The agencies which keep less systematic records and yet come in close personal touch with handicapped families—settlements and churches—are no less valuable as sources of information. In one of the parole cases, involving a rather serious charge of burglary, the insufficient account of the home surroundings was supplemented by the apology, “As the house in which the family lived is tenanted entirely by Italians, very little information could be obtained for or against the boy.” Yet across the street was a settlement in which the boy’s history was well known and which was well qualified to sponsor plans for his improvement. No opportunity was given it to advise commitment for this lad in preference to the parole and suspension of sentence which sent him back to the streets absolutely without supervision. Thus the social worker who may have been watching a hopeless situation drag on for years without power to intervene may lose the chance to carry out a plan for the child’s welfare, and the court may fall back upon a hasty judgment in place of the social worker’s well matured program. The decision which may hang upon a slender thread of scanty information is one of no slight importance. It determines the environment of the child for several years during one of the most plastic periods of his life. The verdict of the judge will determine whether these will be spent either in his own home or in an institution.
The main test of any system which either assumes the name or takes the place of probation is its effect on the individual child. What is the consequence for the boy? Does it improve or encourage him so that he makes any effort in a new direction? This is a difficult task to accomplish, and to measure results is perhaps still more difficult. Yet a priori it is evident that with a system of parole carried on as here described permanent benefit for the individual will not result. In studying the entire history of any boy, the few months of parole seem such a minor influence in comparison with the other forces constantly working upon him, that it is impossible to assign any large share in the final outcome to the effect of such casual oversight as the court has given. Nor was insufficient supervision from this source compensated for by the volunteer probation. As far as we could discover, only 36 per cent of the paroled children on our records had been visited by volunteers. Yet this percentage was undoubtedly higher than the percentage for all cases brought into court, because we deliberately selected more than a due proportion of our cases from among those under volunteer probation.
We have traced as accurately as possible the outcome of parole in our 95 cases.[45] In 78 cases the boy was discharged or sentence was suspended when the parole period ended; in 14 cases the boy was committed to an institution during parole. There were other cases in which the boy was either rearrested and committed or rearrested and discharged after parole. In fact, our records show that this was true of about one-half of the boys. A considerable group, however, did not return to court at all before the age of sixteen. The fact that the boys of this latter group escaped being arrested again does not justify us in concluding that they were “reformed.” We therefore studied the later histories of the 83 boys concerned in the 95 cases of arrest and parole, to ascertain, as far as possible, whether the outcome was poor or satisfactory. This inquiry was conducted, and the results were considered, on the basis of boys rather than of cases. Our judgment was determined by each boy’s regularity at school or work subsequent to his parole, by the accounts of his parents as to whether he was “out from under them” or doing well, and especially as to whether he had committed any offense more serious than the mere prank, which in most of the cases had led to the original arrest. It appeared that of the boys rearrested almost all had conduct records that amply justified their being again brought into court. In less than one-third of the histories studied was the recent record so satisfactory, or the cause for complaint so slight, that reformation may be said to have taken place. That the system had a deterrent effect on some of the boys is undoubtedly true, but that it accounted for any real reformation is not very probable.
IV. THE BOY THAT GETS “SENT UP”
The theory of commitment is in itself a matter for serious consideration. It involves an attempt by the state to undo in a new environment the evil results of old environmental and home influences. In other words, the law decides that the family life has broken down for the time being and that others shall undertake to do what the parents have failed to accomplish. This is a grave step, presupposing a crisis and justifying itself only through absolute necessity and the actual achievement of its purpose.
The first question to be asked concerning any sentence of commitment is, was no better alternative possible? The preceding discussion has shown that the judge has been seriously hampered through lack of provision for more adequate methods of treatment. He could not obtain for the boy, who needed also guidance and incentive as well as discipline, the careful oversight which a well organized probation system would have afforded.
The second question concerns the effectiveness of the sentence. Has the boy himself been helped in the direction of discipline and an ordered life, and has the neighborhood been benefited by the removal of a lawless spirit? These are the questions which we shall try to answer concerning some of the boys “sent up.”
The emphasis put upon the neighborhood point of view has excluded any critical examination of the institutions to which the boys were committed or any statistical inquiry into their results. As in the previous chapters, the angle of vision was exclusively that of the district. A certain group of the neighborhood boys had been committed, and we tried to find out how the neighborhood appraised this action and what its results had been for the neighborhood and the boys concerned. The methods of different institutions, whether sound or otherwise, their successes and failures, did not concern us in themselves, but only as they had influenced the lives of our children and were reflected in the attitude of our people.
The conclusions of this section are based on a study of 99 commitments, meted out to 75 children, in 67 families. In this group were the boys who had the longest and most serious delinquency histories, and it was important that the account should be made as complete as possible. Five different sources were consulted—the court record of the trial, the report of the investigating agent of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the school records, the relief society records, and statements from the family and neighbors. None of these sources was complete in itself. However, the outline of the boy’s delinquency history, including trivial arrests and more serious escapades for which no arrest had been made, was pieced together as fully as possible. There is surely much more, at least in the way of illuminating detail, that cannot be known because it had been left unrecorded. The meagerness of the information is a serious handicap to the agencies which seek to reform the boy, and to the judge who must pronounce sentence upon him.
There are several different institutions to which the boys of this group had been committed from the children’s court. The division of these cases falls largely along religious lines. The Catholic Protectory receives all the children of Catholic parents, excepting the extreme cases of delinquent girls, who are sent to the House of the Good Shepherd. The children of Protestant parents are sent, if they are truants merely, to the New York and Brooklyn truant schools. In the more serious cases of delinquency, the boys are sent to the Juvenile Asylum and the girls to the House of Mercy. There is one city institution, the House of Refuge, which is nonsectarian and usually takes charge of the most seriously delinquent boys.