Your boy and his training

by Edwin Seward Puller

We now recognize the inability of the child to commit a crime, judged by the standards applicable to the adult criminal, for the reason that his mental and moral concepts have not yet reached the stage of development which can distinguish between right and wrong with the clearness of the adult. What in the adult with full consciousness of the import and effects of his acts would be trespass, assault and battery, larceny, and burglary, are in the child varied forms of moral disease which it is the state’s business to cure—not punish. It is conceded that it would be monstrous and brutal to punish a child for contracting measles, scarlet fever, or whooping cough, and it is equally monstrous for the state to punish the same child before he attains moral maturity, for contracting a moral disease which manifests itself in acts which are crimes only when committed by adults with full comprehension of their moral significance.

Again we revert for our guidance to the child’s viewpoint which in many instances is closely akin to that of the untutored savage. During a summer which I spent in the wilderness of the great woods of the North I encountered an Indian who habitually killed deer out of season and in violation of the laws of the state in which he lived. When I asked him why he did not obey the law, he replied, “God made deer for Indian before white man made book [the law].” From his viewpoint, he was not guilty of wrongdoing in killing deer to supply food for his family; from the viewpoint of the law he was a lawbreaker.

The underlying principle of the operation of children’s courts is the recognition of the fact that the offender under sixteen years of age should not be judged or punished by adult standards; that he should not be arrested, indicted, convicted, imprisoned, or punished as a criminal. Evidence of the offense is not regarded as proof of criminality but rather as light on the question as to how the state, standing in loco parentis, can best exercise its parental function in the formation of the embryo character needed to make the boy a good citizen.

The child is not punished to make an example of him, nor to reform him—but to form him. Reformation implies the change of a character already formed. The child’s character is in an evolutionary period, susceptible to formation but not to reformation. The criminal power of the state metes out punishment for reformation and as a deterrent to other persons who may be tempted to violate the law. The parental authority of the state is exercised to train the boy to be good and to remove him from the vicious environments which chain him to delinquency.

Boys are naturally good—not bad. A study of the records of juvenile offenders will show that there are four dominant causes of delinquency, stated here in the order of their importance, for none of which is the boy himself directly responsible, namely: environment, poor training or lack of training, the bad example of parents, and heredity. I do not subscribe to the theory of the “innate cussedness” of boys. The “innate cussedness” of parents, in the last analysis, is usually the propelling factor in juvenile delinquency.

The establishment of children’s courts has been significant in the awakening of the public mind to the state’s duty toward those of its children who from parental neglect or otherwise are delinquent or dependent. This moral awakening to the consciousness of governmental responsibility for the child has manifested itself in many states in the enactment of laws for the establishment of juvenile courts, and in others in the revivification and enforcement of sleeping statutes designed to meet the juvenile problem.

But the state’s duty does not end with the placing of laws on the statute books; it still remains for them to be made effective by a judge who not only knows the law but who is inspired by a sympathetic understanding of child problems and child-nature; one who is able to ingratiate himself into the confidence of the boy and thereby become his friend, helper, and co-worker in his salvation. A knowledge of adolescent psychology will be of great help in getting the juvenile viewpoint which is so essential for a solution of the problems of wayward children. In a report by the Honorable Samuel J. Barrows, Commissioner for the United States on the International Prison Commission, he has this to say concerning the fitness of a judge of such court: “The personality of the judge, as well as that of the probation officer, is an element of vast importance in the success of any juvenile court. Such a court cannot be run on automatic or mechanical methods. Let it be reduced to a mere technical mechanism of rules and procedure and it will fail altogether. A firm yet sympathetic, tactful man of magnetic personality, as well as of legal knowledge, who understands boys and can secure their confidence is the man needed for this work; and some such men have already been called to this position.”

To the same effect is the testimony of Judge Stubbs of the Juvenile Court of Indianapolis as to the necessity of securing the offender’s confidence: “It is the personal touch that does it. I have often observed that if I sat on a high platform behind a high desk, such as we had in our city court, with the boy on the prisoner’s bench some distance away, that my words had little effect on him; but if I could get close enough to him to put my hand on his head or shoulder, or my arm around him, in nearly every such case I could get his confidence.”

The probation system and probation officers are necessary and effective elements in the operation of juvenile courts. The function of the probation officer is to investigate the facts before trial, and after probation to visit the child in his home; keep in close touch with his conduct and school attendance; admonish or cite for punishment parents who in any way have contributed to the child’s delinquency; advise and encourage the child and report conditions to the court. Most courts have one or more paid probation officers, the others being volunteers. One Indiana court was fortunate in having the assistance of two hundred volunteer probation officers who responded in turn whenever needed to assist in the work of probation and parole. The effectiveness of a juvenile court is measured by the ability, efficiency, and character of its judge and probation officers.

Judge Ben B. Lindsey of the Juvenile Court of Denver, a leading authority on this subject, said: