Family Weekly
6
March 15, 1959
family Weekly. March 15, 1959
"J
NT
As a judce for almost 25 years in the
Municipal Courts of Chicago and
the Circuit Court of Cook County, 111.
including more than 10 years pre
siding over Chicago's unique Boy's
Court I've had to pass judgment on
more than 25,000 kids in trouble.
Juvenile delinquency is much more
than an overworked phrase to me. It's
kids real live kids, thousands of
them. Kids in trouble. Kids in de
spair. Mixed-up kids. Kids who
weren't brought into this world as
delinquents, but who got that way
because of a number of factors beyond
their control but not beyond the con
trol of their elders.
During my years on the bench, I've
seen a very definite pattern of delin
quency emerge a pattern that can be
charted and whose causes are fixed.
If every parent and every law-enforcement
officer recognized the pat
tern, knew the causes, and then did
something about them, the number of
young people in serious difficulties
could be reduced by 75 percent.
Teen-agers with "nothing to do
have a tremendous faculty tor
getting themselves into trouble.
Mete-':;',- mijt
?
There are 15 factors in the pattern
of delinquency besetting our young
people today. I can think of no in
stance of a boy or girl in trouble in
my court where one or more of these
factors weren't directly responsible.
And all of them can be controlled.
Here they are:
1. Destructive Toys and Games.
Almost from the swaddling stage,
our youngsters are weaned on guns or
other destructive toys. The other day,
I saw a one-year-old fondling a toy
pistol in his play pen. These toys are
symbols of violence; little wonder that
as the child grows, so, too, does his
penchant for violence.
I remember two 12-year-old lads
who were picked up in the washroom
of a Chicago railroad station carry
ing a loaded revolver. They had run
away from home, without money or
extra clothing but with a loaded gun.
Fortunately we found them before
they killed themselves or others.
It may seem cute to you when your
youngster says, "Stick 'em up or I'll
shoot" instead of "Hello, Dad," when
you come home from work. But once
a child has learned to point a toy gun
and pull the trigger, the next step is
the real thing. And remember, a child
has little interest in commercial dis
tinctions between gangsters and police;
indeed, often as not, he's conditioned
to sympathize with the gangster.
If I had my way, there would be
laws against destructive toys. But un
til that time comes, parents can pro
vide the necessary checks by buying
their children cameras or books or
basketballs instead of guns.
2. Working Mothers.
Children need supervision, and that
means having someone in the home to
guide and direct them and provide a
necessary checkrein on their activi
ties. As long as the father is earning
the family income, the mother should
be at home overseeing the activities of
the children. Even if this works an
economic hardship, it's far more im
portant to make sure the children
have adequate home supervision dur
ing their formative years.
3. Moonlighting.
A social factor peculiar to these
times is the father who holds down
A veteran judge cites the factors directly responsible for every
juvenile-court case brought before him and what you can do about it.
n p
3 rTN M IS1 HjT
i
by Jacob
two jobs one during the day and a
part-time job at night. Called "moon
lighting," this practice effectively de
prives the children of a father, often
during the years when they need him
most. Again, it's difficult to conceive of
the economic necessity which makes a
second job more important than pro
viding a father's steadying hand.
4. Improper Literature.
Any parent who thinks that the
violence, sadism, and smut dealt out
in some comic books and other "more
respectable" literature have little ef
fect on children should sit in on some
of my court sessions. The apologies
offered by the publishers of this junk
that the "crime-doesn't-pay" angle
is always emphasized is pure hokum.
All the kids get out of it is the excite
ment and glory and the conviction
that they won't make the same mis
takes the culprit did in the story.
So-called sociological literature has
made a considerable contribution, too,
to the corrupting of young minds. I've
had dozens of teen-agers in court
charged with having relations with
14- and 15-year-old girls, and many
of them cited Dr. Kinsey as their
authority and justification. I've had
hundreds of others who got their
blueprints for trouble-making from
the detailed analyses of crime and sex
appearing in current fiction and non
fiction. These books are not for chil
dren. Parents and teachers should
constantly be on the alert to know
what young people are reading.
5. Gambling.
Children who are raised on the
proposition that they can get some
i y y i
I an
V'J u
EVI Braude
' Circuit Court Judge;
Cook County, III.
A leading Chicago jurist since 1934, Jacob
M. Braude is now judge of the Circuit
Court of Cook County. He is a nationally
known speaker and writer on juvenile
delinquency and the author of books
on youth problems and public speaking.
thing for nothing grow up to apply
this premise in their everyday life.
Sometimes they get into serious trou
ble before they find out it doesn't
work. Gambling is a disease that can
easily surge out of control leading to
thievery in order to continue the
habit. The "something for nothing"
philosophy should not be allowed to
flourish in your home.
G. Automobiles.
A boy or girl under 21 has no busi
ness owning a car, period. These
young people simply don't have the
sense of moral and social responsibil
ity that should go hand-in-hand with
the ownership of an automobile.
Now I don't mean by this that it's
wrong for properly licensed boys or
girls to drive the family car under
effective parental supervision. There
are many circumstances under which
boys and girls put automobiles to con
structive use as, for example, the lad
carrying rural newspapers or driving
a delivery truck.
But the key to the automobile prob
lem is proper adult supervision and
this is difficult, indeed, when the juve
nile owns the car. Youngsters who
buy automobiles legitimately are faced
with the constant drain of buying gas
and maintaining it, a problem that too
many of them solve with a siphon
hose or money stolen from home. A
large percentage of sex offenses can
also be traced directly to juvenile
ownership of cars.
7. Drugs and Narcotics.
The lowest filth in our society are
the people who sell dope to children.
A startling number of young people
Li V'
have experimented with it particu
larly with marijuana which grows
wild in many parts of the country.
Parents should learn to recognize
marijuana cigarets; the shape is dif
ferent hand-rolled and tucked in
and the odor is pungent and weedy.
There should be no temporizing with
dope peddlers or children who are
becoming victims of the habit. Both
should be dealt with severely.
8. Movies, Radio, and Television.
Much of the inspiration for the ju
venile crimes of today comes from
motion pictures, radio, and television,
where the gunman, the outlaw, the
illicit lover, the gangster is often glor
ified and at the very least is made
out as a perfectly normal and neces
sary part of our civilization.
The hope that the men who produce
this junk would be sufficiently en
lightened to police themselves and ac
cept their tremendous responsibility
in building youthful morals . and
standards intelligently and construc
tively is apparently useless. They have
demonstrated that the certainty of
dollar profit in smut and violence is
more important to them than the
moral profit in constructive fare.
So it's up to parents to know what
their children are watching and hear
ing, and to exercise some intelligent
restraint for them. Parents also have
the power of life and death over what
is shown on television. Get vocal.
Make yourself heard. Refuse to buy
products. You'll get results.
9. Alcohol.
Between one-fourth and one-half of
all the cases that came into Boy's
Court during my service there had
alcohol in the picture somewhere.
Either the children were under the
influence, or they had been neglected
and turned loose on society by alco
holic parents. This is a startling and
depressing figure. It indicates to me
that the use of liquor in American
homes is so far out of bounds that
almost half of our young people are
either permitted to use it themselves
or see nothing wrong with it as a re
sult of home experiences.
10. Unsupervised Group Life.
It would be both foolish and useless
to forbid our young people to organize
( Continued on pag 9)
Family Weekly, March 15, 1959
7