=Domestic Relations Courts.=--When the history of cases coming before
either Children's Courts or Domestic Relations Courts is studied,
certain facts of social condition stand out prominently as causes for
juvenile delinquency. First of all, the broken family, one in which
there has been separation of father and mother, is a cause of
child-neglect and consequent wrong-doing. The death of either parent,
also, is often the cause of such unhappiness or privation in the home
as to induce disobedience to law and bring the child before a court.
The lack of employment by the father or his too low wages, which
reduces the family income dangerously and makes the mother attempt to
be both breadwinner and care-taker of the home, and hence lessens
family comfort and sends the children on the streets for amusement, is
also a cause often appearing as a reason for delinquency. The evils of
housing congestion, too many families living in one building or in one
neighborhood without chance for privacy, choice of companionship or
household arrangements conservative of domestic virtue or happiness,
these evils constitute a heavy indictment of society in the returns of
Children's Courts. The complex problems which the immigrant faces,
with his children early learning the language of the country to which
he has come, while it is to him a sealed book, are responsible for
much juvenile delinquency. Jacob Riis has told us, in compelling
description, the story of the evolution of the "gang" and of the
"tough" from the children of parents who, well-meaning and in their
own ancestral land capable of parental control, here lose command of
the family life because the children have to become the interpreters
and representatives of the family in the new country to a degree that
reverses the natural order of dependence and direction in the family
life, and gives the children undue power of leadership in family
affairs. As Professor Cooley wisely says, "It is freedom to be
disciplined in as rational a manner as you are tit for." We might give
the converse of this truth in the statement that it is not freedom but
dangerous tendency toward anarchy and disaster to be called upon for
rational decisions in advance of our intelligence and will-power, and
a tragedy to lose the habit-drill of parental control in the period of
life when that is a necessary foundation for wisdom in independent
choice. The child of the immigrant often lands in the Children's Court
not because he is bad or stupid or even mischievous by nature, but
because he is too early forced by circumstances into a position of
command and of unrestricted choice in action, due to the ease with
which the young can learn new ways and the difficulty of the old in
mastering strange language and manners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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