In the case of juvenile offenders, imprisonment while awaiting trial involves the greatest dangers, for its effects may be as disastrous as those of imprisonment after sentence. The trial also involves very serious dangers. In the corridors and waiting-rooms of the law-court, the juvenile offender is kept awaiting the hearing of his case. He sees there many things new to him. He hears the conversation of the witnesses and of the other accused. He receives advice as to his bearing in the dock. A public trial is not in the least adapted to induce in the juvenile offender a sense of shame, or to awaken in him the consciousness that he has taken a wrong path. As far as he understands the matter, an imposing apparatus is at work in a fine big room; the officials of the court do their work in a cool and businesslike manner, and with an air of importance. In the court there are a number of persons drawn to the place by curiosity simply, and among these are the old associates of the accused, who watch his behaviour with an eager interest, and regard his youthful misdemeanours with indifference, or even with admiration. He feels himself to be the hero and the central figure of a drama, and this makes it even more impossible for him to follow the legal proceedings attentively, and to defend himself in a proper manner. When the trial is over, the newspapers are full of his case. If he is set at liberty he immediately becomes the centre of an admiring circle of his former associates, who listen to his words with eager attention, and encourage him to relate again and again, and with many exaggerations, the incidents of his case. _Proposed Reforms._--Gradually the idea gains ground that in the case of juvenile offenders the procedure should be totally different from what it is in the case of adults. The principal reforms that are proposed are the following. (_a_) In the case of juvenile criminals it is indispensable to do away with personal freedom. The leading principle of our penal procedure, namely, to safeguard individual liberty, is out of place in the case of juvenile offenders.