English Juvenile Courts
- Author:
Winifred A. Elkin. Kegan Paul, 12/6.
This book contains a wealth of information on Juvenile Courts, their organisation, constitution and procedure, on the various methods of dealing with delinquents and the new opportunities afforded by the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, and on the further reforms that are needed.
The varying degree of efficiency to be found between one Court and another and the lack of any common standard is strikingly brought out, with the concomitant need for a pooling of experience so that essential facts?e.g., the results of varying types of treatment and the relative advantages of different methods of procedure? may be made available to all those engaged in the work. Commenting on this lack of a common standard in one particular direction?the use of Probation (the figures for which vary from under 6 per cent in Accrington, Warrington and Windsor, to between 28 and 31 per cent, in Liverpool, Blackburn and Newport)?Miss Elkin writes:?
“Differences in local conditions may affect the methods in use in a court to some extent, but it is impossible to believe that they can account for such wide variations as these. They can only be taken as indicating a regrettable lack of any common standard. If the majority of courts arc right in concluding that at least half the offenders should be put on probation, then the courts that make as little use of it as some of those just mentioned must be falling below the general standard of efficiency… . ” What is particularly disconcerting is that, at least in my experience, the courts that differ markedly from the average in the use they make of various methods, are generally unaware of the fact.” In her final chapter, in which she urges a new method of appointment of justices and certain other reforms in the organisation of the juvenile court, she again refers to this question.
“It is serious enough that children and young persons should be dealt with by men and women zvho receive no training and are left without the assistance that official inspection would give them. But the situation is made worse by the fact that they cannot even turn for guidance to any carefully collected body of information that would shed light on past results.”
The lack of knowledge on the part of magistrates not only of what is done in other areas hilt also of the facilities that are available in their own, is also commented upon, and an almost incredible example is given of a magistrate who was apparently unaware that there existed a local Child Guidance Clinic, or, at any rate, that children coming before her Court could be treated there.
In discussing the question of psychological investigation Miss Elkin draws attention to the undesirability of such investigation being carried out before the offence is proved. This practice [although at present rarely adopted] she considers should be deplored in that it must inevitably tend to create popular prejudice against the development of psychological services, by identifying the psychologist with someone who is secretly used by the police to extract confessions of guilt.
In this same chapter, the question of the procedure with regard to the making of preliminary enquiries and the relative spheres of the school attendance officer and the probation officer, is. exhaustively discussed, as is also the question of how such reports on home circumstances, school behaviour, etc., can best be handled by the Court when obtained, whether they should be submitted in writing or orally, and how far the parents and the offenders themselves should be informed of their content.
This is decidedly a book to be read not only by the student and the social worker, who are brought into direct contact with the problem of delinquency, but also by every intelligent man and woman who takes seriously his or her responsibilities as a citizen. A. L. H.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.