Reviewing our study of the three groups of boys described in the preceding sections—the boy who is let go, the boy who is paroled in the custody of his parents, and the boy that gets sent up—we find that the impression made by the court was rarely a permanent one. One after the other we have seen how the typical boy of each group passes through the hands of the court and returns to his West Side environment scarcely changed by his experience. For the boy who is let go, it means but a ripple in his life. The court again goes further and “paroles” him. At the end, he is still the same boy. The most drastic treatment of all, commitment to an institution for a definite short term usually fails to remake the character of a boy who has been subjected both before and after his sojourn in the institution to the full force of the neighborhood influences. When a boy is so difficult to manage that commitment becomes the only adequate remedy, the term should be indefinite so that release may depend on education, behavior and development of character. And release should be followed by supervision by a representative of the court or of the institution until the boy shows that he can stand morally without such assistance.
A well organized official probation staff without doubt furnishes the most effective method for dealing with most of these cases. This applies to all three classes described in the preceding sections—the boy who is let go, the boy who is paroled in the custody of his parents, and the boy that gets sent up. The use of official probation does not necessarily exclude volunteer probation, but it should make possible careful supervision and co-ordination of volunteer work under the court.
Our study points out the necessity of recognizing both the family unit and the neighborhood unit in handling cases. In order to do efficient probation work, the investigator must be familiar with local conditions. He needs to know, on the one hand, all the influences which have helped to make the boy what he is, and, on the other hand, the neighborhood agencies which are familiar with his individual and family history, and may be enlisted in reforming him.
A thorough physical and mental examination is necessary in many cases before the court can proceed intelligently in its treatment.[47] A fundamental need also in the treatment of juvenile delinquency is the conferring of equity powers on the court, in order to avoid the hindrances of purely criminal trials and to reach the child and his family more directly.
Finally, we must not forget, in considering the darker aspects of the extreme cases presented in the section on commitments, that all delinquent boys are not of that type. As a rule, the boy delinquent stands out among the ranks of mishandled West Side youngsters only as one of them who has had the misfortune to be apprehended where others equally guilty have escaped; in most cases he does not differ in any great degree from his mates. Viewed from the standpoint of the district and in the light of what we know of its manner of life, juvenile delinquency is seen to be largely the product of conditions dangerous to youth in the homes and on the streets. To deal with the boy only after he has committed a crime is to deal with the product and not at all with the source of his offending; to allow him to return to his old surroundings without official supervision and control is, except in rare instances, a futile expedient.
CHAPTER VII
THE CENTER OF THE PROBLEM
In studying the boy of the Middle West Side we are studying the future as well as the present of his district; and in gathering together for a composite picture his various traits which have already been noted, it will not be out of place to refer once more to certain neighborhood characteristics which he reflects as well as to some aspects of his life and environment which have not as yet been illustrated. In this volume we wish mainly to present the boy as he is today, not to suggest the method of his regeneration. But an attempt to account for his peculiarities naturally results in deductions which may seem to argue a basis for some definite plan of reform; and with an increasing intimacy with West Side conditions it becomes more and more difficult to resist the conclusion that many of his vices are forced upon him by circumstances so strong as to be almost unavoidable.
Stealing, for instance, the theft of anything, but especially of coal and wood, is, as we have seen, encouraged; it is looked upon absolutely as a matter of course. The boy is brought up to consider it part of the daily routine;[48] the winter cold drives home his family’s need for heat, yet the family income is too slender to allow the purchase of coal. His mother sends him out to get fuel, and he knows that somehow he must find it. The line of least resistance is worn smooth in his neighborhood, and it is natural and easy to fall in with the parental fiction that the fuel which reaches the tenement has miraculously dropped from heaven.
This fiction does not apply, however, to the more general “swipin’” or “crookin’” which consists in stealing on the spur of the moment any unconsidered trifles which may be lying around. Usually things so stolen are small and of little value. Boys start out on “crookin’” expeditions, taking anything edible or vendible that they can lay hands on; and in this they have the example of older fellows, even married men, who will steal in a desultory way whenever they have the chance. “Every time I get a vacant house,” said a wrathful real estate agent one day, “it means that I’ve got to put in new lead pipes, or new faucets, or new gas fixtures, or perhaps all of them. The damned crooks of the neighborhood, young and old, break in and rip them out to sell.” And a certain settlement had the same experience. When it was first opened practically every removable thing in the house disappeared, including even the necessaries for meals.
Here again, though such thefts are far less excusable, the boys have a definite point of view. They are quite non-moral and have never learned to consider the question of property. Their code is the primitive code of might and they look upon their booty as theirs by right of conquest. Further, the very pressure of poverty is an incentive to stealing for various ends. They are cigarette fiends—they must have cigarettes. They are hungry; they crave amusement, and “the movin’ pictures” mean a nickel. All these things cost money, and when one is penniless and knows no moral code and sees one’s elders acknowledging none, the temptation to adopt the tactics of the thief and the thug becomes almost irresistible.