Teen-Age Criminals

by JUDGE ELIJAH ADLOW

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AN ATTEMPT to protect juveniles from the contaminating influences of adolescents and adults has resulted in the establishment in many places of separate and independent courts for juvenile offenders. My court has no jurisdiction over juveniles, which means that all offenders under seventeen years of age are handled by the judges of a specially constituted Juvenile Court. This does not mean that the juvenile is a stranger to my court. In fact, one of the alarming conditions that contribute to the contemporary moral crisis derives from the number of crimes which are committed, in whole or in part, by juveniles. For the purposes of this article I shall not limit my observations to those under seventeen years of age, but shall consider all adolescents.

Not long ago two girls, aged nine and eleven, appeared in my court and by their testimony involved fifteen men in charges of most serious sex offenses. It was evident from the testimony given by these girls that in certain instances the girls solicited the men to commit the acts with which they are now charged. This is not the first time that unusually young girls have become involved with men. Since the beginning of World War II the abandonment of domestic responsibilities by many mothers in exchange for jobs in industry has left countless children in America to rear themselves. It was inevitable that some of these children would speedily show evidences of neglect. The direct result of this absenteeism from the home was noticeable during the war, when many cases involving indecent assaults on children and similar offenses were brought into the courts. The judges expected that with the return to normalcy, and the return of mothers to their homes, the conditions would abate. Unfortunately, a good many mothers who left home for a job are still working, and their families are expected to bring themselves up the best way they can.

What makes the revolt of modern youth serious is that it bears little resemblance to what was once viewed as juvenile delinquency. There was a time when the difference between a bad boy and a playful boy was merely one of degree. Today the crimes of violence in which the young indulge can never be mistaken for boyish pranks. The many cases of malicious destruction of property that have entailed great loss to the public are not the cumulative consequence of youthful exuberance but the product of calculated and planned mischief. The many assaults with dangerous weapons, some of which have had fatal consequence, are the acts of irresponsible desperadoes which differ little from the planned attacks on society by adult outlaws.

More alarming are the thefts and holdups. The petty pilferings that once represented a boy’s transgressions were largely restricted to doormats, ash barrels, and milk bottles. But in the past few years I have had an eighteen-year-old boy in my court who, while employed by a wholesale electric supply house, loaded $10,000 worth of electric equipment on a freight elevator, lowered the elevator to the ground floor, and then secured a truckman to cart away the loot. Three boys, all seventeen years of age, were before me charged with breaking and entering and larceny. After getting an automobile, these boys broke into a Surplus War Goods Store and carted away $3500 worth of merchandise. Two others in the same age group looted the warehouse of a jewelry novelty wholesaler and carried away $6000 worth of merchandise. After making their getaway they stored the loot in a safe place and canvassed the community until they found an operator of a jewelry store who would buy the goods from them. There is nothing “juvenile” about this kind of delinquency.

Recently four boys, all under twenty-one, brazenly attempted to secure the release of a sixteenyear-old girl who was in the custody of the Massachusetts Youth Service Board at the Lancaster School for Girls. This is not the first time that young desperadoes have attempted to force the release of inmates in correctional institutions. The bold daring revealed in these escapades merely reflects the cold-blooded indifference of modern youths to the penal consequences of their acts. Nothing is done halfheartedly. So far as youth is concerned, its war against society is total war.

No juvenile groups have yet duplicated the adventures of Murder, Inc. Yet there is ample evidence of their imitation of the extortion and blackmail gangs that have enjoyed nation-wide notoriety. Several months ago five boys between fifteen and seventeen were tried before a Suffolk County jury for extorting money from young boys by threatening them with bodily harm. Despite the conviction of two of these defendants by the jury, the disposition of the cases by probation of the offenders revealed a reluctance on the part of the court to take the entire matter very seriously. In this the court was displaying an attitude consistent with that of courts the country over, of indulging in wishful thinking wherever juvenile delinquency is concerned. If there is a serious juvenile delinquency condition in America today, the courts must share a part of the responsibility for it, but that share is insignificant when compared with the major factors which underlie the condition.

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WE MUST remember the setting in which the modern youth plays his role. He reacts to environment as grownups do. It would be absurd to expect that at a time when adult America is indulging in an orgy of lawlessness, youth should reveal moderation and restraint. We cannot deny that the standards of communal morality have been lowered by this generation. An age that has witnessed more drinking, more gambling, and a more widespread indulgence in luxuries and comforts than ever before is bound to witness a gradual disappearance of those primitive virtues which sterner and more sober generations nourished and applauded.

The authority of parents has been weakened. And for the impairment of this most important element in character building the parents themselves are to blame. In many homes parents have viewed their responsibilities in a detached and indifferent manner, and their children could really be said to have been left to bring themselves up. I have had frequent, occasion in recent years to interview young people who intended to marry and who applied to me for a waiver of the five-day law. I always inquire of these young people whether they have consulted their parents. I have been particularly careful to bring home to servicemen who are away from their parents the propriety of confiding in them before taking such a serious step as matrimony. While some have assured me that they already had obtained their parents’ approval, I have been shocked at the number who reply, “Whatever I do is all right with my folks.”

A generous application of liberal principles, so called, has resulted in parents’ overindulging children and allowing them to do as they please. That they should gratify every whim, express themselves freely, do just as their “little hearts” desire, and have everything they want has been not only tolerated but encouraged. Instead of inhibiting violent tendencies and molding character by strict supervision and guidance, parents have deliberately refrained from stifling the impulses of youth lest, some latent talent be frustrated. As a result, bedlam reigns where once was “Home, Sweet Home.”

A generation that has been encouraged to express itself freely will little hesitate to join in those “pranks” which amount to vandalism and the malicious destruction of property. The monuments which have been disfigured, the public buildings that have been damaged, and the streetcars that have been wrecked combine to discredit a theory of child guidance which frowns upon restraint. Children can hardly be expected to respect the property of strangers when their destructive tendencies have known no curb in the home.

Frequently these youngsters come from good homes; their parents are excellent people, and no effort or cost has been spared to fit the children properly for their place in society. Consider the hoodlumism revealed by the raids on girls’ dormitories by college boys in recent years, and it will readily appear that delinquency is not merely a problem of the slums. If children from the so-called better homes can share in this epidemic of disorder, what can we expect from those who have been denied the care of good and considerate parents? Children who are brought up in an atmosphere of drunkenness and brawling, who witness parents committing assaults upon each other, and who daily see the laws of God and man violated in their homes would have to be more than human if the atmosphere in which they were brought up did not leave its stamp upon them. Such homes are nothing less than breeding places for crime, and the records of our courts go to prove it.

A substantial portion of the young offenders brought into court come either from broken homes where the parents are living apart, from homes rendered destitute by the chronic alcoholism of one or both parents, or from homes presided over by parents with long criminal records. The stories disclosed by the police about conditions in these homes are unfit to print. Some are beyond belief. If the conditions which exist in some were ever brought to light, the public would wonder why the delinquency problem is not worse. It can be said with truth that some of these children never had a chance.

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MODERN youth has a great deal of time on its hands. Actually, a shortsighted legislative policy has forbidden young people to engage in many pursuits which once afforded opportunities for wholesome employment. I have seen prosecutions under the Child Labor Law which did more harm than good. I have in mind particularly the owner of a cleansing and dyeing shop whose fifteen-year-old brother helped him after school and who was brought into my court for violating the Child Labor Law. If a young man is not as anxious to work as he might be, let us remember that laws like that have helped estrange him from habits of industry.

There can be no question that the improvement in the condition of the average man, with its increase in earnings, has contributed radically to the change in attitude of parents. Most of them overlook the part which strict discipline, scanty allowances, and hard work played in their moral and physical upbringing. Instead they are determined to give to their children what was denied to them. They buy them better clothes, provide them with larger allowances, enable them to participate in sports, to attend movies, to enjoy summer vacations, and to do all those things calculated to make life agreeable. They not only relieve them of the little tasks or chores which once were a part of a boy’s life, but they even frown on the performance of any manual labor, particularly for hire. The industry that was once encouraged in youth as a virtue is now regarded as an interference with the right to enjoy life.

This generosity on the part of parents has had an evil effect on the generation upon which it has been lavished. The little gifts which once provided the great incentive to youth for obedience and industry are now without effect. What was once awaited as an act of kindness and generosity is now demanded as a right. And the kindness of parents which makes occasional work unnecessary has resulted in building up in Young America a pronounced aversion for manual labor and toil. Fifty years ago the popular hero of fiction for our youth was Horatio Alger; today it is Superman. Instead of having its feet on the ground and being conscious of the stern realities of life, our younger generation has its head in the clouds and looks down on its parents as oldfashioned and out-of-date. The parents wanted a generation of “gentlemen” and they got them.

They forget that it is important that they be “men ” first. On behalf of our youth, it can be said that the parents wanted it that way.

Equally devastating to youth is the noticeable weakening of the moral viewpoint wherever we turn. The nineteenth century may have been hypocritical in its severity, but it extolled virlue and denounced vice and sin. There are serious differences of opinion as to the long-range implications of nineteenth-century austerity and severity, but for youth it meant a high moral standard which served to inhibit lust, to promote modesty and respect, and to encourage obedience to law.

This moral viewpoint has been weakened today by an amazing combination of social, economic, and political factors. One hundred years ago gambling was considered the pastime of the wicked; today it has the sanction of authority in the form of legalized pari-mutuel betting. One hundred years ago the moral forces in America waged a relentless war against alcoholism and managed to keep the evil under a fair measure of control; today we are paying an exorbitant price for the experiment; of Prohibition in the form of an unlimited distribution of alcoholic beverages. What is called the licensing system is nothing more than a token regulation. As a consequence teen-age drinking has become a major aspect of the problem of juvenile delinquency.

Equally marked are the changes in concepts of decency and honor. We read in the daily paper that a judge has ruled in the Federal Court that even though a man had been convicted on several occasions of violating liquor and gambling laws, he is still worthy of becoming an American citizen. On another occasion we read of a judge stopping deportation proceedings against a criminal who had twice been convicted of manufacturing slugs which could be used in slot machines. This judge’s pronouncement to the effect that such a crime did not involve the element of moral turpitude should suffice to alert us to the depreciated moral viewpoint of today.

Let us examine the headlines a bit further. A judge before whom an embezzler stands, makes the injudicious remark, in condoning the offense, ”His pay was too low.” What effect has such comment on the moral viewpoint of youth? Or let us consider the extreme in official bungling, when a deputy warden in a state prison publicly applauded the conduct of a group of prisoners who had mutinied against prison discipline. When public officials condone lawlessness, is it any wonder that young people become indifferent to high standards?

How has the class war in America affected youth’s moral viewpoint? Whether one believes in labor’s right to strike or not, it must be apparent to everyone that the chronic condition of unrest on the labor front, punctuated by occasional outbreaks of violence and lawlessness, has had sinister implications for the cause of law and order. Its impact on young people has been noticeable, as is evident from their readiness to join in any mass demonstration promoting any cause.

Several years ago 3000 New York City high school children picketed the mayor’s office for four days shouting, “We want more pay for our teachers.” On the fifth day there was no demonstration; it was Saturday and there was no school.

In glancing through the newspapers of the last few years, we can find ample evidence of the activities of boys and girls as agitators. They picket City Hall to protest against closing a fire station or abandoning a school site. They join a strike called in protest against a change in the high school curriculum or the transfer of an athletic coach. Possibly these children have serious notions regarding the objectives which such practices promote; but, at the same time, the whole thing coincides with what their juvenile minds regard as “good fun.” That the ultimate consequences of these demonstrations are to exalt insubordination and to weaken the arm of constituted authority hardly occurs to them. They have become pawns in the hands of those who thrive on agitation and unrest.

Not only our youths but our grownups have wilted under the spectacle of a viciously waged class war. In no small measure has the indifference of authority to the violence and lawlessness of the labor struggle resulted in a disrespect for law. On the political front the condition is equally disruptive. In recent years there has been an intensification of the struggle for political power in the United States. And the condition is evident at all levels of the political hierarchy. It derives principally from the fact that party government has been supplanted by gang government, and the officeholder wields power by virtue of his personal ascendancy. As a consequence he is campaigning for office 365 days in the year. Those who seek to replace him are equally active and vigorous. This war is being waged with the weapons of the forum; with crimination and recrimination; with sly innuendo and downright bombast. Young people are spectators in this war, and they gaze at the spectacle somewhat bewildered. They emerge from the experience with a feeling that a great many people are being entrusted with the powers of government without regard to their merit or personal integrity. If youth is waging a revolt against authority today, it is because conditions on the home front have done much to discredit a uthority.

Recently in Redwood City, California, a schoolteacher took his pupils to a nearby courthouse in order to show them “how justice works.” In court the judge helped the show along by asking to see the teacher’s driving license. When the judge discovered that the teacher’s license had already expired, he immediately issued a summons to the teacher to appear before him on the charge of driving without a license. Such a judge is a menace. Instead of exalting the teacher in the eyes of his pupils, he discredited him and thereby undermined his authority in the classroom. In every sense he was contributing to the delinquency of a group of minor children. Every day in the year, and all over the United States, people who should know better are doing equally stupid things with no other objective than to appear smart.

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TO WHAT extent has the cultural setting in which modern youth lives been responsible for the moral breakdown? No one can deny that the world of today is a much more interesting place for boys and girls than that of the nineteenth century. They have movies, radio, television, and the modern newspaper. Millions of dollars are being spent each day to provide programs that will arouse their interest and entertain them. Some of these items are educational as well as entertaining. Doubtless many of them serve to improve the moral viewpoint of those reached by them. Others have questionable value as educational items, and there are some which are a distinct menace to the morals of the community.

We must never underestimate the role played by suggestion in influencing the behavior of youth. Thirty years ago, in the city of Boston, a boy who had escaped from a correctional institution sent out word that he intended to steal a car and race it through certain streets of Charlestown which were known as “The Loop.” No such insane stunt had ever been attempted before. True to his word he appeared on the designated night and entertained thousands who had gathered to watch him, while the police, racing after him on motorcycles, made desperate but futile attempts to apprehend him. Since that night, over thirty years ago, hundreds of boys have imitated his escapade. They have stolen cars; they have killed and injured many innocent citizens. This one insane venture sufficed to set in motion a crime wave which has made the “loop speeder” a chronic problem to authority in Massachusetts.

Let us analyze a few more items which reveal youth’s readiness to imitate. Several years ago a slightly deranged veteran stepped out onto the parapet at the ninth floor level of the Hotel Touraine in Boston. For hours he held a crowd spellbound on the street below while he refused to return to a place of safety. It was unfortunate that the episode was publicized. Within a few days similar exhibitionist stunts were staged in different cities in the United States. Need I remind you that every example of unusual behavior reported in the press or portrayed on television is usually followed by a multitude of similar stunts all over the United States? Consider the outbreaks on college campuses. Not even Harvard, Yale, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology could avoid the epidemic of exhibitionism which transformed sections of their student bodies into rioting mobs.

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IF SOCIETY is bewildered by this spectacle of youth in revolt, its peace of mind has not been improved by the variety of suggestions which have been advanced to meet the situation. These all savor of the new liberalism. They ignore the part which the weakening of parental control over youth has played in precipitating the present crisis. Expanding the probation system, providing more public playgrounds, and raising the age limit for school attendance are but a few of the palliatives recommended. But no sober analysis of the problem can ignore their futility.

Human behavior is linked with character, and the process of character building commences at infancy and acquires its basic strength and quality in the home. No public agency can supply the training and instruction which a well-managed and properly supervised household affords. No one can replace parents in the training of children, and the sooner the new liberalism discovers this the sooner will it be on the right road to a solution. If society wishes to strike at the root of the evil, it must wage its campaign against those parents who refuse to discharge their responsibilities faithfully. The desire of women to retain their place in industry since the war is not without sinister implication. If the condition becomes fixed, we must expect an aggravated delinquency situation. While woman legally has a right to participate in industry, there is no moral sanction for abandoning a much more sacred responsibility. And the great decision which the modern woman must make is whether she prefers the career of motherhood to that of a worker. She cannot undertake both and succeed.

Few people see the long-range implications of juvenile delinquency. Few people realize that a majority of the men in the prisons in America today commenced their criminal careers between the ages of eight and thirteen. Some of these unfortunates had a predisposition to crime; others became criminal through their associations. As for the congenital delinquent, nothing we could have done would have spared him his fate. But the child who might have grown into an honorable career had it not been for the undesirable associations which brought him to his sad estate has a just grievance against a society that did not insulate him from these vicious influences. Policies which deny this protection to the coming generation are policies which will assure a bumper crop of criminals for the future.

I have already mentioned the calamitous consequences to the entire Boston community of the exhibitionism of the automobile-stealing, loopspeeding Jimmy Sheehan. His little crime wave turned into a major outbreak of juvenile delinquency. And the same imitation that multiplied the Jimmy Sheehans and the parapet jumpers is being discovered in the duplication of the crimes portrayed in the movies, on the radio, and on television. Left to his own resources the modern delinquent would still be indulging in the petty pilfering that once satisfied his criminal urge. In an atmosphere filled with suggestion, his criminal aspirations cease to be juvenile. It is because he is so much more dangerous today that he can no longer be treated as a child.

Within a year a seventeen-year-old boy with a record of previous arrests for larceny was apprehended in the act of stealing in a department store. As the store detective put his hand on him, the boy drew a razor and slashed the detective across the face. In my opinion this boy is a confirmed and dangerous criminal. I sentenced him to the Concord Reformatory. He appealed and I learned later that in the Superior Court his sentence was modified to one year in the House of Correction. Whether this judge’s leniency was justified, only time will tell.

Whether the generation which has disquieted our era can be set right is a great question. Some have faith that various expedients of correction and reform provide a ray of hope. In the opinion of realists, however, who have seen society struggling in vain with the problem of crime, a large portion of the delinquent group must be charged off as lost. They are the casualties of the new liberalism. The only hope for the future lies in the resurgence of the home as the basic institution of the modern world. We must recapture the spirit of the home which Our parents and grandparents knew, and young people must be brought up and not left to bring themselves up. The position of the parent must be restored to its former place of authority, and the power to govern the household must be asserted with kindness when possible and severity when necessary. Then, and only then, will character thrive and the foundation be laid for a lawabiding society.