Volume 7 — Art. III.—JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, TRUANCY, &c.

In our last number, we commenced a notice of several interesting matters occurring in Boston and its vicinity, and falling within the range of our observation. The presentment of the Grand Jury of Suffolk County was under discussion, and we promised to return to it again when opportunity should allow, and this promise we now redeem.

The establishment of “an intermediate reform school for young persons, who are committed for first offences, when there is an apparent opportunity for their reformation by the use of moral and intellectual discipline,” is strongly urged in the presentment. The Grand Jury have in view a plan, “where the mark of the penitentiary shall not be put upon the convicts, but where, by judicious management on the part of superintendent, and exemplary conduct on the part of those consigned to his charge—they whose misfortune it may be to stray from the paths of rectitude, could again be received into the bosom of society without reproach.”

To enforce their suggestions, they call into view “the large number of minors that have been brought before the tribunals of public justice within the six months last past,” and express their deep conviction that “if some plan were provided, at which neglected children could be made to pass their time, instead of upon the wharves, in the streets, around the doors of theatres, or in the market places,—say in some industrial school provided by the State,—juvenile delinquency would very much decrease.”

These are all very good notions for a Boston jury, or any other jury to entertain, but suppose we should transform all these jurymen into Legislators, and give them a seat in the House of Representatives; and suppose a proposition were submitted to enact a law, making it compulsory on all parents to give their children a certain amount of schooling every year, and in default thereof, authorizing and requiring the proper authorities to remove such children from the custody of the parents, for the purpose of schooling them. Would they then and there take the same view of the subject? Would no misgivings arise about the bearing which their advocacy of such a stringent law might have on their political prospects? Would they advance as directly and as boldly to the application of the remedy as they do to the exposure of the evil?

It is obvious from the language of the report, that the Suffolk Grand Jury have a much clearer idea of the disease than they have of the cure. The class of persons to whom they refer as “committed for first offences” are nevertheless “convicts,” and nothing can remove the “mark of the penitentiary” but an executive pardon. And whether there is “an apparent opportunity for their reformation,” is not an easy question to determine. When the distinction comes to be practically applied, it would be found very perplexing. Our Houses of Refuge are intended to receive those who have entered, or are just entering upon a course of life, which ordinarily ends in the penitentiary; and they have doubtless saved scores of youth from the convict’s infamous doom, and returned them to their families and to society, with every prospect of usefulness and respectability. And we had supposed that the State Reform School at Westborough, which has been so successfully conducted, was designed to answer exactly this end. The boys who are committed there, are generally sent for first offences, and the discipline is strictly reformatory. Does the report of the jury then contemplate an institution between the Reform School and the State Penitentiary, or between the Reform School and “the House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders,” at South Boston? If the former, what ends are expected to be answered, which the institution at Westborough fails to accomplish; and if the latter, what class of offenders would they find between those at Westborough and those at South Boston, for whose case neither of these establishments provides?

However obscure the intimations of the report may be on this point, they are very clear on another, viz., that juvenile delinquency would be greatly diminished if all idle, loitering, loafing children “about town” were put to good, industrial schools. It is not a whit more certain, that if the Cochituate pond were to dry up suddenly, Boston would have a far less generous supply of water than it has now. But how shall this abstraction from the streets and wharves, of the filthy, foul-mouthed, ragged urchins be brought about? When and where shall the industrial school be established? What shall be the nature of the discipline, and the length of the confinement? Shall the public support them, or shall contributions be levied on negligent parents? Such schools have been greatly prospered, we know, in some of the chief towns of England and Scotland; but the institutions of society and indeed its whole structure, will allow that to be done there, which would not be tolerated here. We must give our Boston friends credit, however, for a very wise and effective step towards the suppression of juvenile vice. We allude to the law for the correction of truancy, and we cannot more usefully occupy a page of our limited space than by transcribing one or two passages from a leading document on the subject. The views expressed are quite as appropriate to Philadelphia as to Boston.

As early as 1846, a report came from the school committee of the city, in which the mischief of truancy is represented as not only interfering greatly with the regular process of instruction, but as exerting a demoralising effect which can hardly be counteracted, and employs much of the time and energy of the masters in preserving the discipline which it assails. Nor is it an evil (says the report) which ends with the schools. If it did, our duty would still require of us to do whatever we can do for its suppression or diminution. But it is certain, that, from the juvenile depravity of which the truancy of the school is both a sign and a cause, grows a large part of the suffering and crime of society. It is rare to find in our prisons those who were well cared for as children, and trained in regular habits of useful industry. An active child can be kept out of evil only by giving him something good to do; and when idleness has thoroughly corrupted the earliest years of life, what can we expect from riper years, but a maturity of vice, greater as temptations become stronger, and opportunities for crime are enlarged?

In the worst cases, the truancy of the children, or their entire absence from school, is permitted by the parents, and sometimes caused by their desire to share in those wretched gains of debasing or dishonest pursuits, for which after-time will exact a fearful price.

If the law on the one hand, provides schools to which all the children of this city may go, on the other it provides another institution to which certain children may be made to go. Here then are institutions for those who will, and for those who will not be instructed; and under one or other of these classes all our children may be arranged. The 143d chapter of the Revised Statutes, Sect. 5th, enumerates among those who may be sent to the House of Correction, “stubborn children;” and the “Act concerning juvenile offenders in the City of Boston,” authorizes the City Council to establish a building for “the reception, instruction, employment and reformation of such juvenile offenders as are hereinafter named;” this building we have: and the third section of the same Act provides, “That any Justice or Judge of the said Courts, (the Supreme Court, Municipal Court, and Police Courts) on the application of the Mayor, or of any Aldermen of the City of Boston, or of any Director of the House of Industry, or House of Reformation, or of any Overseer of the Poor, of said City, shall have power to sentence to said house of employment and reformation, all children who live an idle and dissolute life, whose parents are dead, or if living, from drunkenness, or other vices, neglect to provide any suitable employment, or exercise any salutary control over said children.” And the sixth section provides that any child committed to the House of Correction, may be transferred to the House of Employment and Reformation.”

It would seem, therefore, that the framers of the laws have done enough, if they who are entrusted with the execution of the laws do their duty.

These statements and views were not without their effect, though measures of reform were not matured until 1850, when a law was past, which we copy entire as the shortest method of presenting the whole matter to the view of our readers.