The New York Children’s Court
BY HON. JOSEPH M. DEUEL
Author of the legislation creating the Court and a Justice therein
A TRIBUNAL with an age-limit for jurisdiction is a modern innovation. For two years one of that character has been passing through an experimental stage in the city of New York. It has fully justified its creation. It is experimental still, in the sense that two years have been insufficient to exploit all its useful possibilities. They are illimitable. More than any in the world, the success of this Court depends upon the personality of the individual who wields its powers; and, however capable, resourceful and aspiring, he cannot be eminently successful unless back of him stands a strong, healthy and encouraging public sentiment. This is rapidly developing as parents come to know that each justice is a willing and enthusiastic ally, ready at all times to join heartily with them to correct and encourage the boy or girl who has been tempted to go wrong, rather than an ordinary minister of justice who measures each infraction of law with statutory precision.
When it is widely known that the primary object is not one of punishment, but of municipal and communal salvage, its possibilities for good will be greatly enhanced. No one has ever sat with its presiding justice through an entire session without some expression of satisfaction with the Court and the controlling policy in dealing with wayward youth. Said a minister of the Gospel recently, at the close of a forenoon session: “You are doing more good than all the ministers in the city.” This exaggerated commendation is cited simply to show that the experimental stage cannot be on the wrong tack when, after careful observation, men of intelligence give utterance to such convictions. But every member of the community cannot see and judge for himself, and this article is designed to give to all a correct idea of the Court, why created, and its policy in dealing with offenders. Many strangers, upon information not first-hand, have been somewhat severe in criticism of a supposed sentimental leniency; they have become warm supporters when brought into close range with its operations.
No useful purpose will be served by tracing the origin of the Court or singling out and naming those who were instrumental in its creation. It came naturally by the process of evolution in the matter of juvenile legislation. Its advent was timely, for our civic conditions, three years ago, were breeding criminals more rapidly than at any other time in our history; and a court to deal solely with the source of criminal supply was imperatively demanded. One of the strongest arguments at Albany for the bill was based upon these conditions, and it was urged that when fairly in progress the prophylactic value of the Court would be manifested in a reduced crime rate for the city.
No one then anticipated the volume and character of immigrants that have since deluged our ports. Parents with large families of growing children have edged into overcrowded tenement centres, where their native tongue is almost exclusively spoken, and have produced unwholesome social conditions, that destroy the American theory of home, by packing men, women and children into one or two small and ill-ventilated rooms. They are without means of subsistence. The market demand for their labor is already supplied. No employment at wages can be found, and, however abundant in that respect may be the prospects in other localities, here the parents find themselves, and here they insist on staying and taking chances. Children swarm the streets, not only to get sunlight and air, but to pick up pennies, from whatever source available, to pay rent and buy food. And they are to become American citizens under such circumstances.
The fault is not with parents, who are lured here by golden hopes, held before them by competing transportation agents, but is with the governmental policy that permits immigration to go on without intelligent direction. Possibly these people cannot be induced to go to parts of the country where there is a demand for the kind of labor they can give, but their crowding into New York is working endless mischief in the men and women produced.
The records show that boys and girls who have lived here but a short time, many less than a year, others one, two and three years, get into difficulties and find their way to the Children’s Court, some for serious crimes and others for contravening state or local regulations of which both parents and child are ignorant. The child stays away from school to peddle, or beg, or get money in other ways, and, if he or she succeeds in evading the police, is hunted by a truant officer or runs foul of a “Gerry” agent. Be the infractions serious or trifling, they add materially to the volume of child prisoners, swell the inmates of reformatories, increase the expense of city government and furnish material for keeping up the army of criminals.
Dr. David Blaustein estimates that the square mile of territory bounded by the Bowery, Mangin, East Houston and Cherry Streets contains a Jewish population of 350,000, largely composed of Russian immigrants. If it contained no other races there would be a superficial area for light, ventilation, business, recreation and living less than three yards square for each individual. Now for results. Mr. Coulter, Deputy Clerk of the Children’s Court, in a published article recently stated that twenty-six per cent. of child prisoners were of Russian parents, ninety-eight per cent. of them coming from the lower East Side and the largest majority from the square mile above mentioned.
The Italian contingent is estimated at 400,000, which yields twenty-four per cent. of the juvenile arrests. Russian and Italian immigrants have a predilection for hiving like bees rather than for living like Americans. They have no inclination to go to those parts of the city where room, light and ventilation are in abundance, but select a locality where others speaking the same tongue have settled. Then begins the crowding process which drives other races from the neighborhood. Children run wild in the streets, form undesirable associations and become easy victims to rapacious Fagins everywhere abounding. The parents do not learn our language with any degree of efficiency, and acquire slight knowledge of our government, its policies or ideals. Instances occur daily of witnesses that have lived here fifteen to twenty years who require an official interpreter to give testimony.