Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners announce that the policewoman recently appointed by them is to be “the city’s mother to the motherless.”

The work of Miss Roche in Denver, as described by George Creel, in a recent number of The Metropolitan, illustrates the inestimable value of the addition of women to the police force of cities.

Juvenile Courts

Following the example set by Judge Lindsey in Denver, women have been active in creating the public opinion which has brought about the creation of juvenile courts in so many cities of the South, as well as of the North. In Atlanta, the women acted immediately upon the suggestion of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, in session there. It is generally conceded in Pennsylvania that the five bills passed in that state providing for juvenile courts owe their passage to the agitation and pressure brought to bear by the Pennsylvania Federation of Women’s Clubs and its enthusiastic president. In at least eight states it is claimed that the juvenile court system owes its inception largely to the work of women. Coupled with their interest in the court has often gone their desire to accompany the court work with model reform schools for boys and for girls. In Alabama and other states these were secured by the insistence of women.

In Iowa the Congress of Mothers took the lead for the Juvenile Court Law, and this congress has pushed steadily in other states for the same legislation. The Ohio law, passed in 1904, was due in a large measure to the fact that the juvenile court was a paramount issue of club work in that state at that time.

Club women feel that they deserve credit also for the St. Louis and Kansas City Courts. In Michigan, when the law was declared unconstitutional, women pledged their effort to the securing of a new bill.

The Civic Club of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, together with the Civic Committee of the women’s clubs, secured the organization of the juvenile court of that county. They then sent women and men speakers into neighboring counties and thus extended the movement. The first juvenile court was organized and supported entirely by the Club for several years, until it was legally incorporated and became independent. The Club also established an industrial and training school for boys, to solve the question of the care of boys that came before the court.

Detention homes preceded as well as accompanied efforts for juvenile courts. The Civic Club of Allegheny County secured the proper enforcement of the Juvenile Court Law in its provision as to rooms of detention for children under sixteen who are in custody and awaiting hearing or placement. The same club hopes soon to secure a model children’s court building along the lines adopted in a few other cities.

By the year 1906 detention homes and a juvenile court law had been actively taken up by women’s clubs in California and other western states. Since then many places have been catching up, and these two issues form part of the propaganda of club women everywhere.

The Municipal League of Utica, composed of men and women, secured recently an appropriation for a detention home and juvenile court. The Women’s Civic League, of Meadsville, Pennsylvania, also established a detention home for juvenile delinquents.