinquents.—Miss Mary Bartelme, assistant to Judge Arnold, before whom all cases of delinquent girls are tried, said: "In recent years we have had a large number of colored girls who have come up from the South to Chicago because their fathers sent for them. Their education has not been equal to the education of white girls and their mental development has not been the same."

Joseph L. Moss, chief probation officer in the juvenile court, believed that Negro girls might be more affected by the war situation, the abnormal excitement, the lure of the uniform, than white girls.

Mr. Moss further said:

My impression is that southern Negroes contribute just about their portion to the total number of delinquents. If any difference could be noted I might say that the delinquencies of the southern Negro might be more often classed as misdemeanors than as the more serious offenses. One noted at times a sort of irresponsibility on the part of southern Negro delinquents which seemed to me to be traceable to the difference in standards between former environment and the present one.

Differences in delinquency of Negro and white children.—No information could be secured to show that the conduct for which Negro children are brought into court is in any way different from the conduct of all delinquent children. On this point Miss Bartelme testified: "I get all offenses committed by girls under eighteen years of age. I want to say that the offenses of white and colored are very much the same as far as those offenses come before me." Mr. Moss testified before the Commission: "From my experience I would say that there is no significant difference between acts for which colored delinquent boys are brought into court, and the acts for which white delinquent boys are brought into court, with this exception: that larceny, as an offense, seems to have a considerable lead over other offenses."

Comparative environment.—Since many of the delinquent children who come into the juvenile court, particularly first offenders, are placed on probation, comparative environment of white and Negro children is important. This subject does not lend itself to statistical presentation, but Miss Bartelme said:

Negro girls have not the same supervision that many of the white girls of their same class have, because in so many instances both parents are working, and the girls are left alone. They come home from school to a house that is closed. There is no one to receive them, and that, with a child, is always a very serious matter. The environment in which they live is not equal to the environment of the white girls. In these homes lack of privacy is greater than in the homes of the same class of white girls, therefore making life much more difficult and temptations more numerous. These conditions are much worse on account of the recent congestion, but they have existed right along. Negro children have been allowed to live in worse quarters, more crowded quarters, than the other children.... We feel that in placing the children on probation, especially colored girls, they are placed in a home which often is not a home because the mother is away at work.

Mr. O. J. Milliken, for many years a public-school principal in Chicago, and now superintendent of the Chicago and Cook County School for Boys, to which the milder delinquent cases are committed, testified: