Springfield Weekly Republican

A New "Adolescents' Court"

A new attempt to deal effectively with the problem of early tendencies toward criminality was inaugurated at New York recently by the city magistrates in the establishment experimentally of an "adolescents' court," for youths of from 16 to 19. The "subjects"—as they are to be called—will be chiefly those who have been discharged in the regular magistrates' courts because of lack of evidence or failure to prosecute.

The magistrates in this supplementary service will have the cooperation of representatives of religious bodies, welfare agencies and the police.

As explained by Magistrate Goldstein at the opening session, Monday, the "subjects," for the present at least, will be voluntary. The new court will in some respects be extralegal and care will be taken that the rights of presumably innocent private citizens who submit to its ministrations will not be infringed, either by prosecution or by undue publicity. Under the law giving the magistrates jurisdiction over wayward minors, the "subjects" of the new court may, in some cases, include others than volunteers, but such inclusion is not anticipated at present. Meanwhile, to quote Magistrate Goldstein, the new court will proceed "under the statute of common sense," with a willingness to "serve."

It is proposed that those who come before the new court shall be examined with relation, for example, to their physical, mental and economic condition, and given attention accordingly—such as hospital treatment, provision of opportunity for manual training, or seeing that the family breadwinner gets a job. The purpose, in short, is to meet an obvious need which is daily disclosed in the magistrates' courts, but which hitherto there has been no legal requirement that anything shall be done about. It strikes at the root of the crime evil and commends itself as an experiment of much promise.

(October 28.)