THE JUVENILE COURT 1. Origin. Logically the Juvenile Court is an offspring of the Criminal Court, made necessary by the full recognition of the fact that the child is ordinarily not criminal and that the Criminal Court taints the child brought into it with the character given it by its dealing with confirmed criminals. Historically it is of the same origin. Even now the judge of the Children's Court is ordinarily. simply detailed from the older Court. Though the way had long been leading up to it, the first real Juvenile Court was established by Sec. 3 of the Illinois Juvenile Court Law, in force July 1, 1901. Many States have followed, and in the main have followed closely. 2. The Judge. In some cases there is but one judge acting in the Juvenile Court, though the duties of that Court may not be sufficient to occupy his whole time. Whatever cases come before this Court, either for the first time or as "repeaters," he passes. upon, being always in the peculiar atmosphere of this Court and never carrying over into it from the other courts anything that is foreign to it. It is very important that the same judge should. continue the hearing of a case in which he has been interested before. On the other hand, it is quite common that the judges of the circuit court take turns in presiding over this court. In the county in which Indianapolis is situated the presiding judge is elected like any state officer. In Colorado, jurisdiction is given. solely to the Judge of the County Court, while in other localities the police courts and justices' courts exercise jurisdiction. Thus there is great variety of usage in the matter of appointment. The term of service and the powers of the Judge are subject also to local custom. But the relation of the Judge to the proba: tion system is largely a matter of personal preference, except where his other duties absorb his attention entirely. It is in some' instances possible for the Judge to be in effect the chief probation officer of his Court, taking close, personal interest in the children brought before him, even to the extent of following them up through various reforming or preventive agencies. Such a force is Judge Lindsey of Denver. But ordinarily that is not possible. However, experience seems to have shown that in general the men have been chosen or appointed as judges who have most sympathy with childhood and therefore are most likely to succeed. In fact the Indiana county above referred to has restricted the eligibility to the position so that only a man of forty years of age and a parent may be elected. 1 I Charities, Jan. 7, 1905, 336. 3. The Jury. The jury is a remnant of the adults' court in most cases dispensed with altogether, in a few instances existing, but almost functionless. The reason for its survival is the desire to accord to all the right of trial by jury, on the part of those living so far back in the past that they do not realize that there are really few or no trials in the Children's Court. But the appendage is harmless. In the Chicago Court the jury is ignored and often must inquire to learn even so much as the disposition of the case. In a serious offence the Judge may well feel reluctance about passing individual judgment against a criminal child, and the jury has a place, but the sentiment is strongly against it, as interfering with the moral and educational influence of the Court, and as increasing publicity. 4. Legal Representative for the Child. In some Children's Courts a lawyer is provided for the child, perhaps to protect him from selfish or wicked parents, or to aid the judge and the probation officer in getting at the whole truth of the case. As such he performs a very necessary service, yet it is a fair question whether the same service could not quite as well be done by the judge or the officer, the former settling legal questions and the latter looking up the facts of the case. It is a great advantage to the Court if the probation officer is a good lawyer. The whole atmosphere of the institution seems to argue against such a representative simply as a means of assuring fairness to the child. Furthermore, a lawyer often influences the child to deceive, disturbs the decision of the judge and sometimes sends away the child justified in flagrant or doubtful violation of the law, and looking upon the Juvenile Court as an enemy or at least an institution lacking in the very thing it means to assume-parental interest in every child. None cares to deprive any member of the State of the right to a fair hearing and protection against injustice, but the Children's Court is an educational institution seeking both to deter from a path full of dangers and to point the way to clean and useful manhood and womanhood, and it is bad pedagogy to set the child against it. We are inclining rapidly to this view of things even where the children are evidently vicious and criminal. is very reluctant to give way to Correction today. Prevention 5. Procedure. In what does the dignity of the Law consist? A few judges still insist that it consists in its clothing and its bearing a dignity that is often very impressive, but like the analogous dignity of individual gentlemen, not always quick and unbending and sympathetic enough to do the simplest and greatest services. Is there not vastly more dignified and worthy human nature shown in a judge who will take a child aside, screening him from publicity and consequent harm, stating his own case to him, urging thoughtfulness and industry, deploring bad associations, planting in him the germ of self-help, than in the one who, because of a false notion of his office or pique at his assignment to a Children's Court, insists on publishing the history of a sensitive child to an audience of curious listeners through the established procedure? Law is a schoolmaster to a child, but the best schoolmaster is not the legalist of that type. It is the law that is written on the heart, revealing a heart-beat at every letter, not the hard, cold law of statute books that the child learns. The judge as man and not the judge as judge is the best mediator between the group standard as found in the law and the child. When we shall have fully learned that the law is made for the child and not the child for the law we shall easily fall into a way of conducting proceedings that will turn the court-room into a home and the judge into a parent to every unfortunate child brought before him. The origin of the Children's Court is altogether too evident in its conduct. The time will come when there will be no public courtroom for the child, when we shall deny that all we have stripped from the police court to make way for the child in the new court is the rogues' gallery. Dignity will be defined in terms of effectiveness, not show. We are somewhat content to move slowly in this matter beyond a certain point for the reason that this is an incidental question, the solution of which depends upon that of another and vastly more fundamental one-the adjustment made necessary by the fact that machinery employed through centuries upon centuries in turning out the criminal grist of the world and furnished its motive power by the spirit of vengeance, repression or at best reformation, is now set to work upon youthful, unformed lives, and the motive power changed already, so far as it touches / the child, into prevention by development. 6. Place of Detention. By law some of the States forbid the placing of children under a certain age in jail, even while waiting for a hearing in the Court. Therefore it has been necessary to provide a place of detention for such of the children as cannot be sent to a home or kept under the guardianship of some interested person. Some cities have founded a home, superintended by a man and woman who shall exert proper influences over the boys. In some cases the boys are kept in these homes for a considerable length of time, before or even after their appearance before the Court. Perhaps it may be deemed right to dismiss the case without a hearing because of the good influence of this institution. In other places the old ideas have exerted such force that the law is met by the provision of a cell (!!) adjoining the court-room, in which the child is locked pending his hearing. Of course this is archaic. The detention home may be made a great feature in child-saving, especially among the homeless waifs whose lot will almost inevitably be cast in the great cities, who have the taste of the city and can not be "placed out" in country homes. Coupled with personal interest on the part of superintendents and matrons and opening, as they do, very evident opportunities to settlement and church workers, they may yet develop into far more than they were intended to be. Established to fulfil a temporary function, they reveal a field not unlike that of the "homes" or "lodges" or "lodging houses" for homeless men, with the significant distinction that, the juvenile population being less nomadic, there is chance for permanent betterment where the other institutions are hardly more than for temporary accommodation to most of their inmates. 7. Juvenile Courts and Parents. It is the unanimous opinion of workers for children that delinquency may more often be traced to the home life or the lack of it than to any other cause or number of causes. As remedial measures the Court may remove the child from his environment or, leaving him there, seek to improve it for him. It often happens that the child's delinquency is due to a train of circumstances of which the parents know nothing, and all that is necessary is to call the attention of the parents to the life of the child. Unfortunately it is the rule that not simply the ingenuity of the child in concealing his activities and his associations from his parents is the great factor, but rather the latters' ignorance or carelessness or wrong. Therefore the attitude of the Court towards them must be active; it must encourage, instruct, aid parents in their task. Thus far the Court has found great difficulty in dealing with those parents who resent the interference of the Law in their domestic life, or who are so vicious or ignorant that while in general to be trusted with the children they occasionally place themselves in the position of actually contributing to their delinquency. The most common case in point, perhaps, is in sending the child to a saloon to buy liquor and thus putting him in touch with a life that promises much danger to him. Such an act is punishable ordinarily, yet in the legal process it has not been shown with sufficient clearness that this is not only an act reprehensible, but is such because of its consequences to the child. The parent is punished, if at all, in one court, and the child in another. Could a parent and child be brought before the same court and this which is one offence be dealt with as such? The situation brought forth considerable legal sparring for points, in which common sense won in spite of the lack of precedent. Where it had been possible in all the Courts to bring the parents in for a reprimand only, it is now possible in at least one to make the charge against the parent rather than against the child, and to administer the necessary correction. The Colorado "adult delinquent law" of 1903 reads as follows: "Sec. 1. In all cases where any child shall be a delinquent child or a juvenile delinquent person, as defined by the statute of this state, the parent or parents, legal guardian or person having custody of such child, or any other person, responsible for or by any act encouraging, causing or contributing to the delinquency of said child shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon trial and conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1000) or imprisoned in the county jail for a period not exceeding one (1) year, or by both such fine and imprisonThe court may impose conditions upon any person found ment. |