The Delinquent Child and the Home
Chapter 1: Description of the Inquiry
Sophonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott
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THIS inquiry into the work of the juvenile court was undertaken in the hope that two ends might be accomplished: (1) a better understanding of the needs of all children, based upon a more exact knowledge of the conditions surrounding the special group studied; (2) a more intelligent judgment with reference to the possible usefulness of the juvenile court in serving children, and the lines along which that institution should be developed.
The court deals under the statutes with three classes of children-[1] (I) dependent or neglected children, that is, children who are destitute or homeless; (a) truant children, children who have not attended school as the compulsory education law requires; and (3) delinquent children, children "who violate any law, who are incorrigible, who knowingly associate with vicious persons, who are growing up in idleness and crime, who knowingly frequent a disorderly gaming house."
The three groups are brought into court by different processes, for different causes, and are supposedly in need of different kinds of treatment. It is clear, however, that no hard and fast lines can be drawn between them. Some children will be brought in first as dependent or truant and afterwards as delinquent; others are at the same time both dependent and delinquent, or truant and delinquent, or truant and dependent; while still others are so affected by experiences which have come to them without fault on their part that, although technically dependent, they are in fact not fit companions for children who have no corresponding knowledge of wrongdoing, and must be treated as if they were themselves delinquent. This difficulty of classification manifests itself in the tables presenting the lists of offenses for which delin-
(12) -quent boys and girls are brought to court.[2] In these tables truancy and dependency are included as if they were delinquent charges, a seeming confusion which is due to the fact that children are sometimes committed to a delinquent institution and therefore treated as if they were in fact delinquent, when the charge in the court record may be only "lack of care," "death of mother and drunken father," "desertion of father and drunkenness of mother," or some similar charge against the home. But children who have been so criminally neglected, even if they have themselves committed no offense, are often contaminated by their surroundings. For this reason it sometimes becomes necessary to place them in institutions with delinquent children in order to protect other dependent children whose experiences have not been demoralizing. This apparent confusion in classification becomes therefore an evidence of the effort made by the court to treat children according to their needs, unhampered by any arbitrary system of definition or classification.
Although no clear line can in fact be drawn between any two of these groups of children who are brought before the court for purposes of treatment, they are, as has been pointed out, distinguished in the juvenile court law, and the delinquent group as defined in the statute was selected as the first subject of the inquiry.[3] This group was selected in part because of the peculiar interest attaching to the problems of offending children in relation to our judicial and penal system, and in part because, while the situation of the delinquent child is a more striking and obviously appealing one, the problems presented to the court by the offenses of delinquent children are not so fundamentally difficult as those presented by the poverty and helplessness of the dependent group.
It was clear at the outset that a study of the delinquent wards of the court would divide itself into three parts: (1) a discussion of the court in its legal and constitutional aspects;
( 13) (2) a study of the conditions from which delinquent children come, together with an analysis of the problems presented to the court by these conditions; (3) a detailed account of the administrative questions connected with the organization and procedure of the court.
The present volume deals only with the second of these lines of inquiry; that is, the court in its relation to the families and homes from which its delinquent wards have come. A study of the court in its legal aspects, with a presentation of the authorities and principles underlying this apparently novel invasion of parental right on the part of the community and its assumption of the duties hitherto laid solely upon parents, is presented in the first of the appendices in this volume. It may be said here, however, that there is nothing novel in the assumption by the state of the care of the weak and defenseless, among whom the children that become wards of the court may surely be counted. It should also be said that although the parent, and especially the father, was in earlier times allowed very great power, he was never under English or American law held responsible for exercising that power in behalf of the child. The only novel features characteristic of the court are, first, the ability to carry into practice principles long recognized and, second, the formulation of new principles of parental duty which bring the legal conception of the rights of parents into accord with the legal principles governing all those instances in which the community allows one individual the exercise of any compulsory control over the person and conduct of another. In a community which has abandoned slavery as a possible human relationship, power exercised by one person over another must be exercised in behalf of and for the benefit of that other, and the community must always be able to judge whether or not it is in any particular instance being so exercised. A means of thus judging and standardizing this exercise of parental power has been devised by the creation of the juvenile court.
With this statement regarding the selection and limitation of the subject, it becomes important to describe in detail the sources of information and the methods employed in the investigation, in order that the results may be correctly understood. The court records themselves constituted the initial body of data and
( 14) served as the starting point and basis for the whole inquiry.[4] With the approval of the county officers and of the Judge then sitting, the records of all the delinquent cases handled by the court from July 1, 1899, the date of its establishment, to June 30, 1909, the close of its first decade of work, were transcribed and tabulated.
Data were obtained from these records as to the number, nationality, and age of the children brought into court each year and the disposition which was there made of their cases. These records, however, furnished very little information concerning the child's family and home; and the occasional statements regarding the health, employment, or school record of the children were too fragmentary to be of value. It was therefore decided to visit the homes and talk with the parents of a large group of children in order to obtain such data as were necessary for a more detailed and thorough study of the conditions surrounding the delinquent children of the court. It was obviously impossible to visit the homes of all these children; but it was thought that a representative group could be obtained out of the whole number by selecting
( 15) for this more intensive study those of the children brought to court during a single year.[5] The year 1903-04 was selected for this purpose for several reasons. The court had had four years in which to develop its methods of dealing with the child both within and without the court room. Four years [6] had elapsed since the children to be investigated had become wards of the court, so that in many instances the effect of the guardianship of the court and the care of the probation officers could be observed and to a certain. extent estimated It was hoped that by approaching the members of the. child's family and by interviewing the probation officers who had been in intimate contact with the child, all possible views of the work of the court might be obtained. Such facts as pressing poverty, unfamiliarity with the needs of childhood in a great city, the cupidity of parents who preferred the purchase of a house to the education of their children, family dissension, degradation in the home, the possible shortcomings of the school system, the lack of playgrounds in congested neighborhoods, were seen to be of primary importance in interpreting the offense of the child and in setting out the problem to be handled by the court. The special relation of the parents to the court; their attitude towards the probation officer who is, in effect, an official foster-parent; the extent of their co-operation with the officer in the past and their suggestions as to other possible sources of aid, were deemed of real significance. It was also thought that their view of the manner in which the work was being organized in its early years would be well worth obtaining. It was of course recognized that in some instances an inquiry involving a personal interview by an outside investigator with the parent or child might interfere with the work of the probation
(16) officer. I n all cases of doubt, therefore, the question as to whether a visit to the home should be made or not was left to the decision of the officer.[7]
Neither the Family Schedule nor the Probation Schedule provided evidence as to the child's own judgment upon his experience or its causes. Nor did it seem practicable, since a volume on truancy was planned at the same time, to make a thorough study of the child's educational opportunities here. In the hope of securing some evidence, however, both as to his educational opportunities and as to his present educational and industrial situation, a School Statement was prepared to be filled out by the child whenever possible.[8]
It was realized that an attempt to discuss with the members of a family an episode which might be recalled only with chagrin was a difficult undertaking. The utmost regard was of course shown for the feelings of those approached, and while in the great majority of cases both father and mother welcomed an opportunity to discuss the misfortune which had befallen their child, in a few instances objection was made, and the investigator withdrew. The plan of approach in the sequence of questions was developed wholly with the desire of making plain to the parents the interest felt in their individual child not only as a representative of many others who might be more effectively protected in the future, but as one to whom the investigation might possibly render a direct service. For example, one practical result of the inquiry was the release from probation of a considerable number of boys who were found to be no longer in need of supervision but into whose cases the court, because of pressure of work, had been unable to go.
A study of the offenses for which girls were brought to court [9]
(17) showed that the great majority of them were surrounded by overwhelming perils besetting their virtue, and it became apparent that the question of the conditions which make possible such offenses as the court records indicated on the part of little girls constitutes a problem of great importance. In the organized vice of our cities there may exist a situation which is apparently beyond the possibility of other forms of investigation than those based on careful records kept during long periods of time by duly constituted medical and police authorities. But the things that happen to little thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen-year-old girls may, and indeed must, be looked into; and the surrounding circumstances of the abnormal relationships entered into by them are pressing subjects for interested and sympathetic inquiry.
In spite of the urgent need for such an investigation, peculiar difficulties were encountered in using the family schedule for delinquent girls. Those who were not fully informed as to the purpose and methods of the investigation feared lest the reputations of some of the girls might be injured by the visits of the investigators. Because of such objections it became necessary to devise some other method of obtaining information regarding the homes and families of these delinquent girls. The plan therefore of visiting the homes of all the girls brought into court during the year 1903-04, as was done in the case of the boys, was abandoned.
A source of information which was believed to be free from any objection, was the State Training School for Girls. Here, it was hoped, the histories of the girls who were still in the institution might be obtained and visits made to the homes from which they had been committed, without the slightest fear that their reputations would suffer by the inquiry. With the consent of the superintendent of the school, an investigator was admitted to residence and allowed to secure all possible data from the records, besides being given the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the girls and of learning as much as was possible of their personal histories.[10]
( 17)
The relationship established between the investigator and the girls was in most instances a pleasant one, and a further inquiry into their home surroundings became possible. Although the investigator endeavored to interview all the girls in the institution, no attempt was made to visit any homes outside of Chicago. Family schedules were secured for 157 Chicago girls. Since these covered a group which was not only special but very small, the data are not presented in tables as comparable with the data obtained from the boys' schedules.
From the beginning it was understood that, in an inquiry like this, it would be impossible to obtain an adequate idea of the relation between delinquency and any subnormal or abnormal physical or mental conditions.[11] The family schedules, however, furnished a considerable number of cases in which mental weakness was suggested as the explanation of the child's offense; cases, for example, in which according to the mother's statement the boy was "weak in the head" or "silly" or "weak-minded," or in which the probation officer designated him as "mentally deficient." Such cases furnish the basis of a claim for much greater care in the selection and training of abnormal and subnormal children by the schools and by such other agencies as may reach them in time to save them and their families the pain and humiliation of being summoned to court on a delinquency charge.
While an attempt has been made to utilize the most serviceable methods of presenting the material gathered, it should perhaps be explained that those who have had the inquiry in charge have realized constantly that the most important considerations could not be reduced to percentages, and a brief summary of the facts in the case of each child for whom reasonably complete data were obtained was, therefore, prepared in the form, not of a "family monograph," but of a brief "family paragraph." Constant reference is made to these paragraphs in the following chapters, and while the publication of the entire number was impossible, they seemed so full of interest and significance that a considerable
(19) number of those in which the information was most complete or illuminating will be found in appendices to this volume.[12]
And, finally, before passing on to a presentation of the statistical material and a discussion of the results of the inquiry, it seems necessary that some further word should be said about the juvenile court itself, which will make more clear to the reader the essential nature of the problem to be set forth in the following chapters. It has already been pointed out that the present volume deals with the delinquent child in his relation to the home and family surroundings, and that no attempt will be made here to discuss the considerations which led to the establishment of a court for offending children. The investigation has been rather a study of the difficulties presented to the modern industrial and commercial city by the presence of childhood and the "spirit of youth" in its crowded tenement districts. This problem as it presents itself to the court is that of discovering how far it may be safe to leave the children brought before it under supervision in their old surroundings, or how far the conditions from which they have come as delinquent boys and girls are irremediable and necessitate their removal to new conditions. It may appear that one service, if not the great service, of the juvenile court is that of laying bare such needs of the young as have not been met and of making plain the consequences to the individual child, and to the group in which the child is the most important member, of the failure to meet those needs.
In undertaking to supervise and to standardize the care of children within the family group, or, when separation from the family is found necessary, without the family group, the court undertakes as difficult a task as has ever been attempted by the community through any agent. To perform this task adequately there is required a clear understanding of the principles underlying sound family life; a familiarity with the various ideals of family relationship dominant among the different national groups; the ability to distinguish between the conditions resulting from poverty and misfortune and those which are the outcome of degraded and immoral living; the willingness to make use of all co-operating
( 20) agencies; the patience necessary to devise and execute a wise and well thought out plan looking toward the saving of the child with his family, if possible; without, and sometimes in spite of, his natural guardians, if necessary. Great wisdom, intelligence, patience, devotion, and tact are evidently required of the court and its agents. Careful administrative methods must be developed, while the largest flexibility must be permitted in dealing with the families of children who have come under its guardianship.
Obviously such delicate and important machinery can be perfected only after a considerable time; and not until experiments, perhaps marked often by failure, have been tried again and again, can the best method be finally selected. The court and its agents will inevitably be awkward at first as they are called upon to deal with new and unfamiliar situations. Moreover, from time to time as new situations develop and new tasks present themselves, the present resources of the court will appear to be pitifully inadequate. But it is only as the court tries to make full use of its opportunities that its lack of equipment becomes evident. And this evidence of poor equipment is, therefore, only an evidence of better endeavor.
In the following pages, then, may be expected evidences of the court's newness; of its need of wisdom based upon longer experience; of its lack of adequate equipment for its task. As the wrongs to children often take on hideous shapes, much that is painful and revolting must be faced when the foul conditions out of which delinquent children sometimes come are uncovered; and- there must be expected descriptions of degrading situations, too often deliberately overlooked; detailed accounts of the effects upon the family group of misfortune, incompetence, and lack of intelligence; as well as the setting forth of the simple inability to meet alone, under present-day conditions, the requirements and responsibilities of family li
