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HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

PBUILDER OF THE

JUVENILE COURT

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I DGE BAKER FOUNDATION

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JUDGE BAKER FOUNDATION

Publication Number i

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

UPBUILDER OF THE
JUVENILE COURT

BOSTON UNIVERSIPC

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK

LIBRARY

PUBLISHED BY THE

JUDGE BAKER FOUNDATION

BOSTON. MASS.

THE RUM FORD PRESS
CONCORD, N. H.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Frontispiece

Harvey Humphrey Baker : Man and Judge . . i

By Roy M, Cushman
Judge Baker's Review of the First Five Years

OF THE Boston Juvenile Court .... ii
Statistics, for Purposes of Comparison, of the

Second Five Years 97

Judge Baker on the Procedure of the Boston

Juvenile Court 107

The Work of the Judge Baker Foundation . 121
By William Healy and Augusta F. Bronner

BOSTON UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

MAN AND JUDGE

By Roy M. Cushman

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

MAN AND JUDGE

By Roy M. Cushman

The spread of the juvenile court idea is one of the remark-
able developments in the field of jurisprudence during the
last two decades. Among the juvenile courts of the country
the Boston Court has ranked high chiefly on account of the
eminent service of its first judge — Harvey Humphrey
Baker.

Shortly after Judge Baker died, his friends and asso-
ciates sought to establish a memorial of him and of his
work — something that would help in fostering the growth
of the juvenile court movement. A fund was raised; but
before any definite steps were taken as to the form of that
memorial, those interested realized that the practical test
of their loyalty to Judge Baker was to focus all their energy
towards the appointment of a fit successor in his work.
Their efforts were successful when Governor McCall
appointed Frederick P. Cabot. Because of Judge Cabot's
vision, the problem as to what form the memorial to Judge
Baker should take was most satisfactorily solved by the
establishment of the Judge Baker Foundation, made
possible through the further contributions of friends,
relatives and a wider group interested in the idea to which
Judge Baker had given impetus. Such a memorial could
not have been established under the leadership of any less
resourceful man than Judge Cabot. Here under the skill-
ful direction of Dr. William Healy and Dr. Augusta F.
Bronner and their assistants is carried on precisely that
kind of scientific study of problem cases of delinquency
which Judge Baker so clearly saw was necessary and which
he regarded in fact as the next step in the development of

2 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

the work of his court. There can be no finer memorial
than this for one who literally gave his life in the service
of the juvenile court.

So the original memorial fund was merged with the
larger one. There remained, however, one thing to do,
namely, to publish for the benefit of as wide a circle of
interested readers as possible a study of the first five years
of the Boston Juvenile Court made by Judge Baker himself
with characteristic care, thoroughness and searching anal-
ysis. This study is without question a most valuable
contribution to juvenile court literature, and it is printed
here in the form in which Judge Baker finally completed it.
For purposes of comparison, there have been added statisti-
cal tables for the second five years which Judge Baker had
started to compile. These have been completed by others
and are printed without special comment, except for a few
remarks to explain marked variations from the figures of
the first five years period or for some other obvious reason.

It is hoped that besides being a record, though neces-
sarily an inadequate one, of Judge Baker's work, this
study will prove helpful to students of the juvenile court
movement, and that this little volume as a whole may be a
happy reminder of Judge Baker.

Harvey Humphrey Baker was a thorough New Englander.
His Grandfather Humphrey owned a large farm on Newton
street, Brookline, Massachusetts. In the enlarged farm-
house his mother was married to James Baker, a merchant,
who came from Cape Cod, which has sent forth many of
that name to make fame for themselves and their communi-
ties. In this same farmhouse Judge Baker was born and
lived his life of forty-six years.

He prepared for college at the Roxbury Latin School,
graduated with honors from Harvard College in 1891, and
from the Law School in 1894. He began at once the

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 3

practice of law and soon became a member of the firm
later known as Hayes, Williams, Baker & Hersey, in which
connection he continued up to his death.

For a year he was clerk of the Police Court of Brookline,
and from 1895 to 1906 a special justice of that court.

He was always alive to his duties as a citizen and from
early manhood took an active speaking part in the town
meetings of Brookline. For a number of years he was one
of an advisory committee of thirty to pass upon the articles
in town warrants. He also served as trustee of the public
cemetery of the town.

In religious matters he was active, serving for years as
chairman of the standing committee of the Unitarian
church of Jamaica Plain. He was utterly free of any kind
of sectarianism. The thought side of religion and matters
of philosophy concerned him but little. If one undertook
to talk with him about these things he was likely to say,
very good-naturedly, that he was not interested. But
when it came to the reality of religion, there was no ques-
tion as to his interest and his devotion, or of the depth of
his faith.

Judge Baker's first interest in work for children dates
back to his college days when he was persuaded to under-
take the duties of visitor for one of the families in the care
of the Boston Children's Aid Society. It is interesting, in
the light of his later complete absorption in work for chil-
dren, to note that he felt himself unfitted for the task as-
signed him. But many times as judge he harked back
to his experiences as a friendly visitor, and without doubt
they helped him better to appreciate the situations of
some of the children whose lives he so profoundly influenced.

In 1895 he served as secretary of a conference of child
helping societies of Boston and vicinity and in that ca-
pacity revised and edited a Manual for Use in Cases of
Juvenile Offenders.

4 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

In 1906 when the Legislature of Massachusetts created
the Boston Juvenile Court and Governor Curtis Guild
called Harvey Baker to be its judge, the appointment was
welcomed as a most excellent and fitting one — one that
would assure the establishment of the work upon firm
foundations.

There were some, however, who, knowing the beginnings
of the juvenile court movement in Chicago and Denver,
were doubtful as to the wisdom of Governor Guild's choice,
and wondered whether Judge Baker's personality, his ante-
cedents and his training were such as to make it possible
for him to win the confidence of delinquent children. It is
undeniably true that the average layman never would
have picked Judge Baker for a successful worker with
boys. For such a position one naturally thinks of the man
with a peculiar type of personality, informal, able to meet
the boys on their own level, a man perhaps whose boyhood
had been not unlike that of those he now seeks to influence
and direct. Such a man Harvey Baker obviously was not.
Carefully nurtured, trained in self-discipline in a Puritan
household of the finest type, always free from too much
care in the matter of earning his livelihood, remaining a
bachelor — all in all, one would say, a life wholly uncal-
culated to develop an understanding of the lives of
wayward boys and girls. And yet he came to occupy a
position of leadership among the children's court judges
in the country. This success was due to many things —
to his sense of fairness, his untiring devotion to duty, his
great patience, his firmness when occasion demanded, his
judicial turn of mind, his profound legal sense and knowl-
edge of the law, his keen intelligence, his tactfulness —
but above all to the beauty, simplicity, and genuineness
of his personal character. Such a nature as his con-
quered by force of its sincerity. All who came in contact
with him were ennobled.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 5

How wonderfully was this fineness of character displayed
in his work with wayward girls! His handling of this,
perhaps the most difficult of all juvenile court problems,
was both delicate and masterly. It called forth unstinted
praise from all who had the opportunity to observe it.

Here, as in all the different kinds of cases with which
he had to deal, he seemed to be guided by a ''child sense"
which enabled him, a bachelor, to understand the problemxS
of his court far better than most fathers could have done.
His success showed that what is required in a children's
court judge is not so much the fact of parenthood as the
instinct of the father. "Did you ever see him say good-
bye to a boy, who, through successful probation, had gained
the victory over himself? That little dismal room was
then brightened with the ' light that never was on land or
sea' as, with that smile which blessed all on whom it fell,
he bade him a Godspeed and let him go."

As he understood the point of view of the child, he also
appreciated the problems of the parents. With rigid
adherence in every case to the idea of the parents' responsi-
bility for the child's conduct, he recognized how difficult
a task it is to bring up children decently in some of the
congested city neighborhoods. Invariably he insisted
upon seeing at least one, and in many instances both, of
the parents of every child who came before him.

It was often difficult, on account of the danger of losing
employment, for parents, and working children as well, to
come to court in the daytime, so with characteristic dis-
regard for his own comfort Judge Baker arranged to see
them in the evening. He had one evening session each
month regularly and many special ones, besides frequently
working by himself well into the night.

No man of Judge Baker's stamp could long continue in
work of such an intimate nature with those who, for one
reason or another, have become social misfits, without

6 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

recognizing the all too evident causes for their becoming
such — causes which go down deep and are beyond the
reach of a juvenile court as such to eradicate. Further-
more, recognizing these causes, he was impelled to do some-
thing about them. Concerning defective children he often
said: " It is not the defective who gets into my court who
bothers my conscience — we are able to do something for
him. What bothers me is that so many defectives are
allowed to drift about until they finally get into trouble
and are brought to court in disgrace, when society should
have taken them by the hand and helped them long before.**

So he lent his influence to many movements outside the
court. Most conspicuous among these was the Massa-
chusetts Society for Mental Hygiene, in the organization
of which he took a leading part, being chosen its first
president and raising through his own efforts most of the
original fund. He was secretary of the Association of
Municipal, District and Police Court Judges, and was active
in the councils of the National and State Conferences of
Charities and Correction and the National Probation
Association, having been president of the latter two.

Judge Baker was a conservative and yet he was always
forward moving. He was ever on the alert to discover
ways of improving the work of his court. Before accepting
the judgeship, he traveled about the country visiting many
of the then existing juvenile courts and institutions for
delinquent children, industrial schools, detention homes,
etc.; and throughout his administration he maintained
this student attitude, visiting wherever he could witness
the operation of some method which was proving successful
or wherever he could talk with an expert whose advice he
believed would be valuable to him. His knowledge of the
institutions to which he was sometimes called upon to
commit children was of a degree all too rarely acquired by
judges. When Judge Baker committed a child, he knew

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 7

the institution to which he was sending him. Not infre-
quently he visited him at the institution and always watched
with interest his career while there and after parole.

Coupled with this student attitude there went a quite
extraordinary habit of self scrutiny — one of the strongest
evidences of his sincerity of purpose. Never did he insist
on a policy or method because it was his. He seemed
always to be asking, ''Are we developing the court as we
should? Are results what they should be?" To help
answer these questions and to secure unbiased criticism of
his work, he invited in at his own expense a trained investi-
gator from another city who spent several days observing
the operation of the court in all its aspects. The monthly
conferences with his probation officers and the special
justices of the court were made the occasion for very care-
ful analysis of the operation of the court in both its broader
aspects and its most minute detail. These conferences
were most helpful and inspiring to the other workers in
the court and, on account of the opportunity they offered
them to know their judge in a more intimate relationship,
confirmed in them their deep devotion to him as man and
leader.

Those who knew Judge Baker only through an occasional
meeting in the somewhat formal atmosphere of his court
knew him but half. There his close application to work
crowded out some of the lighter, more lovable qualities of
his personality. Premature grayness, a rather pronounced
stoop, the habitual look of earnestness he wore made him
appear on first meeting decidedly older than his years and
led the casual observer to feel he was perhaps interested
only in the graver concerns of life. But his friends knew
him as anything but austere. Away from his work he
entered into enjoyment with zest. He loved the out-of-
doors. The joyousness and youth of his spirit were appar-
ent as he swung along a country road, head up, shoulders

8 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

squared, step jaunty, whistling a merry tune. He had a
keen sense of humor and was the life of every gathering
where he chanced to be. He had a fund of good stories
and told them well. A playful mood, which would hardly
be suspected, manifested itself in many ways. A little
daughter of one of his friends chanced to be born on Judge
Baker's birthday. When she reached her fourth year,
and he his fortieth, he greeted her thus:

"You know we two are truly twins,
But you can't crow and be real haughty,
And say you're young and I am old
Because you're four and I am forty.
A man's no older than he feels;
I still can play and be real naughty.
And every way this year we're twins,
For naught's the diff twixt 4 and 40."

Perhaps Judge Baker's greatest contribution to the
community, aside from his own devoted service, was his
development of cooperation. Work for neglected and
delinquent children focused in his court, and he was thor-
oughly acquainted with all the forces in the community
bearing upon the care of children and the improvement of
conditions affecting them. He knew where to turn for
help in any particular emergency, and commanded the
hearty support of public departments and private societies.
In a high degree he was a "socialized" judge— a type of
judge which the juvenile court has especially developed,
but which, it is hoped, will before long be the rule rather
than the exception in all courts, adult as well as juvenile,
throughout the land.

Even though in a very real sense the Boston Juvenile
Court was Judge Baker, he would have regarded his work
as in vain had it failed to affirm certain truths which out-
last any human life. His work proved the soundness of
some of the principles of the juvenile court idea — first,

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 9

that the question, "What shall we do with the offender?"
is more important than '' How shall we punish the offence?"
second, before we can decide intelligently what to do with
the offender we must know him; third, to know him takes
time.

Perhaps more than in any other particular, juvenile
court procedure differs from the procedure of the regular
criminal court in the amount of time devoted to the treat-
ment of each case. This makes the juvenile court appar-
ently more expensive, but society is learning that to take
time in the beginning to get the right hold on a problem is
not expensive in the end, and that the day must come when
an even greater amount of time will be given to the study
and treatment of offenders in all criminal courts.

Lavish as he was in the expenditure of time upon the
cases in his court — his work was truly scientific in its
thoroughness — Judge Baker realized that it was necessary
to know more about some children than any judge and his
probation officers could discover unassisted. As is seen
in his five year review, it was that realization that showed
him the need of a clinic for the study of problem cases.

And now we have such a clinic in Boston, and it is most
properly a memorial to Judge Baker and his work. The
Judge Baker Foundation is proving a most valuable adjunct
to the court, and its experts are gathering a mass of scien-
tific data which are bound to be of inestimable value in the
many problems connected with^ delinquency and crime.

Organized and at work since April, 191 7, the Foundation
is collaborating closely with Judge Cabot, the probation
officers, and the various child-helping agencies in thorough
studies of those children coming before the court whose
cases present difffculties and of those who fail to respond
to the usual treatment. The studies are divided under
three heads — medical, psychological and social. Under
Dr. Healy's direction only a general medical examination

10 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

is given, special troubles being referred to specialists. The
psychological examination is searching, the aim being to
discover possible mental defects or aberrations which
require treatment or special supervision, special capabilities
or interests that have not been developed, and matters of
mental life or of habits which need understanding. All the
social aspects of the case are got at through the investiga-
tions of the probation officers, agents of the child-helping
societies and the trained field worker on the stafT of the
Foundation. Finally all the findings are put together to
complete, as far as possible, a true picture of the significant
features of each individual case, and thus give the judge
essentially the same approach to his problems in the matter
of the relation of cause and effect as the scientist has in
his laboratory or the modern business man in his factory or
office.

Thus, though no longer here. Judge Baker's vision and
hope have become real and this is all the memorial he would
have wished.

JUDGE BAKER'S REVIEW OF THE FIRST FIVE

YEARS

OF THE

BOSTON JUVENILE COURT

JUDGE BAKER'S REVIEW OF THE FIRST FIVE

YEARS

OF THE

BOSTON JUVENILE COURT
September i, 1906- August 31, 191 1
CONTENTS

PAGE

Officers of the Boston Juvenile Court 17

Jurisdiction of the Court 18

Part I: Statistics and Statistical Comment 19

Number of Children Brought to Court 21

Causes for Which the Children Were Brought to Court ... 22

Causes for Which Girls Were Brought to Court .... 23

Disposition of the Cases 24

Delinquent and Wayward Children Ordered Committed . 24

Neglected Children Ordered Committed 25

Number of Fines Imposed 25

Amounts of Fines Imposed 25

Children Placed on Probation 26

Found not Delinquent or not Guilty . . 26

Defaults 26

Miscellaneous 26

Ages 26

Racial Extraction 27

Residence 27

Volume of Business 28

Truancy " 29

Commitments 30

Proportion of Commitments to Number of Children . . 30
Comparison of Commitments to Reform Schools between

Former Court and New Court 31

Commitments to State Board of Charity ..... 33

Fines 33

Repeating 33

Repeating in General 33

14 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

Repeating Offences Other Than Violations of Ordinances

and License Regulations 34

Repeating by Children placed on Probation .... 34
Repeating by Children Whose First Appearance Was

Subsequent to First Year 34

Figures as to Children of First Year Do not Show the

Full Amount of Repeating 34

Comparison of the Statistics with Similar Statistics

from Other Jurisdictions 35

Statistics as to Repeating as a Test of Efficiency ... 36

Part II: Methods 37

Probation 39

Probation in General 39

Daily Reports for Idle Boys 39

Restitution 40

Saving as an Antidote for Gambling 40

Evening Reports for Working Boys 40

Difficult Boys Report Frequently to the Judge ... 40

Saturday Work for Lapses of School Boy Probationers . 40

A Few Days in Jail 40

A Few Days' Detention Away from Home 41

Placing Out 41

Commitments to Institutions 41

Fines 41

in General 41

for Violation of Licenses 42

for Violation of Ordinances 42

for Gaming 42

not Imposed for Larceny 43

Permanent Adjustment the Aim 44

Neglected Children 44

Parental Responsibility Insisted On 45

Volunteers 45

Miscellaneous 46

Reports from Schools 46

Reference Bureau Consulted 46

Courts and Reformatories Consulted 47

Girls Cared for Exclusively by Women 47

Ailments Attended to 47

Feeble-Mindedness Watched for 47

Conferences with Probation Officers 47

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 15

Night Sessions 47

All the Foregoing Methods Were Available Prior to the

Legislation of 1906 47

Part III: Detention Pending Arraignment, Hearing And

Disposition 49

In General 51

Police Stations 5^

Private Families for Girls 52

Private Families for Boys 52

House of the Angel Guardian 53

Suffolk County Jail 53

Should There Be a Detention Home 53

State Board of Charity 56

Part IV: Appeals 57

Part V: Relations with Other Agencies 63

Cooperation of the School Department 65

Cooperation of the Police Department 65

Assistance of Private Societies 66

Assistance of Physicians 67

The Press Have Been Considerate 68

Part VI: Expense and Benefits of the Court .... 69

Expense of Conducting the Present Court 71

Expense of Conducting Juvenile Business in the Former Court 71

Benefits from the New Court 72

Shown by Statistics 72

in Care of Children Arrested 73

in the Handling of Girls 74

in Neglect Cases 74

in Other Cases 75

from Restricted Attendance in Hearing Room . . 76

Part VII: Recommendations 77

Clinic for the Intensive Study of Bafffing Cases .... 79

More Probation Ofificers and Office Stenographers .... 80

Make Parents Contribute to Support of Children Committed . 82

Payment by Probationers of Expense of Probation ... 83

All License Violations to Be Dealt with by School Authorities . 84

Employment for Probationers 85

Better Provision for Appeals 86

Better Quarters for Probation Officers 86

i6 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

Part VIII: General Comment on the New Law, Probation

AND THE Alleged Increase in Juvenile Delinquency . 87
New Law Has not Curtailed the Power to Arrest Juveniles

and Commit Them to Reform Schools 89

Fines May Still be Imposed 89

New Law Increases Power of Courts 89

Advantages of Probation 90

Deterrent Effect of Commitment Over-Estimated .... 91
Increase in Violations of Law by Juveniles in Suburban Dis-
tricts Would Be in No Wise Alarming 92

Juvenile Courts only Remedial Institutions ...... 93

Appendix

Results of Saving in Cases of Probation for Gambling ... 95

OFFICERS

OF THE

BOSTON JUVENILE COURT

1 906-1 91 1

Justice

Harvey H. Baker

Special Justices

Frank Leveroni
Philip Rubenstein

Clerk

Charles W. M. Williams

Probation Officers

Samuel C. Lawrence (agent of the Boston children's Aid
Society*) pro tempore Sept. I, 1906-July 3I, I907

John A. Elliott (agent of the St. Vincent de Paul Society*)
pro tempore Sept. I, 1906-Dec. 3I, I906

ClarenceE.Fitzpatrick Jan. i, 1907-Sept. i, 1911
Roy M. Cushman Aug. i, 1907-

Agent of the Council of Jewish Women attending the court
in the nature of a probation officer for Jewish children
Rosa Z. Krokyn Sept. i, 1906-Dec. i, 1909

Katharine Weisman Dec. i, 1909-

Agent of the St. Vincent de Paul Society attending the
court in the nature of a probation officer for Catholic girls
Elizabeth J. McMahon Feb. i, 1907-July i, 1910
Lillian F. Foss July i, 1910-

* The Children's Aid Society and the St. Vincent de Paul Society gave the
court the full services of these experienced court agents for a large part of the
first year. This generous arrangement was extremely valuable because it
gave the court at the outset experienced service and enabled the court to pro-
ceed with due deliberation in the choice of permanent probation officers.

JURISDICTION OF THE COURT

Roughly speaking the court has jurisdiction of all chil-
dren under seventeen years of age who commit offences in
the business district and the North, West, and South Ends,
and the Back Bay. It has no authority whatever over
children who commit offences in other parts of the city,
and has nothing whatever to do with them in any way.

The boundary lines of the territory over which the court
has jurisdiction run as follows, viz.:

Beginning at the intersection of Massachusetts avenue with Charles
River; thence by Massachusetts avenue, the Providence Division of the
N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R., Camden, Washington, East Lenox, Fellows,
Northampton, Albany streets, Massachusetts avenue, the Roxbury Canal,
East Brookline street extended, the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R., the water
line of South Boston, Bristol street extended, and the water line of the
City proper, to the point of beginning.

The only cases in which the court ever has anything to
do with a child from outside that territory are those in
which such a child comes inside that territory and commits
an offence there.

PART I

STATISTICS AND STATISTICAL COMMENT

PART I
STATISTICS AND STATISTICAL COMMENT

NUMBER OF CHILDREN BROUGHT TO COURT

The Boston Juvenile Court completed its first five years
on August I, 191 1. During those five years 5,520 different
children were brought before the court, 4,638 v/ere boys
and 882 were girls. Of these children 4,719 were delin-
quent or wayward and 801 neglected. Of the delinquent
and wayward children, 4,254 were boys and 465 were girls.

The figures for the different years are as follows:*

igo6-7 1907-8 1Q08-9 1909-10 1910-11 Total
Delinquent Boys ....
Delinquent Girls. . . .
Total Delinquent

Children 1,031

Neglected Children . . .

* Adding the figures given in this table will give a total exceeding the real
total of children brought before the court in five years, because there are a
number of instances of the same child being brought before the court in more
than one year.

Wayward children are included with delinquent children in this table as
the nature of their cases does not differ materially in most instances from those
of delinquent children. A wayward child is defined by statute as a child who
habitually associates with vicious and immoral persons or is growing up in
circumstances exposing him to lead an immoral, vicious or criminal life. A
delinquent child is one who is proved to have committed some specific offence.

950

1,115

1,146

942

920

5.073

113

102

477

,031

1,228

1,245

1,044

1,002

5.550

196

185

199

156

829

22 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

CAUSES FOR WHICH THE CHILDREN WERE BROUGHT TO COURT

1906-y 1907-8 1908-9 1909-10 1910-11 Total

Assault and Battery
(including 2 cases of

Manslaughter) 66 112 79 70 59 386

* Robbery, Breaking
and Entering, Lar-
ceny, Receiving Stolen
Property, Using Vehi-
cles without Permis-
sion, Forgery, and
False Pretences 415 567 371 444 412 2,20^

Fornication, Idle and
Disorderly, Lewd,
Wanton and Lascivi-
ous, Rape (i case),
Unnatural Acts,
Exposure of Person,
Obscene Pictures 17 22 29 28 18 114

Stubborn Children and

Runaways 52 68 49 36 49 254

Gambling 93 114 130 177 128 642

Drunkenness 6 7 10 9 10 42

Miscellaneous Statutory
Misdemeanors (includ-
ing Breaking Glass
and other forms of
Trespass, Loitering at
R. R. Stations, Beg-
ging, Disturbing the
Peace, etc.) 97 119 104 93 62 475

Violation of City Ordi-
nances, such as
Playing Ball in the
Street, SteaHng Rides
on Cars, etc 165 222 335 126 139 1,087

Violation of License

Regulations 78 125 282 152 229 866

Truancy 95 64 51 38 19 267

Waywardness 35 52 34 51 45 217

Violation of Probation ... 6 11 9 20 13 59

i,i25t i,483t 1483! i,244t i,i83t 6,5o8t
Neglect 93 196 185 199 156 829

* There were 30 cases of Robbery in the 5 years.

t The total causes for which children were brought to court in any year
exceeds the number of children brought to court in that year, because in some
instances the same child came in more than once during the year.

Note: The classification in the foregoing table is made (for the most part)
from the standpoint of the offender and is based (for the most part) on the

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 23

CAUSES FOR WHICH GIRLS WERE BROUGHT TO COURT

igo6-j 1907-

Assault and Battery. . . . i 3

Larceny, etc 22 36

Runaways, Immoral, etc. 44 72

Drunkenness

Truancy 9 3

Violation Ordinances,

etc 5

)o8-9

igoQ-io

1910-11

Total

147

291

81*

Neglect 48

114*

lOI*

103*

82*

481*

100

420

motive or appetite underlying the act. Certain items do not conform to the
general scheme. "Stubborn Children and Runaways" include some who
have stolen and some who are immoral; "Waywardness" includes some who
have a tendency toward stealing or immorality; "Truancy" and "Miscellane-
ous Statutory Misdemeanors," "Violations of City Ordinances" and "Viola-
tions of License Regulations " might properly be merged so far as the standpoint
of the offender and the underlying motive are concerned, for they come mainly .
from carelessness or the spirit of play.

The customary classification (viz.: — into "offentes against the person,"
"offenses against property" and "offences against public order") is made
from the standpoint of the offended, and is based on the effect of the act.
Robbery is grouped with other forms of stealing in the foregoing table, be-
cause the motive prompting the offender to do it is the same as the motive
prompting him to steal; but it is ordinarily classed with assault and battery,
because from the standpoint of the offended the personal injury is apt to be
the more serious feature.

In the foregoing table sex offenses, gambling, and drunkenness are entered
independently, because the appetites underlying them are separate, while
most of them are ordinarily grouped together under "offences against public
order," because most of them do not offend any special individual but rather
the citizens of the community as a whole.

The reason for making the classification in the foregoing table from the
standpoint of the offender and on the basis of his motive or appetite is that
in juvenile cases the approved method of serving society is to improve the
offender; and in every effort to improve the offender, what led him to offend
is more important than the effect of his offence.

* The total causes for which girls were brought to court in any year exceeds
the number of girls brought to court in that year because in some instances
the same girl came in more than once during the year.

24 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

DISPOSITION OF THE CASES

Delinqtient and Wayward Children Ordered Committed*

igod-j 1907-8 1908-9 1909-10 19JO-11 Total
Mass. Reformatory

(boys) 15 8 4 3 3 33

Ind. School for Boys at

Shirley 2 18 15 35

Suffolk School (boys)... 34 26 17 8 20 105

LymanSchool(boys).. . 17 33 18 20 19 107

George Jr. Republic

(boys)t 141 2 3 II

Berkshire Ind. Farm

(boys)t I I 2

St. Mary's Ind. School

at Baltimore (boys) f. 21 3

Parental School (boys).. 45 37 26 13 8 129

Ind. School for Girls at

Lancaster 17 3i 26 26 20 120

House of Good Shepherd

(girls)t 15 17 19 II 6 68

State Board of Charity

(boys and girls) 11 19 I3 20 38 loi

155 176 128 122 133 714

* In 67 instances appeals were taken from these orders to the Superior Court,
and in most of those instances the Superior Court refrained from committing
and placed the children on probation, or filed or nolle prossed their cases.

t The court has no authority to commit a child to any private institution,
but in certain cases if parents prefer any private institution, the child is placed
on probation making it a condition of the probation that the child shall be
placed in the institution desired and not taken out without the consent of the
court.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 25

Neglected Children Ordered Committed

igo6~7 igoy-S igo8-g igog-io igio-ii Total

State Board of Charity
and Trustees for Chil-
dren of the City of

Boston* 20 51 33 58 34 196

Home for Destitute

Catholic Childrenf. . . 43 84 63 80 51 321

63 135 96 138 88 517

Number of Fines Imposed

igo6-7 igoy-S igo8-g igog-io igio-ii Total

Assault and Battery. .. . 2 17 8 4 4 35

Larceny i 4 I 2 8

Gaming 3 22 16 30 21 92

Violation Ordinances

(inc. auto regulations) 22 80 88 42 34 266

Violation License 22 33 96 32 82 265

Violation Probation. .. . 6 11 6 16 10 49

55 164 218 125 153 715
AMOUNTS OF FINES IMPOSED FOR FIVE YEARS

$10

$15

$20

$25

$50

Total

Assault and Battery . .
Larceny

35
128

100

I
27
45
20

I
I

9
2

39
76
16
II

I
2

2
2

I
I

2
3

$413
73

Gaming

465

Vio. Ord.t

1,013

Vio License

478

Vio. Prob

139

171

215

112

153

$2,581

* The cases of 28 of these children were appealed.

t Children are not permanently committed to this private institution, but
are placed in its care on continuance under Acts of 1903, chap. 334, sec. 3,
subject to recall by the court at any time.

t Violations of statutes in regard to operation of motor vehicles are included
for convenience with violations of ordinances.

26 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

CHILDREN PLACED ON PROBATION

1906-7 1907-8

1908-9 1909-10

1910-11 Total

418 722

543 520

443 2,646

FOUND NOT

DELINQUENT OR

NOT GUILTY

1906-7 1907-8

1908-9 1909-10

1910-11 Total

44 63

35 35

40 217

DEFAULTS

There were on September i, 191 1, 134 children who had
defaulted and whose whereabouts were unknown;* 58 of
these were delinquent or wayward children and 76 were
neglected children.

MISCELLANEOUS

In many of the cases not comprised in the foregoing
dispositions the children were made to do some task like
copying eight pages of laws and ordinances which children
are likely to violate. In many of the cases for violation of
license regulations, the licenses were suspended by the
School Department. In a small number of cases the chil-
dren were allowed to go with just a warning. There is no
way of giving the exact numbers of these various minor
dispositions, as their only proper, technical entry on the
clerk's docket is ''filed" or "dismissed" and there is no
practicable way of compiling dispositions except from that
docket.

AGES
Compilation of the ages in 2,148 cases of children brought
to court for larceny and kindred offences in the five years

* There were iii more children technically in default, i.e., they had not
been present on the last day for which their cases had been set down, but their
whereabouts were known and they could have been produced if it had been
deemed necessary or desirable to bring them in.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 27

gives (omitting fractions of a per cent.) the following

percentages :

Years. Per Cent. Years Per Cent.

Seven i Twelve 12

Eight 3 Thirteen 14.

Nine 4 Fourteen 16

Ten 6 Fifteen 14.

Eleven 7 Sixteen 19

This detailed statement may be roughly summarized as
follows: one fifth were under twelve years, one fifth were
sixteen years and the remaining three fifths were fairly
evenly distributed over the four intervening years.

There were no significant variations in the annual per-
centages during the five year period.

RACIAL EXTRACTION

Statistics as to the racial extraction of the children are of
no real significance. The court's jurisdiction is confined
to the central part of the city, comprising, roughly speaking,
the North, South and West Ends and the Back Bay. The
great preponderance of all the children in that district are
of Irish, Italian and Jewish extraction. Accordingly if
there are to be any substantial number of children in court
at all, they must be largely of those three races. There
are no figures available as to the respective numbers of
each of those races in the central part of the city, and it is
impossible to make a comparison even on the basis of
proportion of offenders to the total numbers of the different
races.

RESIDENCE

The statistics have not been fully compiled, but it is
clear that a large majority of the children live in the dis-
trict served by the court, viz. : the North, West and South
Ends and the Back Bay, though a substantial number live
in the adjacent districts.

28 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

VOLUME OF BUSINESS

The number of different children brought to court has
steadily decreased since the second and third years, when
there was a marked increase over the first year, matching
the increase of adult offenders from the same territory.
But the number of children brought to court is not a real
test of the increase or decrease of juvenile lawlessness. The
prosecutions by the police for violations of license regula-
tions and city ordinances, etc., vary greatly from year to
year, without any close relation to the actual number of
offences; on the other hand, almost all the cases of larceny
and kindred offences are prosecuted every year. There-
fore the number of instances in which children are brought
to court for larceny and kindred offences is a better test
than the number of children brought to court for all offences
combined. It appears that there has been no steady trend
either way in the number of instances in which children were
brought to court for larceny and kindred offences. While
there were three less the last year than there were the first
year, yet in two of the intervening years the numbers were
greater than those of the first year. It is interesting to
notice, however, that there has been in the end no increase
in such instances, while on the part of adults in the same
territory there has been an increase every year except one
during the same period. The figures for adults are as
follows :

Year of 1906-07 i ,879

Year of 1907-08 2,280

Year of 1908-09 2,695

Year of 1909-10 2,501

Year of 1910-11 2,737

The numbers of the different offences for which children
were brought to the former court the last year before the
establishment of this court are not available. There were
on the docket of the former court 1,221 entries of children

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 29

complained of that year for all offences. The number of
entries on the docket of this court of children complained
of in each of the five years of its existence are as follows:

Year of 1906-07 i ,350

Year of 1907-08 1,726

Year of 1908-09 i ,714

Year of 1909-10 1 4^7

Year of 1910-1 1 i ,368

But, as previously stated, a comparison based on the total
of all offences is not very valuable.

It is worth noticing in considering the volume of business
that a steady increase would not have been surprising,
because the population of the district served by the court
has increased ten per cent, during the court's existence
(though there is for some reason no increase in the number
of children in .school). Moreover an increase over the
business of the former court might be expected for the follow-
ing reasons:

1. The legislation of 1906 provided for bringing to court
certain children termed "wayward children" who could not
previously have been brought to court at all, viz.: children
who, though not having any specific offence charged to them,
habitually associate with vicious and immoral persons, or
who are growing up in surroundings exposing them to lead
immoral, vicious or criminal lives.

2. Parents, social workers, employers, police and citizens
will bring to a special court, whose officials have full time
and special facilities for dealing with them, cases which
they would not have brought to the former court.

TRUANCY

The number of children brought before the court for
truancy each year has decreased steadily from 95 to 19.
While this decrease is due chiefly to increased efficiency of
the school department, it is partly due to the close coopera-

30 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

tion between the court and the schools. By this coopera-
tion poor school attendance on the part of children brought
to court on account of other forms of delinquency is promptly
discovered by the court and made an important factor in
probationary oversight, so that frequent school reports
are obtained during probation, and probation is not termi-
nated until the reports show that the weakness in attend-
ance is cured.

The decrease is also partly due to the fact that the court
has time to consider carefully all applications for leave to
complain; and in cases which, though appearing at first
to be cases of truancy on the part of a single child, seem on
further inquiry to be cases of the neglect of a whole family
of children on the part of parents, the court sets in motion
the proper agencies to have the whole family cared for
under the neglect law.

The year before the establishment of the new court
there were Ii8 children brought to the former court for
truancy and 99 of them (or 84%) were ordered committed
to the truant school. In only one year* since that time
have more than 50% been ordered committed. This
decrease in the proportion of commitments is also due
largely to the school department, which has become
increasingly resourceful in handling truants on probation,
but is due in a substantial part to the increased time which
the new court can give to such cases.

COMMITMENTS

Proportion of Commitments to Number of Children.
Twelve and eight-tenths per cent of the delinquent and
wayward children brought to court in the five years were
ordered committed to reform schools (or the equivalent of
reform schools) to be given institutional treatment, and
2.2% were ordered committed to the State Board of Charity

* In that year 58% were committed.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 31

to be placed in private families, making the total orders
of commitment of delinquent and wayward children fifteen

per cent.

Comparison of Commitments to Reform Schools Between
Former Court a7id New Court. The only available basis for
this comparison is the proportion of orders for commitment
to the number of entries on the docket of children com-
plained of.* Omitting from consideration orders for com-
mitment of truants, which have been greatly reduced as set
forth above, the figures are as follows: last year of former
court, 6.6%; first year of new court, 6.1%; second year,
5.6%; third year, 3.9%; fourth year, 5%; fifth year,

5.6%.

It was probably expected by some of the persons who
advocated the establishment of the new court (judging
from the experience of other states) that the number of
commitments to reform schools would be more markedly
decreased. But anyone who entertained such expectations
failed to consider that there have not been for many years
in Massachusetts such wholesale commitments of children
as there have been in other states up to the moment of

* Strictly the comparison should be of the proportion of orders for commit-
ment to the total instances of children brought to court for offences for which
commitment is permissible over a five-year period in each court. There are
however no statistics available for any year of the former court but its last
and even for that year there are none available as to the number of different
children brought to court or the different offences for which they were com-
plained of. Therefore the nearest approach to a fair comparison is to take in
each court the proportion of orders for commitment to the number of entries
on the docket of children complained of. The very low figure of the third
year of the new court is due, in part at least, to an unusually large number of
license and ordinance complaints (on which commitments cannot be made)
being entered in that year. "Commitments" to private institutions are
omitted in making the comparison, because there is no record of the instances
where children went to private institutions from the former court. The
institutions actually comprised in this comparison are the Massachusetts
Reformatory, the Industrial School for Boys, the Lyman School, the Suffolk
School and the Industrial School for Girls. The total number of orders for
commitment to these schools the last year of the former court was 8i.

32 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

their establishing juvenile courts. Probation in the sense
of refraining from the commitment of first offenders has
long been generally availed of in all our Massachusetts
courts in juvenile cases. The former court was always
disposed to be merciful in the matter of commitments and
almost always had the benefit of the recommendations of
agents of the State Board of Charity, the Children's Aid
Society, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and the Council
of Jewish Women, and probably made few commitments
which could very well be avoided by any court. Even if
the new court has refrained from committing in certain
cases where the former court would have committed, the
more intimate knowledge of the cases which comes from
the continuous sitting of one judge and the continuous
service of two probation officers, as contrasted with the
former method of rotation of judges and the intermittent
service of private agents has doubtless resulted in the
appreciation of the need of commitment in certain cases
in which the need would not have become apparent to the
court under the former system. Then again, in view of
the very much greater number of fines imposed by the
former court (480 its last year against 218 in the heaviest
year in the new court, and an average of 145 for the five
years) it is probable that some cases were disposed of in
the former court by punishment in the form of a fine
instead of by an effort to secure reformation by treatment
in an institution. In any event each commitment by the
new court was made only after careful consideration of
the interests of each child, giving at the same time due
regard to the protection of the community and paying no
attention to any preconceived notion as to how the figures
should come out. Certainly the figures take the ground
from under the feet of anyone who alleges that
there has been dangerous increase of leniency and claims
that there is any increase in lawlessness from that cause.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 33

Commitments to State Board of Charity. The increase in
commitments to the State Board of Charity is due to a
growing conviction that young children who have had homes
should be given a better environment at an early period.
A large proportion of the children committed to the State
Board of Charity on delinquency complaints have no
need of the strict discipline of a reform school, and would
never have been committed if they had had good homes.

FINES

The number of fines imposed by the Boston Juvenile
Court has in no year reached 46% of the number of fines
imposed in the last year of the previous administration,
but the average size of the fines imposed by the new court
is greater. The number of fines imposed in juvenile cases
by the former court in 1905-6 was 480, amounting to
$546.10, an average of $1.10. Fines were imposed in 40%
of the cases. The highest number of fines imposed in any
year by this court was 218, amounting to $808, an average
of $3.72. Fines were imposed in 13% of the cases of that
year. In comparing the number of fines imposed by the
two courts it should be noticed that two fifths of the fines
imposed by the new court were for license violations, a
form of offence which was much less frequently prosecuted
prior to the establishment of the new court, and therefore
the number of fines imposed in the new court for the more
serious offences must be substantially less than 46% of the
number of fines imposed by theiormer court for those more
serious offences.

REPEATING

Repeating in General. Of the 837 children who were
found delinquent the first year 285, or 34%, were found
delinquent more than once during the five years. The
details are as follows :

Three

Four

Five

Six*

Seven*

Eight*

Times

34 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

Two

Times

157

Repeating Offences Other than Violations of Ordinances
and License Regulations. Of the 650 children who were
found dehnquent the first year for offences other than vio-
lations of ordinances and license regulations 207, or 31.6%,
were found delinquent more than once during the five
years for offences of that same restricted class. The

details are as follows:

Two Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Times Times

Times

118 49

Repeating by Children Placed on Probation. Of the 418
children placed on probation the first year 164, or 39%,
were either committed for failing on probation or were
found delinquent again during the five years for some
offence other than violation of ordinances or license

regulations.!

Repeating by Children whose First Appearance was
Subsequent to First Year is not reported here because
the briefer period of observation would make the figures of
less value even than those as to children appearing in the
first year.

Even the Figures above Given as to Children of the First
Year do not Show the Full Amount of Repeating because
they do not include the following instances of repetition:

* An analysis of the records of the ten children who were in six times or
more shows that two never did anything worse than gambling, three were
given the benefit of thorough institutional training early in their careers and
it therefore seemed futile to commit on account of subsequent misconduct,
unless just for the sake of getting them out of the community; one did nothing
which gave legal ground for commitment until the end; two others showed
periods of over a year between their serious acts; in the remaining two cases
there were special circumstances which would take too much space to recite
here.

t Of the children placed on probation 389 were boys and 32 were girls; 153,
or 39i%, of the boys and 11, or 341%, of the girls were committed for failing
on probation, or were found delinquent again in the five years for some offence
other than the violation of ordinances or license regulations.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 35

1. Instances never discovered or never prosecuted by the authorities.

2. Instances where a later offence was committed in another jurisdiction.

3. Instances occurring after the defendants had passed the age limit of

the jurisdiction of this court.

On the other hand it should be borne in mind that in a
substantial number of instances not all the offences for
which the child was found delinquent were serious, even
though they were other than the violations of ordinances
and license regulations. Many cases of assault and battery
are only snowballing or similar petty annoyances. Even
larceny is in many instances the mildest kind of pilfering.
It is not practicable to eliminate such instances from the
computation and they may be considered to offset to some
extent (though not wholly) the unincluded instances above
mentioned.

In Comparing These Statistics with Similar Statistics
from Other Jurisdictions the following points should be
borne in mind :

1. There are few jurisdictions where the figures have
been compiled for so long a period as five years. The
period taken is usually two or three years.

2. The jurisdiction of most courts includes all sections of
a city or county. The jurisdiction of this court includes
only those sections of the city where many parents from
ignorance or poverty are in no position to profit by the
warning of a child's being in court once and keep him out
thereafter by their own exertions.

3. There is reason to believe that in Boston the very
efficient attention to weak homes and difficult children on
the part of an unusual number of private agencies, together
with the increasing attention of the school department to
all aspects of children's lives saves the coming to court of
many of the more readily adjusted cases which in other
jurisdictions would be referred to the court, so that the
Boston court has a more thoroughly sifted and less prom-
ising group to deal with. An experienced observer has

36 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

claimed to notice a much larger proportion of mentally
deficient children passing through the Boston court than
through others visited.

4. The basis for computing repeating is usually at least
as broad as that in the first group here reported, namely
all the children found delinquent, and the statistics of
repeating by those placed on probation are not so frequently
compiled.

5. In statistics for repeating by probationers —

(a) The greater the percentage of commitments, the less
will be the percentage of repeating in any limited period.
A large percentage of commitments means, — first, that
some of the less promising children (who would be tried
where there is a small percentage of commitments) are not
tried on probation at all; and second, that those who prove
unstable are early surrendered, — a child in an institution
cannot repeat.

(b) In some jurisdictions first offenders who pretty
clearly need no oversight are placed on probation just to
impress them or their parents or their associates with the
seriousness with which the court regards their conduct.
Such jurisdictions will show a less percentage of repeating
among probationers than jurisdictions which dispose of
such cases either with a reprimand or some suitable pun-
ishment without using probation.

Statistics as to Repeating as a Test of Efficiency. Statis-
tics as to repeating are the only statistics which could ever
come anywhere near affording a statistical test of the effi-
ciency of a juvenile court, and it is to be hoped that the
percentage of repeating in this court will decline as time
goes on; but it is to be borne in mind that some of the best
authorities declare there is no statistical test of a court's
efficiency which is of any substantial value, and the only
basis on which to judge the work is observation of the han-
dling of individual cases.

PART II

METHODS

PART II
METHODS

PROBATION

Probation in General. More than half the children
brought before the court for offences other than violations
of ordinances and license regulations are placed on proba-
tion. The period of probation is rarely less than six months ;
it is frequently a year, and it is often more than a
year.

The most important feature of probation is the one which
is most difficult to describe. That feature is the personal
attention of the probation officer to the probationer. This
attention is given by visits to the home, by acting as arbiter
between the child and unreasonable parents, by friendly
talks with the child at the time of reporting, by conferences
with the child and the teacher at school for the adjustment
of school difficulties, by accompanying the child to the
hospital, by assisting in straightening out disputes as to
newsboy rights, by helping him through the formalities
of obtaining working certificates, by suggestions as to
opportunities for work, by connecting him with clubs and
classes and in many other ways. The impersonal and
less important features — more correctly termed incidents —
of probation are easy to describe, and some of them are
described in the following paragraphs:

Daily Reports for Idle Boys. Boys who have left school
whose delinquency appears to be due to their having
acquired the habit of idleness are required to report to the
probation officer daily until they get work. At their daily
visits they are required to state just what they have done
in the past twenty-four hours in the way of looking for

40 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

work, and they are directed to various means for securing
employment.

Restitution. Boys who are earning money or receiving
spending money are required to make restitution. Over
$1700 has been paid through the probation officers by 467
different children and mostly in small instalments — some-
times as small as five cents per week. The chief value of
such restitution as this lies in its moral effect on the culprits ;
a boy who pays one dollar in twenty instalments of five
cents out of his spending money is more impressed than a
boy whose parents pay ten dollars for him at once.

Saving as an Antidote for Gambling. Boys who have
been gambling are required to start savings bank books,
and show them with fresh deposits at stated periods.
Many boys have saved between five and ten dollars in six
months in this way, and some have saved over twenty-five
dollars. (For results in a group of cases see Appendix.)

Evening Reports for Working Boys. Many working boys
are required to meet their probation officer once each week
in the evening and talk with him about their recent doings
and their plans for the future.

Difficult Boys Report Frequently to the Judge. Some of
the more difficult boys, who can conveniently come to the
court house, are required to report frequently to the judge
to be admonished or encouraged as their cases may require.

Saturday Work for Lapses of School Boy Probationers.
School boys who stay out of school while under the over-
sight of the court are frequently required to make restitu-
tion of the time thus stolen by spending an equal number
of hours on Saturday morning copying under the direction
of the probation officer in a room adjacent to the court
room. This practice is also resorted to as a punishment
for school boys for minor offences.

A Few Days in Jail. In some cases of older boys, where
commitment appears almost inevitable, commitment to

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 41

jail for a few days (under the form of a continuance of the
case, not a sentence) is tried on the chance that the experi-
ence may give a sufficient stimulus to the boy to avert the
necessity of further restraint.

A Few Days' Detention Away from Home. Some of the
younger boys, whose commitment to a truant school or
reform school seems imminent, are kept from home a few
days in private institutions or selected families in the
country to see if a temporary separation from their families
will not bring the desired results.

Placing Out. In several cases where it is practically
hopeless to try a child on probation at home (such cases
arise from the unfitness of parents or from the lack of
parents, unsuitable environment, and incompatibility of
temper) the children are placed on probation in carefully
investigated homes by the Boston Children's Aid Society,
the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and sometimes by other
societies, under the frequent visitation and close oversight
of their trained agents.

COMMITMENTS TO INSTITUTIONS

Commitments are used to a substantial extent, as shown
by the foregoing statistics, but they are not resorted to
until the court has been satisfied by a full report on the
child's previous conduct or a thorough trial on probation
that institutional treatment is necessary.

FINES

Fines in General. Fines are almost never imposed on
children under fourteen in any class of cases. The fines
imposed have been for the most part in three classes of
cases, viz. :

Gaming 92

Violation of ordinances 266

Violation of license regulations 265

42 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

The number of fines in all other cases being divided as
follows, viz. :

Assault and battery 35

Larceny 8

Violation of probation 49

About a quarter of the total number of fines were paid
in instalments, and usually these instalments came out of
the earnings or spending money of the child.

Fines for Violation of Licenses. Fines are appropriate
in cases of violation of license regulations, because such
violations do not ordinarily arise from any moral weakness
which needs the training afforded by probation, and because
they occur in the course of and are intimately connected
with earning money. It seems fitting to exact money in
a case where a child breaks a law in earning it. Even in
license cases fines are not commonly resorted to unless the
offender has been warned by an official on some previous
occasion.

Fines for Violation of Ordinances. Most of the cases
where fines are imposed for violation of ordinances are
cases where a child has been before the court previously
for a similar offence or at least has been warned by the
officers. These cases, like the license cases, do not ordi-
narily arise from any moral weakness which needs the
training afforded by probation, and yet if they are to be
taken into court, the good of the child and the community
requires that something should be done (especially the
second time) other than just admonishing the child. First
offences in these cases are usually dealt with by imposing
a school boy penalty like copying eight pages of the city
ordin nces.

Fines for Gaming. Gaming cases differ from other cases
in which fines are ordinarily resorted to because gaming is,
or may become, a bad habit and probation is established

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 43

for the very purpose of preventing or curing such habits
by the probation officer's advising and befriending the
probationer and interesting him in other activities. The
fines for gaming were imposed in two classes of cases:

First — Where the boys had previously been in court for
the same offence, and

Second — Where the boys were at the time of gambling
on probation or had previously been on probation. (It
should be remembered that boys for their first offences in
gaming are usually put on probation under an order to
save a specified part of their spending money, as more
fully described earlier in this statement.)

It may be said that even in these two classes fines are
improper and that what should be done is to make the
probation department redouble its efforts to get the boys
interested in other things. The answer is that when the
probation department lacks the time or ability to make
further efforts, it is better for the probationer and his
associates that he should be fined than that the repetition
of his offending should pass unnoticed, and certainly
gaming does not warrant commitment to a reform school
unless in very aggravated cases.

Fines not Imposed for Larceny. There are three reasons
why fines are seldom imposed for larceny and kindred
offences.

First — If it seems desirable to order the payment of
money, there is usually an opportunity to order it as an
incident of probation in the form of restitution, a form in
which it has a greater educational value than as a fine.

Second — A repetition of stealing is (in its immediate
bearing at any rate) more serious to the community than a
repetition of gambling, and indicates a greater moral
weakness on the part of the boy, so that commitment to a
reform school, or at any rate a change of environment,
may be properly insisted on. To be sure gambling not:

44 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

infrequently leads to stealing, but very many boys who
gamble would never think of stealing.

Third — Imposing a fine makes a criminal "record"
under the Massachusetts law which makes the case avail-
able for use against the boy if he is ever a witness in any
case thereafter and in other collateral ways, and a "record "
for stealing is much more detrimental than a "record" for
gambling.

PERMANENT ADJUSTMENT THE AIM

So far as possible the cases are handled with a view to
securing a permanent adj ustment. For example, if truancy
is found to be really due to hopelessly bad home conditions,
the case is referred to the Massachusetts Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the child is com-
plained of as a neglected child so as to be placed in a suit-
able family as soon as possible instead of being placed in
an institution, and so as to be held under proper oversight
until twenty-one instead of getting virtual freedom at
sixteen. Children committed to truant schools must be
discharged from the oversight of the trustees at sixteen;
children committed to the State Board of Charity can be
held under the oversight of the trustees until twenty-one.
Of course if there are found to be children other than the
truant in the family, all are cared for together.

NEGLECTED CHILDREN

In many cases of neglected children the parents are
allowed to take their children home on trial at once, and
in many others where the children are taken away at first
the parents are allowed to have them back after a separa-
tion long enough to arouse the parents to the seriousness
of the situation and enable them to rehabilitate themselves.
When children are returned to their parents, oversight is
continued until some new, permanent, dependable factor

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 45

has come into the case, such as one of the children growing
sufficiently mature and reliable to be responsible for the
family. This practice is persisted in even though it may
require keeping the case pending for several years. When
children are entrusted to private societies the cases are
kept pending with periodical reports to the court until the
children become eighteen. The cases of neglected children
are often more important than the cases of delinquent
children, because attention to one case of neglect may
prevent several children from becoming delinquent.

PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY INSISTED ON

The attendance* of at least one parent at the beginning
of each case is insisted on, and parents are frequently called
in to be advised or admonished while children are on proba-
tion. In some cases parents are caused to move their
families to less crowded neighborhoods. In several cases
parents have been caused to send their children to friends
or relatives in the country during vacation and sometimes
for longer periods. In some cases where parents have
proved to be ineffective, brothers or more distant relatives
have been called in. Parents have been ordered in several
cases to pay a certain sum weekly for the support of their
children while at the truant school. This court has no
power to punish parents for the neglect of their children;
it can only take the children. The prosecution of parents
must be conducted in the Municipal Court.

VOLUNTEERS

In a few instances boys have been placed on probation
on the understanding that their relatives, friends, clergy-
men or club leaders would be responsible for the oversight
of them, but there has been no systematic use of volunteers,
— meaning by "volunteers" persons not paid for their

* Parents must always be notified but courts with crowded dockets do not
always insist on their attendance.

46 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

service by any agency, public or private, and whose chief
occupation or interest is something other than social service.

Five years ago volunteers were being extensively used
in some courts to take actual charge of children and do
regular probation work with one or two cases apiece. There
has been a growing dissatisfaction with such use, and some
of the best authorities now positively condemn it. It was
early pointed out to the Boston court by an interested
citizen that it is not the true function of volunteers to do
work which would be done by professional social workers
if enough of such workers were available. In his opinion
the true function of volunteers is such that they should be
used extensively, even if the court had all the professional
workers it could desire. To his mind the volunteer should
bring to the case something different from and additional
to what the regular probation officer gives, just as the
friend in the sick room is not supposed to do any part of
the nurse's work, but brings to the case a distinct and
auxiliary element different from anything which even the
best nurse could supply.

Some such auxiliary use of volunteers would probably
increase the effectiveness of probation, but even such use
entails a substantial amount of trained attention to the
volunteers and cannot safely be made use of extensively
until there is a fuller professional service than there is in
the Boston court.

MISCELLANEOUS

Reports from Schools. In the cases of school children
masters and teachers are always consulted before any
disposition is decided on. In the cases of children on pro-
bation, reports from the school are almost invariably
required, and in difficult cases the probation officers have
frequent consultations with the master and teacher.

The Reference Bureau in the Charity Building is consulted

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 47

in every case and any agency found to be interested is
promptly conferred with.

Courts and Reformatories Consulted. In cases of children
found to be on probation from any other court or to be on
parole from any truant or reform school, the officials in
charge of the child are always consulted as to what action
should be taken.

Girls Cared for Exclusively hy Women. Girls, as soon as
brought under the jurisdiction of the court, are dealt with
exclusively by women. Every girl sent to an institution
is accompanied the entire distance by a woman.

Ailments Attended to. Children who are discovered to
have any ailment are required to attend the dispensary, if
they have no family physician.

Feeble-Mindedness Watched for. Children who give any
indication of mental deficiency are examined by an expert.
One hundred and six have been examined, and twenty-
seven have been committed (through the Probate Court)
to the schools for the feeble-minded. Many more would
have been committed if the schools were not overcrowded.

Conferences with Probation Officers. . The judge goes over
all pending cases with each probation officer every month,
and the judge, special justices and probation officers meet
together every month for conference on topics of common
interest in connection with the administration of the court
and the treatment of the cases.

Night Sessions. To avoid taking parents or children
away from work in special cases where their absence might
seriously interfere with their work or result in their losing
it, a night session is held every month. This session is
usually devoted to the formal ending of the probation of
working boys and to admonishment of and conference with
parents during the course of their children's probation.

All the Foregoing Methods were available prior to the
legislation of 1906, and they were availed of to some extent.

48 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

but all the officials connected with the former court had
many official duties in addition to handling the cases of
children, while the justice and the probation officers of
the new court have no official duties except the care of the
children's cases, and can accordingly use much more
extensively the methods above described.

PART III

DETENTION PENDING ARRAIGNMENT,
HEARING AND DISPOSITION

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK

LIBRARY

PART III

DETENTION PENDING ARRAIGNMENT,
HEARING AND DISPOSITION

In General. When a child is arrested it is in the majority
of cases released to its parents by the police or the proba-
tion officer on their promise to bring it to court. In many
cases where the child is not released it is put in a private
family placed at the disposal of the court by the Children's
Aid Society; but a substantial number of boys, the major-
ity of them being sixteen years of age, are left in cells at
the police stations. By an arrangement with the Children's
Aid Society a woman is in readiness at all hours to go to
the station and take care of arrested girls, and they are
never left at the stations. Between arraignment and
disposition some of the boys and girls are placed by the
Children's Aid Society in families in the suburbs of Boston;
many Catholic boys are placed in the House of the Angel
Guardian; and many boys fifteen years of age or over
(the majority of them being sixteen) who seem very unre-
liable are committed to the Charles Street Jail.

Police Stations. Boys left at police stations (girls are
never left there) are always kept in cells by themselves as
remote as possible from any cell occupied by adult offenders.
Boys left at police stations are of two classes, viz. : newly
arrested boys who are known to the probation officer as
repeated offenders, and boys .on probation for whom sur-
render warrants have been issued because of repeatedly
running away from home or persistent and wilful failure
to report; 193 boys were held in this way during the five
years; 120 of the boys so held were sixteen years of age,
an age which in some states is beyond the jurisdiction of
the juvenile court. Of the 73 others so held (an average
of only 15 a year) 50 were fifteen, 18 were fourteen, 2 were

52 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

thirteen and 3 were twelve.* The conditions in the police
stations both as to cleanliness and order are good, though
there is much to be desired in some of them in the way of
ventilation and arrangement. The boys left at the police
stations never stay more than one night unless arrested
the night before a Sunday or holiday, as court is held daily
and they are never sent back to police stations after being
brought to court.

Private Families for Girls are entirely satisfactory. The
women are not staggered by the girls coming to them un-
clean or diseased. They do excellent work in making the
girls clean and they take proper precautions to prevent con-
tagion. The system gives a better opportunity for obser-
vation than a detention home, because the girls are in a
normal mode of life and the women gain information which
the busy matron of a detention home would not have time
to acquire. There have been iii girls detained in this
way. There is only one girl allowed in a family at a time,
and this rule has very rarely been broken.

Private Families for Boys have been satisfactory for
detention for brief periods, and 176 boys have been so
detained. But these families have not been very satis-
factory so far for more than forty-eight hours' detention.
It has not been deemed safe even to make a trial of many
boys who were considered unsuitable for jail in such homes
as have as yet been provided, and those boys have been
kept in the House of the Angel Guardian. Ten of those
who have been tried in private families have run away
and some of that number have only been found after
difficulty and delay. It is by no means certain, however,

* Of the two thirteen-year-old boys one was held in the witness room which
is an ordinary bedroom in a part of the station remote from the cells, the
other was arrested at 3: 15 in the morning. Of the three twelve-year-old boys
one was held through a misunderstanding, the other two were arrested at
three in the morning and held in the witness room above mentioned.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 53

that families cannot be found where there is a man around
home all the time or where the women are more alert and
resourceful so that the greater part of the boys who are
clearly unfit for jail can be cared for in homes.

House of the Angel Guardian. The use of this congre-
gate institution for temporary detention is not fair to the
boys who are regular inmates, and is not wholly desirable
for the boys sent to be temporarily detained. The only
justification of the use of it by the court is that for boys of
a size suitable to be received there it is more desirable than
the jail, and so far as the regular inmates are concerned,
they would be subjected to the influence of temporary
inmates from other sources, even if the use of it by this
court ceased; 128 boys were temporarily detained in this
institution in the five years. It should be said, however,
that there were a substantial number of these who could
have been cared for in a private family but were sent
to the House of the Angel Guardian because it was less
agreeable to them and therefore constituted a sort of
punishment.

The Suffolk County Jail is exceptionally good. Usually
each boy has a separate cell, and boys are never placed in
cells with men. Boys are not allowed to mingle with each
other or with the men in any exercising yard, or in any
other way (except when two boys are put in the same cell) ;
182 boys have been detained here during the five years;
of these 105 were sixteen years of age, 69 were fifteen and
8 were fourteen.

Should There Be a Detention Home? There is certainly
no need of establishing one on account of the girls, and
there is considerable question whether, if a detention home
were established, it would be at all worth while to make
provision in it for girls and spend the extra money for
construction and maintenance which proper segregation
would require. In the case of the boys the answer is by

54 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

no means so clear. It appears that during the five years
there have been 278 boys, an average of 55 a year, who
would surely have been cared for in a house of detention
had there been one, viz. : the 73 boys under sixteen left
at police stations overnight pending arraignment, the
128 boys kept in the House of the Angel Guardian and
the 77 boys under sixteen committed to jail. Some of the
120 sixteen-year-old boys kept in police stations and some
of the 105 sixteen-year-old boys committed to jail might
have been cared for in an ordinary detention home, but in
view of the size and experience of most of them it is a fair
question as to whether the proper provision for their care
should not be secured by improved facilities at the police
stations and the jail (especially in the way of classification
at the jail) rather than in a detention home where there
might have to be provided for them special accommoda-
tions quite different from those for the other inmates.

The one important reason for having a detention home
instead of using private families is to enable the court to
keep boys from running away without resorting to such
clearly objectionable means of temporary detention as
police stations, jails, or even private institutions. But
detention homes have certain very distinct shortcomings.
Every detention home so far devised has periods of being
quarantined by cases of contagious diseases. It is imprac-
ticable to wholly isolate each comer until the possibility
of the outcropping of disease is past, because the briefest
period for incubation of any of the diseases is two or three
days after exposure (viz. : in scarlet fever) and many dis-
eases take much longer {e.g., whooping-cough seven days,
measles nine or ten days, chicken-pox ten days, mumps
nineteen days). It is equally impracticable to avoid all
moral contagion, and after all some children run away even
from detention homes.

The ideal detention home would have a separate com-

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 55

plete suite and a separate custodian for each inmate. The
expense of carrying out that ideal makes it purely visionary.
But the expense of maintaining any approach to the ideal
detention home is also very heavy. Even if no provision
is made for girls, there must be a superintendent, an assist-
ant and a cook, and they must be kept on full time. That
means at the very least $2,500 per annum for salaries
alone, while the total cost of the present system is only
$700 per annum after adding an approximate amount for
those detained in police stations or the jail.

In short, there is a question whether the loss to the older
boys who are kept at the police stations and jail is great
enough to warrant so large an increase in expenditure as
the erection and maintenance of a detention home would
involve, and whether the private family system cannot be
so improved and extended as to care for the boys kept in
the House of the Angel Guardian, and indeed for some
kept in police stations and jail.

The expense per capita of a detention home would be
reduced to some extent by the home being used by all
courts in the city, but the reduction would not be sufficient
to bring it very near the expense of using private families.

No mention has been made in this discussion of the
possible use of a detention home as an auxiliary to proba-
tion by separating a child from his home for a brief period
and thus rousing him to greater efforts to do well. While
there are cases where such treatment seems helpful, it
is probably not of sufficient value to justify in any substan-
tial degree the expense of a detention home.

Whatever may be the ultimate conclusion, it is hardly
desirable to take any action toward the establishment of a
detention home at present. The leading authorities are
much dissatisfied with two of the latest detention homes,
built less than five years ago at the expense of many thou-
sand dollars, and the supplanting of one of them by a new

56 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

structure is being strongly advocated. The use of private
families has by no means been developed to its limit. The
agent of the Children's Aid Society in charge of that depart-
ment has been able to devote only a small amount of time
to the search for court homes. More time spent might
well have resulted in the discovery of stronger homes which
could have held many of the boys unsuitable for jail. It
would seem that the possibilities in that direction should
be thoroughly tried out here (while further experiments
are being made with detention homes elsewhere) before
any money is locked up in costly buildings and an expensive
staff of officials is installed.

The State Board of Charity is required by law to take
children under fourteen for temporary detention if any
court so orders, but delinquent children are seldom sent by
the court to the State Board for temporary detention unless
it is expected that they will ultimately be committed per-
manently to its custody, so the facilities afforded by the
State Board are not considered in this discussion of tem-
porary detention.

PART IV

APPEALS

PART IV
APPEALS

The number of appeals in delinquent cases doubled in
the five years.* This increase is a matter of real concern.
The number is still very small in proportion to the total
volume of business, but the condition which seems to have
caused the increase affects many cases where no appeal is
actually taken.

The usual reason for a parent's dissatisfaction with the
lower court is that it has ordered the child to be committed
to a reform school or the State Board of Charity; and the
condition which causes the appeal is that in at least six
cases out of seven in the higher court the child is not com-
mitted. In 1909-10, out of thirty cases where the lower
court had ordered commitment or fine, there were only four
in which anything more was done in the higher court than
to place the children on probation. In 1910-11, out of
twenty-three cases where the lower court had ordered
commitment or fine, there were only two in which anything
more was done in the higher court than to place the children
on probation.

The lower court never orders a commitment unless it is
satisfied that the child's own home is bad or is unable to
control him. The higher court is no better equipped than
the lower for determining the facts as to the home, or for
controlling the child on probation. It is therefore very
probable that at least a substantial portion of the children
who appealed really suffered from not being committed.

As has already been stated, what happens in the higher
court on appeal affects many children who do not appeal.
The way in which children who do not appeal are affected

* 1906-7, 12; 1907-8, 12; 1908-9, 16; 1909-10, 34; 191Q-11, 25.

6o HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

is as follows : the lower court, realizing how great the chance
is that children will go free on appeal, refrains^ in many
instances where parents will not acquiesce, from insisting
on much needed commitments, and resorts to the order of
commitment only where there is no way remaining in
which probation can be kept from seeming to the child a
mere formality. The condition in the higher court accounts
for many instances of children being retained on proba-
tion in the lower court after two or more serious lapses.

It may seem, at first thought, that the lower court ought
to order commitments whenever it considers them desir-
able, regardless of what will be done in the Superior Court.
But that would really be unfair to the children, their par-
ents, and the officials of the Superior Court; unfair to the
children, because those whose cases are filed or nol prossed
(in the exigencies hereinafter explained) will go without
any oversight or control whatever; unfair to the parents
(who are usually sincere in their belief that they are doing
what is best) because it puts them to expense and trouble
without the lower court getting any nearer what it con-
siders best for the children; unfair to the officials of the
Superior Court, because it aggravates the serious conges-
tion of their calendar without much possibility of their
being able to do any good in the added cases.

The reasons for the way in which these juvenile appeals
are disposed of are as follows:

First — There are always many more cases before the
Superior Court than can possibly be actually tried. The
district attorney must dispose of a majority of the cases
without trial. In juvenile cases the amount of damage
to anyone but the child himself has been trifling, and the
damage which he is likely to do to others in the near future
if allowed to go at large is also trifling. The public are
still far from being awake to the fact that in the long run
the loss to the community from failure to remove a child

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 6i

promptly from unsuitable environment will really exceed
that which will accrue from failure to punish an adult who
has committed a grave offence. District attorneys are
intended by our form of government to express public
opinion. They accordingly put the juvenile cases among
the first to be disposed of without trial, either by nol
prossing them or by agreeing to recommend probation in
return for submission to an adjudication of delinquency.

Second — Even if the docket of the Superior Court were
not so overcrowded, there would still be difficulty in han-
dling the juvenile cases efficiently. Jurymen cannot be
expected to understand that the main object of proceed-
ings against a child is to secure him proper bringing up,
and thus in the end best serve the community. The jury-
men feel that the main object of a trial in children's cases
is what most laymen consider it to be in adult cases, namely,
punishment. They shrink from being party to the punish-
ment of a child, especially by the ponderous machinery
which they mostly associate with the handling of burglars
and embezzlers, and they acquit, no matter how clear the
evidence may be of acts of delinquency which are the signal
for the interference by the public in behalf of the child.
Furthermore, partly from this shrinking from seeing the
ponderous machinery of the criminal law put in motion
against a child and to some extent from a feeling that the
district attorney should not bother men with such trifles
as children's cases when there are real criminals to be
attended to, juries get biased against the district attorney
from his submitting children's cases to them, and he finds
that he not only fails to hold the children but his influence
with the jury in other cases is impaired.

It might be possible to remedy this difficulty by a law
(similar to that now in force for the Land Court) requiring
parents who wish a jury trial for their children to claim it
before the lower court goes into the facts at all, and provid-

62 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

ing that when a jury trial is claimed the case shall go on
the speedy list in the civil sessions of the higher court, and
be tried immediately after the conclusion of any case then
on trial, taking precedence of all other cases, and if the
verdict is against the child that the case shall be remanded
to the lower court for disposition.

The provision for taking precedence on the list and
remanding for disposition might well be applied to the
cases of neglected children which already go to the civil
sessions on appeal. Under the present procedure in neglect
cases appeals in them are as undesirable as in the delinquent
cases, because at best they are six months in being reached
for trial and often much longer, and when tried the court
is at a loss as to how to dispose of them because it has too
little of such business to give its officials the necessary
experience. The delay is very serious in some cases, as
for example where a little daughter of a dissolute mother,
who was enabled to procure bail, had to be left exposed in
that vicious custody for two years.

PART V

RELATIONS WITH OTHER AGENCIES

PART V
RELATIONS WITH OTHER AGENCIES

Cooperation of the School Department. The superintend-
ent of schools early took pains to introduce the judge to the
masters and throughout the existence of the court the super-
intendent, assistant superintendents, masters, teachers and
truant officers have complied with all requests for infor-
mation, given due consideration to all suggestions, and in
general shown great forbearance with new officials whose
lack of experience and new views must in some instances
have added substantially to the burden of teachers who
were already heavily taxed.

Cooperation of Police Department. The police commis-
sioner and the superintendent have been conferred with
from time to time on matters of general policy and have
cooperated heartily with the court. The patrolmen also
have endeavored to do all they could to carry out the
ideas of the new law despite some rather tedious waits
caused by the increased deliberation with which the
juvenile business is now conducted, and despite a natural
doubt as to the wisdom and practicability of certain
new methods. The patrolman's position in juvenile cases
is a very difficult one. It is frequently much harder
to discover and apprehend a child than a full grown
criminal. Despite the freq^uent complaints by the public
of the lawlessness of children in general the public are very
apt to look askance at the arrest of a particular child when
it is being made, even if they do not actually upbraid the
officer; and even if the public said nothing, a full grown
man must always feel a little ignominious in arresting a
small boy. After an officer has been put to great trouble,
and perhaps suffered some very unjust abuse, in the arrest

66 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

of a boy who has been a source of continuous annoyance to
the neighborhood, it is only natural that he should have a
tendency to feel that he has gone through it all for nothing
if the boy is allowed to go on probation. But the officers
on the whole are looking for the greatest good of the
children and are more than fair to them; and there have
been several cases where officers after arresting boys have
helped them to get work, to say nothing of the cases where
they have repeatedly warned and reasoned with parents
and children to avert the impending outbreak which would
necessitate arrest.

Assistance of Private Societies. The Boston Children's
Aid Society, in addition to furnishing homes for tempo-
rary detention and long term placement as previously
mentioned, furnishes women agents who perform all the
duties of probation officers in the cases of Protestant
girls. The Council of Jewish Women gives the court
the full time of a women agent who has served for all
practical purposes as a third probation officer and cared
for a very substantial portion of the cases of delin-
quency coming before the court, thus allowing the two
official probation officers to give more nearly the proper
amount of attention to each case of theirs than would
otherwise be possible, and affording Jewish parents who
cannot speak English the great benefit of intelligent and
sympathetic interpretation. The St. Vincent de Paul
Society gives the court the full time of a woman agent to
care for Catholic girls, who is for all practical purposes a
probation officer in those cases. The Italian Immigrant
Society gives the court the services of its woman agent for
the cases of Italian girls and for especially difficult family
problems. The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children takes complete charge of the prose-
cution of cases of neglected children and the Home for
Destitute Catholic Children cares for a large proportion

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 67

of the neglected children after they have been brought to
court. The South End House and the North Bennet
Street Industrial School provide accommodations in their
buildings for the weekly evening meetings of the probation
officers with their probationers from their respective dis-
tricts. More than a score of other societies and agencies
have responded cordially and assisted very materially in
individual cases.

Assistance of Physicians. Dr. Edward B. Lane has
devoted a large amount of time and skill to the exami-
nation of children to determine their mental condition
and Dr. Mary F. Hobart has given liberally of her time and
skill in the cases of girls. Many other physicians have
freely given very substantial assistance in individual cases.

The Press Have Been Considerate. The reporters and all
other members of the press have been most considerate
and have almost without exception observed the spirit of
the law by refraining from any endeavor to secure or
publish any account of the children's cases.

PART VI

EXPENSE AND BENEFITS OF THE COURT

PART VI
EXPENSE AND BENEFITS OF THE COURT

EXPENSE OF CONDUCTING THE PRESENT COURT

The expense of conducting the present court is $ii,8oo
a year. The items are as follows, viz. :

Salaries:

Justice $3,000 .00

Special Justices (30 days at $9.84 per day) 295 .20

Clerk 1 ,500 .00

Clerk pro tempore (30 days at $4.92 per day) 147 .60

Two Probation Officers at $1,800 per annum 3,600 .00

Probation Officers pro tempore (60 days at $5.90 per day). . . . 354 . 00

Stenographer 830 . 00

Substitute stenographer (12 days at $2.50 per day) 30. 00

Probation Officers' Expense:

Board and Lodging of Children $541 .77

Expense incident to Commitments 210.99

Car fares, telephone calls, etc 92 .00

844.76

Printing, Stationery and Office Supplies 679 .95

Witness Fees 149 . 50

Interpreters* Fees 204 .00

Telephone Service 153-32

$11,788.33

EXPENSE OF CONDUCTING JUVENILE BUSINESS IN THE
FORMER COURT

There is no way to determine accurately the expense to
the municipality of conducting the juvenile business of the
district previous to the establishment of this court, but it
probably did not exceed $2,800.

72 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

The details of this estimate are as follows, viz.:

Share of Justice's time*

(i hour per day, 300 days per annum) $750. 00

Share of Clerk's time

(2 hours per day, 300 days per annum) 650 .00

Share of Court Officers

(2 hours per day, 300 days per annum) 450 00

Expense incident to commitments 200 .00

Printing, Stationery and Office Supplies 500. 00

Witness Fees 150 .00

Interpreters' Fees 100. 00

$2,800.00

It is to be noticed that the expense to the municipality
by no means represents the whole expense of doing the
work of the court, because a substantial part of the work
is done by agents paid by private societies. Before the
establishment of the new court substantially all the pro-
bation work was done by the agent of the State Board of
Charity and the agents of private societies.

BENEFITS FROM THE NEW COURT

Benefits Shown hy Statistics, Authorities on juvenile
court matters agree that statistics as to increases or de-
creases in the number of offences are of minor significance
in determining the benefits derived from juvenile courts;
but there is a natural tendency on the part of the public
to attach some weight to such statistics; and therefore
attention is called to the fact that the end of the five year
period shows no increase over the beginning in the number
of complaints against juveniles for the standard offences

* It cannot be said that the time set free by relieving this official of the
juvenile business is lost to the city, because there was always in the former
court a substantial amount of extra judicial assistance paid for by the day
which could be dispensed with to the extent to which the court was relieved by
the transfer of the juvenile business. So far as the clerk and court officer are
concerned, the business of that court has increased so that there have been
additions to its staff since the establishment of the juvenile court.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 73

{i.e., the offences most uniformly prosecuted, such as lar-
ceny and the like) in spite of the increased population, the
increased congestion and the increased readiness to bring
juvenile offenders into court which attends the establish-
ment of a tribunal especially equipped to deal with them.
The new court has played a substantial part (even though
a minor one compared with that of the school department)
in the reduction of complaints for truancy from 118 in the
former court to 19, and of the number ordered committed
for truancy from 99 to 8, and this without any increase in
orders for commitment for other causes. The number of
commitments to jail in the last year of the former court was
64; the largest number in any year of the new court was
46, a reduction of over 20%; and in the last year of the
five year period there were only 32 commitments to jail.
The number of fines imposed the last year of the former
court was 480 ; the largest number in any year of the new
court was 218. There are doubtless some citizens who
will consider the reduction in commitments to jail and in
the number of fines a detriment rather than a benefit to
the community, but the end of the five year period shows
no increase over the beginning in the number of complaints
entered; there is therefore no statistical indication of
increased lawlessness in the limited district served by the
new court; and if the citizens in question could under-
stand that the abstention from fining meant — not remis-
sion of all attention to the offender — but on the contrary
greatly increased attention and control in the form of pro-
bationary oversight, some of them might take a different
view of the situation.

Benefits in Care of Children Arrested. There is a proba-
tion officer of the new court constantly* on call day and

* Between noon and ten P. M. there is sometimes a delay of an hour or two
in the probation officers' reaching the station because he has to be away from
the telephone at times during that part of the day making investigations.

74 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

night to visit any newly arrested child at the police station
and determine whether (if the police themselves will not
take the responsibility of releasing) the child may not
properly be released to its parents until the court sits next
day or at any rate cared for in a private family under the
authority of the court. This saves many children from
the undesirable experience of a night in a police station
or the city prison.

Benefits in the Handling of Girls. Under the new court
girls (with half a dozen exceptions) have not been kept
even over night in a police station, jail or city prison.
Under the former court there was no regular provision for
any girls between arrest and arraignment, and after arraign-
ment there was none for the temporary detention of girls
over fourteen. Under the new court girls committed to
institutions are invariably accompanied by women. There
was no provision for this under the former court.

Benefits in Neglect Cases. The most important single
benefit from the new court is the more careful study and
longer oversight which (owing to the increased time at the
disposal of the judge) is given to the cases of neglected
children. The importance of these cases cannot be over-
estimated; the handling of each of them directly affects
(in most instances) the lives of several children, while the
handling of a delinquent case ordinarily directly affects
the life of only one. The careful study of the cases pre-
vents ill considered separations of children from their
parents, ill considered dispositions of children when sepa-
rated from their parents, and ill considered returns to their
parents. The longer oversight prevents (or saves serious
harm to children from) breakdowns which occur in many
cases even after several months of good behavior.

Under the previous system neglect cases were usually
dismissed after a few months' supervision and no new
action was taken until the home conditions became as bad

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 75

again as when the children were first brought to the atten-
tion of the court. Now no case is dismissed unless the
children are committed to the custody of the State Board
of Charity or some other public authority, or (if left at
home) until some new element has come into the situation
which ensures adequate permanent provision for the chil-
dren, or (if placed with private societies or in private
families) until the children have passed the age limit of the
jurisdiction of the court.

There is a constantly increasing saving of actual direct
expense to the public treasury by the present conduct of
these cases, to say nothing of the social gain. It should
be stated that the extra time given by the court would
avail but little without the very greatly increased and
improved service furnished by the Massachusetts Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Benefits in Other Cases. The effects of the devotion of
more time to the work of the court is not quite so marked
in other cases as in those of neglected children, but the
citation of a few instances will indicate that substantial
benefits must result. When boys who have been gambling
are made to save money for months instead of being dis-
missed at once with a warning or a small fine, when boys
who have been stealing are made to pay full restitution
out of their own earnings in instalments through a year or
more instead of being fined or placed on probation with
little oversight and no requirement of restitution, when
boys who have been throwing stones or jumping on cars
are made to write the ordinances of the city instead of being
sent home after a slight reprimand or a small money pay-
ment by their parents, when boys coming to court for any
cause who are found to be loafing are looked after until
well established at work, — there is great benefit in thrift,
honesty, lawfulness, and industry to the boys themselves
and through them to the community. When children wha

76 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

have repeatedly offended are studied by probation officers,
submitted to experts, and provided for with due reference
to their mentality, instead of being sent indiscriminately
to reform schools to be released and returned over and
over, there is large benefit to the community in the sav-
ing of loss from repeated depredations and of expense of
repeated arrests and commitments, of expense of hospital
treatment for infectious diseases, and of expense of support-
ing mentally and physically deficient offspring.

Benefits from Restricted Attendance in Hearing-Room.
While the restriction of those in attendance at each hearing
of each case to the persons immediately concerned in it
and to visitors who have a real reason for being present
has no relation whatever to the cost of maintaining the
court and is not due to the new officers (being required by
the statute establishing the court) it ought to be mentioned
in reciting the benefits of the new court. The restricted
hearing has been warmly commended by every humanita-
rian who has observed its operation; and while it may be
questioned by some conservative jurists as being an unwise
departure from long established customs of publicity in
court matters, it affords the most natural and efficacious
setting for bringing out the facts of children's delinquency
and the cause of it, and for determining the treatment for
it; it gives protection to children and blameless parents
from being pilloried before the public, and permits to a
great extent the adaptation of the procedure to the needs
of each case — benefits which no judge, even the most con-
servative, would be likely to relinquish without serious
misgiving, after he had once experienced them.

PART VII

RECOMMENDATIONS

PART VII
RECOMMENDATIONS

Clinic for the Intensive Study of Baffling Cases. A
clinic for the intensive study of baffling cases which fail
to respond to ordinary probationary treatment would
enhance the efficiency of the court more than any other
accessory. Juvenile courts and all other agencies are deal-
ing with children without sufficient knowledge of what is
really the matter; and great amounts of money, time, and
nervous strength are being spent on children in ways which
the few leading investigators could have told at the outset
would have been utterly unavailing. This refers not only
to cases of deficient mentality and epilepsy, but also to
cases of improvable mental and physical conditions. The
expense of such a clinic seems large (the Chicago clinic
costs $8,000 a year) but it will really result in a great saving
to the community. Anything short of a fully equipped
clinic will be nothing but a source of disappointment. The
man in charge should be a physician with great common
sense, a faculty for winning the confidence of children, and
a good knowledge of psychology. He should give his
whole time to the work, and should not be assigned so
much work as to prevent his giving all the time he desires
to each case.

In any event, the authority of the courts to incur the
expense of expert mental examination should be definitely
established. In this county no bills for expert service will
be honored unless the expert testifies in court as a witness.
In most children's cases it is entirely unnecessary to have
the expert come to court and give formal testimony. That
only makes it difficult to get the best man to serve, and
greatly increases the payment to those who do serve.

8o HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

Most of the leading physicians agree that it is out of the
question to deal properly with these cases in the ordinary
hospital clinic, so this court has been forced to have recourse
to a combination of the public spirit of an expert and small
money payments from private funds for most of its mental
examinations.

More Probation Officers and Office Stenographers. The
present probation officers are already worked to the limit
of their capacity.* There are many children (as indicated
by the substantial number who come to court more than
once) that need much more time spent on them, to say
nothing of the need of more time to secure proper proba-
tion records, t

The leading authorities state that a probation officer

* Carefully kept daily figures show that the probation officers and the agent
of the Council of Jewish Women work an average of 8j hours per day, includ-
ing Saturdays. The time taken out for meals and personal matters is rigidly
excluded from this computation. Owing to the fact that much of this work
from its nature must be done evenings, the 8j hours on many days has to be
distributed over a period of from lo to 12 hours. The judge, who was expected
by the framers of the law establishing the court to devote only the forenoon to
his official duties, devotes all the rest of the day to supplementing the proba-
tion service by acting as a sort of chief probation officer, thus giving in all
over 8 hours per day to the work of the court.

t The records of the probation department contain valuable information
about individual children, but they are of little value for statistics. The chief
reason why they are of little value for statistics is that they are not uniformly
filled out. For example, if one wishes to compile data about the material
condition of the families, he will find one record with the number of rooms
duly entered but the income of the family lacking, and the next record may
state the income but lack the number of rooms.

The cause of this condition is, for the most part, the lack of a sufficient num-
ber of probation officers. This means that something must be omitted. In
cases where the probation officers have made out partial records at the begin-
ning of the case with the expectation of completing them later, pressure of work
has resulted in indefinite postponement — if the probation officer has to choose
between completing some records and taking a child to the dispensary, he
chooses the more immediately vital act.

The same pressure of business has led to the deliberate abstention from any

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 8i

should not have more than 75 cases in hand at a time.
The probation officers of this court, including the agent of
the Council of Jewish Women, each have 125 cases. There
should therefore be at least two more probation officers.
Furthermore, it would be only fair if the Council of Jewish
Women were relieved of the burden of furnishing what is
for all practical purposes a third probation officer, and the
Children's Aid Society and the St. Vincent de Paul Society
were relieved of doing the probation work with girls which
takes the equivalent of the full time of one woman. There-
fore in fairness there really should be four more probation
officers instead of two more. There should be at least one
additional stenographer in order to relieve the probation
officers of much of the answering of inquiries, to facilitate
the keeping of records, and make possible the keeping of
statistics. All such work as the preparation of this review
has now to be done at private expense.

If there is not to be any increase in the number of pro-
bation officers, the court should certainly be authorized
to pay the car fares, telephone calls and any similar expenses
incurred by the agents of the private societies in their
work on court cases. Furthermore authority ought to be
given deputy probation officers to serve mittimuses to re-
form schools. The court has always insisted that girls*
cases shall be handled by women to the very end of the

attempt to make out records in many cases of violation of license regulations
or of city ordinances.

In girls' cases records are very apt to be lacking, because the cases are
handled by the paid agents of private societies. Those agents are not in
regular attendance at the court; they make full records for their own files
which are always open to the court. All the stafT of these societies are sorely
pressed for time and it seems hardly fair to ask them to make duplicate records
for the court. The same is true of the neglect cases, which are handled by
the agents of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children. There is no law requiring the probation officers to investigate
neglect cases or keep any records of them, but it is just as desirable to have
records in court of that class of cases as of the delinquent cases.

82 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

court's connection with them. In pursuance of this poUcy
the women agents of the private societies have taken to
Lancaster all girls who have been ordered to be committed
there, and the regular probation officers have made the
formal return of service. No girl has ever tried to escape
in transit, but there is some question as to whether the
agents of the private societies, thus acting for the proba-
tion officer, have the technical authority to retake a child
who leaves them, and it would certainly be most wasteful
of time and money to have the regular probation officers
accompany the agents on these four-hour trips.

Make Parents Contribute to Support of Children Committed.
In many cases of commitment to reform schools and the
State Board of Charity, the parents have not neglected
the children in any such gross way as to justify criminal
proceedings under the so-called ''neglect law," and yet
they might fairly have been expected to do more than they
did, and in any event they ought not to be relieved of the
burden of supporting the child for whose existence they
are responsible. There is at present no provision for com-
pelling a parent to pay anything in these cases, unless
there is such gross neglect as to warrant criminal proceed-
ings. It seems most desirable that a law should be enacted
authorizing any court in committing a child to order the
parents to pay something toward the support of the child;
the amount of the payments to be determined by the judge
according to the circumstances of each case, and to be
changed, from time to time if changed circumstances
require it. Unless the parents were fairly well to do, the
court would of course refrain from ordering payment of the
full cost of keeping the child by the public and would limit
the payments to the amount of the expense of which the
parent would be relieved by the commitment of the child
if no order for payment were made. Such laws are already

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 83

in successful operation in other states. There is such a
law here for the cases of truants but it is useless because
there is no provision for enforcing compliance with orders
made under it.

Payment hy Probationers of Expense of Probation. It
seems desirable that courts should be authorized to re-
quire (in such cases as they choose) probationers, or their
parents, to pay something toward the expense of main-
taining the probation service.* The amount to be paid
in any case should be left to the discretion of the court,
subject to a maximum limit. The court should also have
discretion as to the rate of payment. This authority
seems desirable for the following reasons:

First — there are some cases where probation is clearly
the best treatment, but falls short of its greatest efificacy
because the parents or the children, or both, fail to com-
prehend the real nature of probation, and seem unable to
realize the seriousness of the situation without some more
obvious and concrete indication of it than the regular
administration of probation affords. The need of such
authority is especially felt where a child breaks down dur-
ing or after a period of probation, and it is still thought
best to refrain from commitment. f

Second — the need is not met by the power to fine. The

* The practice already resorted to in a few cases of requiring probationers
to pay the "costs" or expenses of the case is not adequate for the purpose
underlying this recommendation. Many judges do not consider it legal to
€xact an arbitrary sum under the name of "costs" and believe that nothing
can properly be exacted beyond the amount actually expended in the prepara-
tion and trial of the case. In the lower courts the amount actually expended
is too small to be of any service.

t The power now existing to impose a fine not exceeding five dollars for
violations of probation does not meet the need even of the cases which arise
during probation (being in nature and amount designed for minor violations
like failure to report) and it is of course unavailable for first offences and
offences occurring after the close of probation.

84 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

moment a fine is paid the child by law must be discharged,
unless it happens that he is already on probation in an
other case, and even then a fine is undesirable because it
establishes a criminal record against the child. Further-
more the payment will have a much greater educational
value in the form of a payment toward the expense of
probation than in the form of a fine, because it makes a
natural opening for an explanation by the court to the
probationer to the effect that care of a child by a pro-
bation officer costs the city a great deal of money, and
when a child behaves so that it is necessary to put him
on probation, he (or his parent as the case may be) ought
to pay as much of the expense as possible.

Some excellent authorities on juvenile delinquency ob-
ject that this recommendation is punitive in character
and savors of the criminal law, and they maintain that no
desire for it would be felt in a court with an adequate
number of thoroughly competent probation officers, for
such officers would educate both child and parents by more
intelligent means without resort to any such crude process.
In answer to this it may be said that most persons will
agree that requiring restitution is an entirely wholesome
practice and it would seem that the practice here recom-
mended is so similar to ordinary restitution that it might
be described as making restitution to the State.

All License Violatiojis by School Boys To Be Dealt with
by School Authorities. The school department issues all
licenses for street vending by boys under fourteen, through
its supervisor of licensed minors does a substantial part of
the supervision of its licensees, and through its trial board
deals with all violations which that supervisor wishes to
have acted on. One supervisor, however, is not enough
to do all the work, and the police department details an
officer for the same purpose and also to supervise the
minors fourteen and over. If the school department could

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 85

have another supervisor, it would probably be unnecessary
to have the police department take cognizance ordinarily
of violations by school committee licensees, with the con-
sequence that those cases would be eliminated from the
juvenile court except in the few instances where it might
be desirable to impose a fine.

The ponderous formality of a sworn complaint followed
by the issuance of two summonses to be served by an
officer seems almost absurd when gone through with
because a boy has forgotten his badge or sold after eight
o'clock, and yet persons should not ordinarily be brought
before a court in any other way. When it comes to disposi-
tion of the cases the school authorities are the only ones
who can legally impose the penalty which is in the greater
part of the cases the most appropriate, viz. : suspension or
revocation of the license. The handling of these cases by
the school authorities would set free for more serious cases
time sorely needed by all court officials from the judge
down, though it would not be enough to warrant dispens-
ing with any of the increase of probation service above
recommended.

Employment for Probationers. It is important to cause
probationers to secure employment through the ordinary
channels as far as possible and most probationers secure
work in that way, but there is a substantial residuum who
for one reason or another cannot or do not secure employ-
ment, and can only be started on the road to industry by
being deliberately planted in a job and encouraged to stay
in it by an employer or foreman who is willing to put
himself out to do a little social service. Somebody should
make a business of seeking out and keeping a full list of
public spirited men who can be induced to keep one or
two such boys on hand all the time. This could be done
by a probation officer especially detailed to that service if
the staff were large enough, but it is probably best that

86 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

it should be done by the placement department of some
social service agency through a trained social worker
especially assigned to the service.

Better Provision for Appeals. A recommendation in
regard to appeals is made in connection with the comment
on appeals earlier in this review.

Better Quarters for Probation Officers. The present quar-
ters of the court afford no opportunity for really intimate
conference between the probation officers and their chil-
dren. Their desks are in the open waiting room and there
is not even a private room to which they can retire in
special cases. This deficiency was called to the attention
of the authorities when the court house was enlarged ; but
they could not see their way to approving the expense in-
volved in remedying it. Better facilities must be provided
before the probation officers can do their best work.

PART VIII

GENERAL COMMENT ON THE NEW LAW, PROBATION AND THE
ALLEGED INCREASE IN JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

PART VIII
GENERAL COMMENT

New Law Has Not Curtailed the Power to Arrest Juveniles
and Commit Them to Reform Schools. It has been frequently
stated since the passage of chapter 413 of the Acts of 1906
(commonly known as the '' Delinquent Law") that nothing
can be done to juvenile offenders except place them on
probation. This statement is wholly incorrect. Children
can be arrested by police officials just as freely as ever, and
the courts can commit them as freely as ever to the Massa-
chusetts Reformatory, the Industrial School for Boys at
Shirley, the Lyman School for Boys at Westboro, the Suf-
folk School for Boys at Rainsford Island, the Industrial
School for Girls at Lancaster, and the State Board of
Charity, which takes younger children of both sexes.
Children under fourteen can no longer be committed to a
jail or house of correction under any conditions, but with
the above named institutions freely available, the sternest
citizen cannot complain that there is any lack of opportu-
nity for ''punishment" by commitment.

Fines May Still Be Imposed. Moreover children may
still be fined, but the law does aim to discourage fining
children under fourteen, and has interposed certain pre-
liminary formalities which make fining such children less
convenient than it used to be.

New Law Increases Power of Courts. Indeed, instead of
taking away power from the courts in the cases of juvenile
offenders, the new law has increased those powers. It
provides that any child between seven and seventeen ''who
habitually associates with vicious or immoral persons, or
who is growing up in circumstances exposing him, or her,
to lead an immoral, vicious, or criminal life" may be com-
7 89

90 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

plained of as a ''wayward" child and placed on probation
or committed to the State Board of Charity. This enables
the court in any case where the evidence falls short of what
is required by law to prove the commission of any specific
offence, but shows the child has been keeping bad company
or late hours, or is bunking out, to hold the child under
oversight by having a complaint made against him as a
wayward child. There is a striking instance of the useful-
ness of this form of complaint in the experience of the
court. A large boy who was believed, with very good rea-
son, to be connected with many thefts made good his boast
that the police could never make legal proof of his connec-
tion with any wrong doing; but the evidence showed that
he was well acquainted with thieves, lived apart from his
parents and was out at all hours of the night. The court
had him complained of as a wayward child, put him on
probation and thus caused him to lead a regular and indus-
trious life until he became too old to be held in the juvenile
court.

Advantages of Probation. In this connection attention
should be called to certain features of probation which are
apparently unknown to the general public. After a fine
is paid the court loses all control of the culprit, no matter
how unsatisfactory his conduct may be, until a new charge
can be proved against him. If the boy is put on probation,
it is not necessary to be able to prove the commission of a
new offence against him in order to commit him, and if his
general conduct is unsatisfactory, he can be surrendered
at any time and committed. This gives the court a hold
on the boy all the time he is on probation, which may be
for months or years. Some police officers fully realize the
advantage of probation in this respect and prefer probation
to fines, saying that if they find a boy staying out late,
keeping bad company, or acting suspiciously in any way,
they can take him aside, remind him that he is on probation,

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 91

and tell him that they must report him to the court unless
he changes his habits. Moreover, probation with careful
oversight such as can be given by the new court with its
officers is very different from a mere permission for the
boy to go free so long as he does not misbehave. Weekly
reports for workers, Saturday morning reports for school
boys, daily reports for loafers, are distinctly burdensome,
as is shown in the case of one young man who told his
mother that he wished the court would fine him and have
done with it, so he would not be bothered with having to
report at court. Indeed, it has its effect on parents who
frequently say, ''Well, when is he going to get through with
this coming to court!" and in one instance have said in
open court, "I would rather pay a fine and get through
with it and not be bothered with his coming down here all
the time."

Deterrent Effect of Commitment Overestimated. The
experience of the last five years tends strongly to make one
believe that the deterrent effect of commitment is greatly
overestimated. More than half a dozen instances where
boys brought to court for stealing had older brothers serv-
ing sentences at that moment for the same offence go far
to offset the force of the instances where it is alleged that
the fining or commitment of a boy or two has been followed
by the entire cessation for a long time of all disorder in a
previously disorderly neighborhood. One of the greatest
factors in the commonly assumed potency of the deterrent
effect of commitment is shame. This factor is slight in
the congested districts from which most of the court cases
come. Arrests of children and men are of common occur-
rence there. While the great majority of boys, even of
congested districts, are wholly law abiding and hold aloof
from lawlessness, law breaking is a common topic among a
substantial number of boys, and in the minds of that num-
ber there is no such thing as shame attending commitment ;

92 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

most of them know boys who have returned from a reform
school to as good a position among their companions as
that previously held, or perhaps to a better position.

Increase in Violations of Law by Juveniles in Suburban
Districts'^ Would Be in no Wise Alarming for the following
reasons :

I. The number of children to the acre has greatly
increased. One has only to look at the way every avail-
able foot is covered with dwellings to realize this, without
going out of the way to see the immense new school-
houses.

H. The amount of time each child is in the street or
away from home where is he likely to clash with the estab-
lished social order is greatly increased in two ways.

1. There is no place in the modern apartment for a
waking child, and no yard outside it, so more of the
free time of many children must be spent in the street
or at any rate away from home.

2. There are no chores to be done in apartments,
so there is much more free time to spend.

There is good reason to believe that the increase in viola-
tions of law by children in the suburbs (so far as there is
any increase) is due to the increased number of children
and the increased amount of time they inevitably spend
away from home rather than to any deterioration in the
children's moral fibre, or even any decrease in the interest
or vigilance of their parents. While parents might take
better care of their children than they do to-day, it is very
doubtful if they are taking less care than they used to, and

*The Boston Juvenile Court has no jurisdiction over offences committed
in any parts of the city other than the North, West and South Ends, and the
Back Bay. Juveniles who offend in Dorchester, Roxbury, West Roxbury,
Brighton, Charlestown, East Boston and South Boston are dealt with by the
ordinary courts of those districts.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 93

the demand for playgrounds and publicly supervised play
is as natural and inevitable a result of modern city housing
as the demand for public water supply.

Juvefiile Courts only Remedial Institutions. It should be
borne in mind that the juvenile court at best bears only
the same relation to delinquency that the consumptives*
hospital bears to tuberculosis. In combating tuberculosis
the most important agencies are those organized for its
prevention. In combating delinquency there are many
agencies much nearer the seat of the difficulty than the
juvenile court. The court gets a child only after something
has gone wrong. The church, the school, the settlement,
all can do much to prevent anything going wrong at all.
All agencies which make for better family life through
better training of parents, better housing, better regulation
of the liquor traffic, better conditions of work, all agencies
which make for more suitable education and better facilities
for play — all these are nearer to the heart of the difficulty
than the court. The court can do comparatively little
to avert first offences. When the other agencies reach the
highest degree of efficiency, then we may look for a reduc-
tion in the number of offences.

APPENDIX

RESULTS OF SAVING IN CASES OF PROBATION FOR
GAMBLING

In the spring of 191 3 Miss Marion Bennett, graduate
student in probation of the School for Social Workers,
made an investigation to find what happened after the end
of probation in the cases of 83 boys who had saved money
as a condition of probation for gambling. These boys had
all been under the same probation officer and they were all
the boys he had, prior to 19 12, on probation for gambling
with the requirement of saving money. Their probation
had ended all the way from five years to one year before
the date of the investigation. All the boys who could be
located were interviewed and a sufficient number of state-
ments verified by inquiry at the savings banks to prove the
general reliability of the answers.

The results of this investigation are as follows:

Number of boys found 67

Number who had saved at some time subsequent to their probation. . . 33

Number who were saving at date of investigation 22

Number who had used their savings for necessaries 48

Number who has used their savings for pleasure 9

STATISTICS

FOR PURPOSES OF COMPARISON

OF THE SECOND FIVE YEARS

OF THE

BOSTON JUVENILE COURT

STATISTICS

FOR PURPOSES OF COMPARISON

OF THE

SECOND FIVE YEARS OF THE BOSTON JUVENILE COURT

September i, iqii-August 31, 1916

NUMBER OF CHILDREN BROUGHT TO COURT

The Boston Juvenile Court completed its second five
years on Aug. 31, 1916. During those five years 4,486
different children were brought before the court, 3»65i
were boys and 835 were girls. Of these children 3,829
were delinquent or wayward and 667 neglected. Of the
delinquent and wayward children, 3,332 were boys and
487 were girls.

The figures for the different years were as follows :*

IQII-12 1912-13 1913-14 1914-15 1915-16 Total

Delinquent Boys. . . , 859

Delinquent Girls. ... 79
Total Delinquent

Children 938

Neglected Children. 156

* Adding the figures given in this table will give a total exceeding the real
total of children brought before the court in the five years, because there are a
number of instances of the same child being brought before the court in more
than one year. Wayward children are included in this table.

874

III

906
III

627
62

599
103

3.865
466

985

1,017

689

702

4,331

179

124

133

672

100 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

CAUSES FOR WHICH THE CHILDREN WERE BROUGHT TO COURT

1911-12 1912-13 1913-14 1914-15 1915-16 Total

Assault and Battery
(including i case of
Manslaughter)... 54 98 76 72 43 343

Robbery, Breaking
and Entering, Lar-
ceny, Receiving
Stolen Property,
Using V e h i c 1 e s
without P e r m i s-
sion. Forgery, and
False pretenses. . . 464 515 553 480 421 2,433

Fornication, Idle and
Disorderly, Lewd
Wanton and Las-
civious, Rape (i
case) Unnatural
Acts, Exposure of
Person, Obscene
Pictures 25 26 31 16 19 117

Stubborn Children

and Runaways .. . 51 38 43 49 50 231

Gambling 81 77 46 55 59 31S

Drunkenness 8 3 6 2 3 22

Miscellaneous Statu-
tory Misdemean-
ors (including
Breaking Glass
and other forms of
Trespass, Loiter-
ing at R. R. Sta-
tions, Begging,
Disturbing the
Peace, etc.) 69 99 118 99 62 447

Violation of City
Ordinances, such
as playing Ball in
the street. Steal-
ing Rides on cars,
etc 116 134 200 100 67 617

Violation of License

Regulations 99 12 20 131^

Truancy 11 13 27 8 5 64^

Waywardness 33 52 23 34 29 17 1

Violation of Proba-
tion I 12 3 4 8 28

Arson i i

1,0133 1,0793 1,1263 q^qS y563 4,9233

Neglect 156 179 123 137 75 670

^ The great decrease in the number of complaints for violation of license
regulations (there were 866 during the first five years period) was caused by the
operation of the Boston Newsboys' Trial Board, established by the School

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER loi

CAUSES FOR WHICH GIRLS WERE BROUGHT TO COURT

1911-12 1912-13 1913-14 1914-15 1915-16 Total

Assault and Battery 1833 15

Larceny, etc 23 24 61 45 61 214

Runaways, Immoral,

etc 56 78 52 51 46 283

Drunkenness i i i 3

Truancy i 7 8

Violation Ordinan-
ces, etc 2 2 I 5

84^ 112^ 124'' 102^ 108^ 584

Neglect 77 80 68 74 38 337

Committee on October i, 19 10, for the express purpose of dealing with viola-
tions of license regulations by school children. The number of complaints re-
corded-before the Newsboys' Trial Board during the five year period under
consideration is as follows:

1911-12 igi2-i3 1913-14 1914-15 igi5-i6 Total
275 464 445 539 389 2,112

2 A decrease from 267 for the first five year period. Judge Baker's Com-
ments under this heading in his report for the first five years indicate
the cause for what practically amounts to the elimination of truancy
from the court docket. Had another written the paragraph on truancy
he would surely have given Judge Baker himself much of the credit for the
changed attitude toward the handling of truancy as an offense among children.
It was perfectly patent to the disinterested observer that the new method
inaugurated by Judge Baker for the handling of truants on probation was what
aroused the School Department to greater activity in the way of suppressing
truancy. The school teachers would probably be the first to sanction this
statement. The practice before the Juvenile Court was established was to con-
sider that when a child was brought to court he had had his probationary period
and therefore was ripe for commitment. This is clearly indicated by the fact
that 99, or 84%, of the 1 18 children brought before the former court for truancy
the year before the establishment of the new court were committed. Judge
Baker's method was to give the children a trial on probation in the court — a
method which resulted in a very radical reduction in the number of commit-
ments. The efforts of the schools therilselves to cure truancy without resort
to the court proved so successful that it was decided that there was no longer
need for a truant school. Accordingly the Parental School was abolished.
Now truants must first be sent to a disciplinary day school before they can be
complained of in the court for truancy. If they truant there they may be com-
plained of in court and put on probation, or, if commitment is proved neces-
sary, boys may be sent to the Suffolk School and girls to the State Board of
Charity. As a matter of fact, it has never been found necessary to commit a
girl for truancy in the Boston Juvenile Court.

3 and 4 yj^g total causes for which children were brought to court in any year
exceeds the number of children brought to court in that year, because in some
instances the sam e child came in more than once during the year.

102

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

DISPOSITION OF THE CASES

Delinquent and Wayward Children Ordered Committed^

IQII-I2 IQ12-13 IQI3~I4 igi4-i5 1915-16

Mass. Reformatory

(boys) 3 2 I

Ind. School for Boys,

Shirley 26 24 49 20 13

Suffolk School (boys) 21 19 12 11 4

Lyman School (boys) 33 33 28 40 19

Berkshire Ind. Farm

(boys) « I I

Parental School 5 2

Ind. School for Girls
at Lancaster 22 21 24 18 16

Daly Ind. School

(girls) e I

House of Good Shep-
herd (girls) « 8 12 9 12 8

State Board of Char-
ity 24 27 33 27 9

Total

132

153

lOI

142 139 157 129 71 638

Neglected Children Ordered Committed
IQII-12 IQ12-13 IQ13-14 IQ14-1S 1915-16 Total
State Board of Char-
ity and Trustees for

Children of the

City of Boston^ . . .

143

Home for Destitute

Catholic Children^

317

Home for Destitute

Jewish Children^ .

107

129

2
55

462

Number of Fines Imposed

1911-12

1912-13

1913-14 1914-15

1915-16

Total

Assault and Battery

Larceny

Gaming

Vio. Ordinances (inc.

auto regulations) . .

107

212

Violation License . . .

Violation Probation .

65^

376

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 103

AMOUNT OF FINES IMPOSED FOR FIVE YEARS

$10

$15

$25

$40

Total

Assault and Battery

Larceny

Gaming

Vio. Ord

Vio. License

Vio. Prob

122

161

$228

207

232

506

$1244

CHILDREN PLACED ON PROBATION
IQII-12 1912-13 1913-14 1914-15 1915-16
379 377 308 307 385

Total
1,729"

FOUND NOT DELINQUENT OR NOT GUILTY
1911-12 1912-13 1913-14 1914-15 1915-16 Total
49 29 13 7 27 125

^ In 72 instances appeals were taken from these orders to the Superior Court,
and in most of these instances the Superior Court refrained from committing
and placed the children on probation, or filed or nol prossed their cases.

* The court has no authority to commit a child to any private institution,
but in certain cases if parents prefer any private institution, the child is
placed on probation, making it a condition of the probation that the child
shall be placed in the institution desired and not taken out without the con-
sent of the court.

^ The cases of 15 of these children were appealed.

^ Children are not permanently committed to this private institution but
are placed in its care on continuance under Acts of 1903, chap. 334, sec. 3,
subject to recall by the court at any time.

' The falling off in the number of fines imposed is explained by the fact
that in 1915 the practice was begun of xDrdering the payment of costs in lieu
of fines in most instances in which a money penalty was deemed advisable.
Thus from April to October, 19 15 costs were ordered in 57 cases, amounting
to $121.87; and in 19 15-16 costs were ordered in 98 cases amounting to $266.98.

^° The radical reduction in the number of children placed on probation (the
total for the first five-year period was 2,646) is explained by the fact that many
cases were disposed of by filing or the ordering of some money penalty rather
than by placing the children on probation. This was done not because of any
feeling that the children would not have been helped by probationary oversight,
but because a more careful selection of those children to be placed on proba-
tion was deemed necessary on account of the inadequate number of probation
officers assigned to the court.

104

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

DEFAULTS

There were on September i, 1916, 128 children who had
defaulted and whose whereabouts where unknown; 79 of
these were delinquent or wayward children, and 49 were
neglected children. *

AGES

Compilation of the ages in 2,184 cases of children
brought to court for larceny and kindred offences in the
five years gives (omitting fraction of a per cent) the fol-
lowing percentages:*

Years Per Cent

Seven i

Eight 3

Nine 5

Ten 8

Eleven 8

Years Per Cent

Twelve 14

Thirteen 13

Fourteen. 15

Fifteen 14

Sixteen 17

* Compared with the table of ages for the first five years, these per-
centages indicate a greater number of little boys brought to court — one quarter,
instead of one fifth, were under twelve years of age. This suggests that there
is constant recruiting of the ranks of delinquent children among the younger
ones, which is bound to go on until really effective constructive agencies for
the safeguarding of children in the home and on the street are operative.

Also it suggests, possibly, a recognition of the appropriateness of bringing
little children into a juvenile court when it would not be considered appropriate
to bring them into an adult criminal court. From this point of view, the
bringing of more younger children to court is encouraging; for the earlier a
child with delinquent tendencies is brought under the influences of that depart-
ment organized for his protection, the greater the chances of success in cor-
recting those tendencies. Whether the department organized for his protec-
tion should be a part of the judicial machinery or of the school department is
a question that has been much under discussion.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 105

REPEATING

Repeating in general. Of the 786 children who were
found delinquent in the year 1911-12, 228, or 29%, were
found deHnquent more than once during the five year
period. The details are as follows:

Two Three Four Five Six

Times Times Times Times Times

148 50 20 7 3

Repeating offences other than violations of ordinances and
license regulations. Of the 525 children found delinquent
in the year 1911-12 for offences other than violation of
ordinances and license regulations 148 or 28% were found
delinquent more than once during the five year period for
offences of that same restricted class. The details are as
follows :

Two Three Four Five

Times Times Times Times

98 29 15 6

Repeating by children placed on probation. Of the 379
children placed on probation the first year (1911-12) 143
or 37% were either committed for failing on probation
or were found delinquent again during the five years for
some offence other than violation of ordinances or license
regulations.*

* Of the children placed on probation, 326 were boys and 53 were girls; 136,
or 41.7%, of the boys and 6, or 11.3%, of the girls were committed for failing
on probation, or were found delinquent again in the five years for some offence
other than the violation of ordinances or license regulations.

OFFICERS

OF THE

BOSTON JUVENILE COURT
1911-1916

Justice

Harvey H. Baker Died April 10, 191 5

Frederick P. Cabot Appointed Feb. 5, 1916

Special Justices

Philip Rubenstein

Frank Leveroni
Clerk

Charles W. M. Williams
Probation Officers

Roy M. Cushman

Joseph Connolly

John B. O'Hare

John M. Kingman

May a. Burke

Jane E. Stone

Agent of the Council of Jewish Women attending the court in
the nature of a probation officer for Jewish children
Katherine Weisman Resigned May 31, 191 2

Kate R. Borovoy April i, 1911-May 31, 1913
Lucy S. Sandberg Oct. i, 1912-May i, 19 14
Edith B. Koff June i, 1913-

Jane E. Stone July i, 1914-Sept. 30, 191 5

Agent of the St. Vincent de Paul Society attending the
court in the nature of a probation officer for Catholic girls

Lillian F. Foss Resigned Oct. 31, 191 3

Margaret Maher Nov. i, 1913-Jan. 31, 1914

Agent of League of Catholic Women attending the court in
the nature of a probation officer for Catholic girls
May a. Burke Feb. i, 1914-Sept. 30, 1915

106

Resigned Oct.

1915

Sept.

I, 1911-Sept.

30,

1912

Oct.

I, 1912-

Oct.

I, 1915-

Oct.

I, 1915-

Oct.

I, 1915-

JUDGE BAKER

THE PROCEDURE OF
THE BOSTON JUVENILE COURT

JUDGE BAKER ON THE PROCEDURE OF
THE BOSTON JUVENILE COURT*

The Boston Juvenile Court is administered on the
assumption that the fundamental function of a juvenile
court is to put each child who comes before it in a normal
relation to society as promptly and as permanently as
possible, and that while punishment is not by any means
to be dispensed with, it is to be made subsidiary and sub-
ordinate to that function, t

The officials of the court believe it is helpful to think
of themselves as physicians in a dispensary. The quarters
of the court are well adapted in location and arrangement
for carrying out that conception. Although they are in
the main court house of the city, they are adjacent to the
quarters of the Supreme Judicial Court and the Probate
Court, in the portion of the building most remote from the
criminal courts. They are in a quiet corner overlooking an
interior quadrangle quite away from the notice of passers
on the street or persons in the court house on other business.
They comprise a large waiting room, 37 by 25I feet, where
offenders and all other persons attending the court wait for
the cases to be called, and the judge's small private room,
17I by 12 J feet, where all cases are heard. There is no
regular dock or detention enclosure connected with the
general waiting room and the children usually sit with
their parents in chairs placed along the sides of the room.
Occasionally a boy who is under arrest and likely to yield
to the temptation to leave without permission is placed
behind the railing which keeps the general public at a

* Reprinted by permission from the Survey of Feb. 5, 19 10.

t "This act shall be liberally construed to the end . . . that as far as
practicable (children) shall be treated, not as criminals, but as children in
need of aid, encouragement and guidance. Proceedings against children under
this act shall not be deemed to be criminal proceedings." Extract from the
general law prescribing the method of dealing with juvenile offenders in all
courts in Massachusetts (St. 1906, c. 413, §2).

109

no HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

proper distance from the clerk and his papers, or a girl is
placed with the stenographer in the probation officers'
record room. There are no uniformed officials.

The statute establishing the court provides that "so far
as possible the court shall hear all cases in chambers" (St.
1906, c. 489, §5) i.e., in the judge's private room. The
judge's room cannot comfortably hold more than a dozen
persons, and there are seldom that many in it together.
It is entirely without decorations or objects which might
distract the attention of a child. The presence of the
clerk and stenographer is dispensed with, and the proba-
tion officer is the only court attendant ever in the room.
With the exception that the judge sits on a platform about
six inches high, much like a school teacher's platform, there
is no more formality of arrangement or attendance than
there is in a physician's examination room.

The statute establishing the court also provides that **all
persons whose presence, in the opinion of the court, is not
necessary shall be excluded from the room" (St. 1906, c.
489, §5). Acting under this provision the judge excludes
all newspaper reporters and all other persons having only
a general interest in the proceedings. The sheltered loca-
tion of the room, the absence of decoration, the dispensing
with attendants and the exclusion of outsiders give the
simplicity which is necessary to gain the undivided atten-
tion of the child, and give the quiet which is indispensable
for hearing clearly what the child says and speaking to him
in the calmest tone.

When the judge is ready to hear a case the probation
officer brings in the child from the waiting room. The
child does not stand in front of the desk, because that would
prevent the judge from seeing the whole of him, and the
way a child stands and even the condition of his shoes are
often useful aids to a proper diagnosis of the case. The
child stands at the end of the platform where the judge
can see him from top to toe, and the judge sits near the

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER in

end, so he is close to the child and can reassure him if
necessary by a friendly hand on the shoulder. The plat-
form is just high enough to bring the average child's eye
about on a level with the eye of the judge.

If it seems likely that the child will be inclined to hold
back the truth about the affair which has brought him to
court, the judge sometimes talks with him entirely alone,
and frequently talks with him in the presence of no one but
the probation officer. This is done to relieve the child of
the embarrassment, and indeed the fear, which he often
feels in speaking the truth in the presence of his parents.

The judge always has the formal papers of the case in
his hand, but, except in the few cases where a fine is likely
to be imposed,* there is no formal reading of the complaint,
and the child is not required to make any formal answer
such as pleading "guilty" or "not guilty." The examina-
tion varies in its details according to the nature of the case
and the character of the child, but the following will give a
general idea of the usual examination and adjudication:

"John, do you know what you have been brought to
court for?"

"I suppose it is about Mrs. Doe's money."

"What have you got to say about it?"

" I took it, but it was the first time," etc.

The attendance of at least one parent at court at the
beginning of the case is of course always insisted on, and
after the above conversation the parents and the police
officer in charge of the case, and sometimes the aggrieved
parties, are brought into the room, if they were not admitted
with the boy, and the judge says:

"John says it is true that he took Mrs. Doe's money and
I adjudge him delinquent, and he has the right to appeal. "f

* In Massachusetts regular criminal proceedings must be resorted to in
order to impose a fine on a child (see St. 1906, c. 413, espc. §11).

t The statutes of Massachusetts give the right of appeal to the Superior
Court from all inferior courts, because the inferior courts cannot hold jury

112 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

The police officer is then dismissed, the child sent out of
the room, and the judge talks over the case with the parents
and the probation officer; and the parents can thus be
admonished, if admonishment is necessary, without the
risk of lowering them in the estimation of the child and
thereby further impairing their already insufficient control.
Then the child is brought back and informed of the disposi-
tion of his case, with such comments on his past behavior
and such admonition or encouragement as seem appropriate.

If the child denies the truth of the charge against him,
the judge sometimes talks with him at considerable length,
reasoning with him, but never threatening him or offering
inducements to him directly or indirectly, or asking him to
inform on other children unless they are much older than
he. The child is told in the course of a free conversation
between him and the judge that in this court there is only
one thing worse than stealing (or whatever the child is
supposed to have done), and that is not telling the truth
about it afterwards; that children often keep back the
truth because they are afraid, but nothing worse can happen
to him if he tells the truth himself than will happen to him
if the judge believes the officer and witnesses and gets the
truth from them. He is asked if he is not keeping back
the truth in the hope that so long as he denies it himself,
his parents may refuse to believe the witnesses, and he may
thus escape a whipping. He is asked (if he appears pretty
intelligent) if he were the judge which he would believe,
the witnesses or the boy, if the grown-up witnesses said one
thing and the boy another. He is asked if his story seems
to be reasonable; if the court is not treating him squarely
to give him so full an opportunity to tell his story, and
whether he is sure he is treating the court fairly. He is

trials, and the right to trial by jury is provided for even in the cases of delin-
quent children, because it is not clear that the commitment of children might
not be held to be a deprivation of liberty which, under the Constitution of the
Commonwealth and the Constitution of the United States, calls for a trial by
jury. (See St. 1906, c. 413, §5-)

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 113

asked if the boys don't say: ''Never confess when you are
caught and the judge may be in doubt and let you off."
He usually admits that that is the case, and he is told that
it is true that he may get off that way this time, but that
he cannot always succeed, and if later a court finds him
acting that way in a case, it will go much harder with him.

All these pains are taken to get the boy to tell the truth
himself because it greatly enchances the efficacy of the
subsequent treatment of the case, first, because the child is
much more receptive to the advances of the judge and pro-
bation officers after he has confided in them, and second,
because his parents are much more ready to accept the
intervention of the judge and probation officers and coop-
erate with them when the child admits his fault, for they are
apt to be quite unwilling to accept the statements of the
witnesses against the child's denial, and so long as they
believe in the child they regard the judge as a tyrant and
the probation officer as an intruder.

If the child persists in denying his delinquency, his par-
ents and the police officer are brought in, and the case is
heard in the ordinary way (except that only one witness is
in the room at a time), but at a hearing conducted under
such circumstances as those described above shy children
talk more freely than in public and bold children cannot
pose as heroes.

It should be added that offenders brought before the
juvenile court have just as much right to be represented by
counsel as offenders brought before any other court. This
right is fully recognized, and when counsel has entered an
appearance no step is taken without consulting him, and
he may conduct the case in the same way in which he would
conduct it in any other court, although in most instances
even counsel who are the most technical in other courts
actually cooperate with the judge of the juvenile court in
trying to make parents understand that the court is only
seeking to do what is for the best interest of the child in the

114 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

long run, and in persuading them to submit to the orders of
the court.

In determining the disposition to be made of the case
the procedure of the physician is very closely followed.
The probation officer investigates the case and reports to
the judge all available information about the family and
other features of the environment of the boy, the boy's
personal history at home, in school, at work, and on the
street, and the circumstances attending the particular
outbreak which got him into court. The boy himself is
scrutinized for indications of feeble-mindedness or physical
defects, such as poor eyesight, deafness, adenoids. The
judge and probation officer consider together, like a physi-
cian and his junior, whether the outbreak which resulted in
the arrest of the child was largely accidental, or whether it
is habitual or likely to be so; whether it is due chiefly to
some inherent physical or moral defect of the child, or
whether some feature of his environment is an important
factor; and then they address themselves to the question
of how permanently to prevent the recurrence. If there
is any reason to believe the child is feeble-minded, he is
submitted to a specialist; if there are indications of physi-
cal defects, he is taken to a dispensary; if the environment
seems to be at fault, a change is secured through the par-
ents by making them realize that the child will be taken
from them if they do not make the change, or where the
parents are unable to make the change or are themselves
the disturbing factor the child is taken away by the court.
Of course the court does not confine its attention to just
the particular offence which brought the child to its notice.
For example, a boy who comes to court for some such trifle
as failing to wear his badge when selling papers may be
held on probation for months because of difficulties at
school; and a boy who comes in for playing ball in the
street may (after the court has caused more serious charges
to be preferred against him) be committed to a reform

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 115

school because he is found to have habits of loafing, stealing
or gambling which cannot be corrected outside.

Only a very small portion of the children are committed
to institutions, and in the treatment of the very large num-
ber who are suffered to remain at home the procedure of
the physician is again closely followed. If the child's fault
is not due to any deep seated difficulty and is trifling in its
character, such as throwing stones in the street, he may
be sent home to copy an eight-page pamphlet containing
extracts from the ordinances regulating the use of streets
and laws which children are likely to violate, and the judge
sees him only once more, to examine him on his work when
it is finished, just as a physician might do in the case of a
burn or a bruise. If the offence is serious and likely to be
repeated or the conditions surrounding the boy are such
that he is liable to have a serious breakdown or if the cause
of the difficulty is obscure, he is seen by the judge at fre-
quent intervals, monthly, weekly, or sometimes even daily,
just as with the patient and the physician in case of tuber-
culosis or typhoid.

While much stress is laid by the judge and probation
officers on the analogy of their work to that of the physi-
cian, they fully appreciate that the analogy is not perfect,
and they modify their procedure and treatment accordingly.
The patient attends the dispensary of his own volition and
is under no obligation to follow the prescription, while the
offender is compelled to come to court and obeys the orders
of the officials on pain of the Joss of his liberty for disregard-
ing them. This makes it essential, in order to avoid any
appearance of star chamber proceedings, that greater
latitude be allowed in admitting persons to the judge's
"chambers" than in admitting persons to the physician's
examination room ; and while reporters and private citizens
having only a general interest in the proceedings are
excluded the judge freely admits public officials interested
in the preservation of law and order, trustees and officers of

ii6 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

reform schools, school masters, officers of private societies
deaUng with children, clergymen and social workers, taking
care, however, not to have more than one or two present
at a time. Of course there is the important additional rea-
son for admitting many of the visitors just mentioned, that
they can greatly increase the efficiency of the work of the
court by bringing to bear on it fresh minds and new points
of view, and the judge takes advantage of this by confer-
ences with the observers in intervals between cases and
after the hearings are over. Even the mere presence of
such visitors in reasonable numbers modifies and tempers
wholesomely the attitude and action of the judge.

Furthermore, morals enter more largely and directly
into the work of the court than into the work of the dispen-
sary, and therefore it seems desirable to create deliberately
to some extent an atmosphere of seriousness and solemnity
in the proceedings. The quietness of the location, the
plainness of the room, the small number of persons present
and the judge's platform all contribute to this end. Then
again it is probably in the interest of efficiency that the fact
of the court being a department of public authority and
having power to compel compliance should be indicated
distinctly (though not so obtrusively as to overawe or
seriously embarrass) especially where many of those who
attend the court are ignorant, and for that reason children
and parents are usually kept standing while talking with
the judge. The platform contributes to this purpose also.

The physician never causes his patient pain if he can
help it, indeed he is constantly directing his attention to the
avoidance of that incident of treatment. The judge and
the probation officers, on the other hand, from time to
time deliberately cause the child discomfort, because the
discomfort of punishment affords in some cases an indis-
pensable stimulus or moral tonic which cannot be supplied
in any other way. The most serious form of pure punish-
ment to which the court resorts is the confinement of the

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 117

child and his separation from his home for a brief .period.
Occasionally arrangements are made with parents to con-
fine children at home or give them corporal punishment.
School boys are from time to time required to spend parts
of holidays or vacations copying laws or other appropriate
matter in the probation officers' record room under charge
of the stenographer. Fines are sometimes imposed for
violation of probation or for the repetition of minor offences,
and made payable in installments out of the child's spend-
ing money.* The punishments thus administered are
always considered by the court as subsidiary and incidental
to its main function of putting the child right, and they are
not given for retribution or example.

It is recognized, however, that, while in most cases the
public interest is best served by doing what is best for the
individual, there are instances of offences committed under
such circumstances as to come to the attention of a large
number of young people where an example may be more
efficacious, and in such cases punishment pure and simple
is summarily inflicted.

Little emphasis has been laid in the course of this descrip-
tion on the analogy of the function of the judge and pro-
bation officers to that of parents, because it is believed that
the analogy of the physician is more thoroughgoing. The
judge and probation officers in most cases of children on
probation take the parental attitude to a very great extent,
but on reducing the proposition to its lowest terms it will
be recognized that the officials of the court must always
have in mind that the court is in its essence a remedial
agency, like a hospital ; that there is something the matter
in or around the child, else he would not have come to their
attention ; that it is their business to discover and remove
or counteract that something; that while in many cases

* It is found that most children, even though their parents are very poor,
have from ten to fifteen cents a week to spend for pleasure. Of course it is
only the children who are earning something who have the larger amounts.

ii8 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

service like that of parents is what is needed to effect the
cure, it is not always the lack of proper parental care that
causes the trouble, and they must in all cases work toward
the end of discharging the child as soon as there is reason-
able assurance that he can take care of himself or can be
adequately cared for unofficially.

In addition to the foregoing statement of the general
course of procedure of the court, there are some further
statements which must be given to make the account
complete.

The cases of girls are handled from the very beginning
by women and the men probation officers have nothing to
do with them, except to make sure in cases of arrest that
the girls are promptly turned over to an accredited woman
agent or their parents. If a girl is arrested, a woman is at
once called by the probation officer to the police station to
take her in charge, unless her parents arrive promptly and
are considered fit to hold her until court opens again. When
she comes into the judge's chamber she is attended by a
woman, who remains constantly in attendance throughout
the examination. The judge never talks with girls alone
as he sometimes does with boys. If a girl is committed to
an institution she is taken by a woman. The court has no
women probation officers and all the services in the girls'
cases are performed by the women agents of the Massa-
chusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children,
the Boston Children's Aid Society, the Council of Jewish
Women, the St. Vincent de Paul Society and the Boston
Italian Immigrant Society. After a girl's case has been
heard she is kept away from the court as much as possible,
and is not brought to court to report during a term of pro-
bation except in cases of conduct requiring very serious
admonition.

The cases commonly called in Massachusetts ''neglect"
cases, and called in other jurisdictions cases of ''improper
guardianship" and the like, although intimately connected
with the causes of juvenile delinquency are not very closely

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 119

related to the procedure in cases of juvenile delinquency,
because so far as procedure is concerned the court has little
contact with the children in neglect cases. The judge sees
the children for a moment at the beginning of the case,
and they are dismissed from his room before the evidence
of the parental unfitness is given, as the proceedings are
virtually against the parents. The hearings are private
in these cases as well as in the ordinary cases of juvenile
offenders, and this privacy is most useful in the many con-
ferences which are held by the judge with parents and
relatives as to the proper adjustment of the cases.

The court avails itself very often of outside assistance in
other instances than those already mentioned, and there
are fifty different departments, institutions and agencies to
which the court frequently turns for help in conducting or
disposing of cases.

No handcuffs or similar devices are used on any boy by
any officer of the court.

Although an account of probation, which is the most
important part of the court's work, is not germane to the
subject of this article, it is desirable to give some informa-
tion about the probation officers, for they are the sole
executive officers of the court, there being no deputy
sheriffs, constables, or other court officers of any descrip-
tion attached to it. Indeed, the probation officers are the
arms and, to a great extent, the ears, eyes and brains of
the court in delinquent cases.

The ideal probation officer ^should have all the consecra-
tion of the devoted clergyman, all the power to interest and
direct of the efficient teacher, and all the discernment of
the skilful physician. Two salaried probation officers are
provided by law. They are appointed by the judge and
hold office during his pleasure. The judge is unrestricted
in his power of appointment and removal. One officer
takes care of the delinquent children living north of the
court house, the other of the children living south of the
court house. Each investigates the cases of delinquent

120 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

children from his own territory, and attends to those cases
in all proceedings in court. They each investigate about
350 cases a year, and supervise on probation about 150
children at a time. In addition to the regular probation
officers there is a paid agent of the Council of Jewish
Women who gives all her time to the court. She is for prac-
tical purposes a third probation officer and does as much
work as a regular officer. Even including this agent the
number of officers is not by any means so large as it
should be to give adequate service.

There is no regular corps of volunteer probation officers,
meaning by ''volunteers" persons not receiving pay for
their services from any source, public or private. How-
ever, a great deal of unpaid assistance is enlisted by the
probation officers in probation cases, the helper being
usually some relative, friend, neighbor or clergyman of the
family, who acts under the supervision of the probation
officer.

Offenders do not come to this court after they are
seventeen years old.

The court does not deal with cases from all parts of the
city. It has jurisdiction only over those cases which arise
in the central parts commonly known as the North, West
and South Ends, and the Back Bay. These comprise the
most congested districts of the city, and the greater portion
of its immigrant population. The number of children
brought before the court during the year ending August 31,
1909, was 1,448.

It must be borne in mind that this account is not intended
to be a complete account of the work of the court, or even
of the most important features of the work. For example,
there is nothing about probation, which is the most impor-
tant part of the work with delinquent children. It is
intended to cover only the ''procedure" of the count,
which means the conduct of the cases by the judge and the
other court officials in the court house.

THE WORK OF THE
JUDGE BAKER FOUNDATION

THE WORK OF THE JUDGE BAKER
FOUNDATION

By William Healy and Augusta F. Bronner

To attempt understanding of success or failure through
analysis of the causes which lie beneath is the practical
scientific procedure today in many fields. In various
departments of the business world, in modern agriculture,
in all sorts of industries, in making our army efficient and,
of course, existing as the very backbone of scientific method
the study of causation has proved itself of commanding
value.

Understanding must be the scientific watchword, too,
in all intelligent effort toward solving the problems of
conduct and mental life. These problems always involve
reactions, interplay, the response of the individual's mind
and body to his given world. Such reactions call for
interpretation of both human nature and environment.

It is only a step toward understanding response or reac-
tion when conduct and mental performance are known
merely by such facts as can be gleaned through ordinary
inquiry. Nor is adequate understanding of conduct
achieved even when the mental and physical status of the
individual is determined by special investigation, highly
important though this may be. Real understanding in
nearly every case requires much more, it involves knowl-
edge of the interplay of causes, of the more or less hidden
aspects of personality and motive and experience that have
been impelling forces in the social behavior in question.

The fact is that if you would know your young human
being, the person still in the formative period, who is not
doing well and would understand his behavior, you must
be willing to go beneath superficial manifestations and

123

124 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

make inquiry into what underlies readily visible character
and conduct. Nothing is any surer in this field than that
there is much more under the surface than appears on top
and that what seems to he is often not at all a true picture
of what really is. A multitude of illustrations might be
given in evidence : important bodily diseases or weaknesses
may not be apparent upon inspection; mental defect or
aberration may not be betrayed by features or expression
or by response in ordinary conversation — nor does a dull-
appearing face always betoken a dullard's mind; capabili-
ties most important for the individual's welfare are often
unrecognized; significant habits may not be more than
barely suggested to even an expert observer; the parents
may not be aware of whole regions in their child's mental
life which are absolutely determining factors for conduct;
companionships and interests and ideas and "sore spots"
which are vital centers for engendering misbehavior may
not be in the least brought out by ordinary interrogatories
at home or elsewhere.

That such matters of deepest concern to the young indi-
vidual, the family and to society may be understood, a
technical study must be undertaken. This demands a
thoroughly sympathetic attitude and a patient gathering
of facts from the points of view of relatives as well as from
the individual in question. It requires a summing up and
interpretation of findings and facts with due regard to their
interrelationships and comparative values.

A boy, for example, comes with the common charges,
truancy and stealing on the street, held against him. Met
in a friendly spirit, impressed by our desire to be coopera-
tively helpful, the boy and his parents soon themselves
mirror this attitude. The latter tell us that their boy
steals frequently from home. After patient gathering of
necessary data we discuss these for our summary: Exami-
nation shows diseased tonsils and several decayed teeth;

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 125

are they, bad though they are for his health, any factor in
his delinquency? Has the father's periodic drinking any-
thing to do with the boy's misbehavior? Is the fact that
he evidently has a special defect for arithmetic the cause
of his truancy? (After we find by testing that this defect
exists he tells us of his peculiar nervousness in his class in
number work.)

But going further — the boy being encouraged to talk
freely of his interests and troubles — we learn of his earliest
truancies in company with an older delinquent, who with
him spent money which had been unlawfully obtained at
home and who introduced him to the thrilling art of steal-
ing on the street and who on the same occasions made him
most unfortunately acquainted with other matters which,
he tells us, his mind has never been free from since. He
reasons out with us that his home seems good to him and
that the hold which misconduct has upon him is due to
school dissatisfaction and to his impulses derived from the
effect of recurrent memories of what he learned from the
boy whom he accompanied on those early excursions. Can
there be any doubt that the overt facts — teeth and tonsils
and drinking father — in this case do not form the real
causation and that adjustments should be made which
shall meet the boy's deeper needs. Unadjustment has
already for long led to his repetition of offense, but
adjustment probably will lead to success, for we know of
many similar instances in which appropriate measures of
treatment have successfully, altered the tendencies to
misconduct.

Or a boy or girl comes accompanied by the report of
failure in school to the extent that the pupil is considered
an out-and-out defective. Do we discover previously
overlooked disabilities of eyesight or hearing that might
account for nonacquirement of school knowledge? Or
does an investigation of physical conditions indicate a

126 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

cause for extreme mental lethargy? Or is there indulgence
in bad habits of any kind that might greatly deplete mental
energy? By testing is there to be found any proof of
general mental defect, or is some peculiar disability in a
specialized field responsible for backwardness? We have
found just such unrecognized specific hindrances to educa-
tional advancement and we have known remarkable
instances of great alteration in the social and educational
situation of the individual following upon relief of the
sensory disability or treatment of the physical condition
or habit. And use of a method of teaching especially
adapted to the special type of learning disability or to
compensating abilities as unearthed by psychological test-
ing proves in appropriate cases of very great value.

The chain of causal events and the separate links in the
chain are of intense interest to the student of the problem
and are items of great practical import. Here, for instance,
is one sequence showing a few of the many variabilities
to be found in different cases:

Stealing — led up to by association with bad companions.

Association with bad companions — made possible through street life.

Street life — resulting from truancy.

Truancy — caused by school dissatisfaction.

School dissatisfaction — arising from lack of interest in unsuitable

school work.
Unsuitability of school work — the resultant of demotion.
Demotion — a disciplinary measure for misbehavior in school.
Misbehavior in school — the expression of the activity of a supernormal
boy (who was already in a grade too low for him).

The Judge Baker Foundation came into existence to
render exactly this sort of service, to look beneath externals
and, attempting to meet the needs in particular situations,
to go as far as may be practically possible in understanding
the personality and problems of young individuals whose
conduct or mental life is not in accord with the norms of
society.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 127

Judge Baker himself saw clearly, as may be read in his
report, that the next step in juvenile court work must be
to try to get at the facts which are really fundamental in
a diagnostic sense before prescribing and carrying out
treatment along any lines. The value of the court taking
the parental attitude in handling young offenders, the
necessity of separating them for this from adults had long
ago been perceived, and then came the framing of a juve-
nile court law. Juvenile court procedure and technic, to
which Judge Baker made such a notable contribution, of
necessity must have been developed next. But few of the
ideals of practical accomplishment can ever be realized
without reaching out for the diagnostic issues which alone
contain the germs of success.

It is not that the inquiry starts from the premise that
any particular type of trouble in all likelihood will be found
forming the causative background — neither adenoids,
feeblemindedness, degeneracy, original sin, smoking, or
anything else that has been stressed by enthusiasts for
reform of the world. Any one or more of hundreds of
conditions, experiences, or habits may be involved. The
individual must come as an unknown quantity and
it is in confessed ignorance of the true underlying
facts that one begins properly and patiently to find
them.

One who would understand must first lay aside the nat-
ural preconception that the boy is simply a small man,
the girl a small woman, and consequently subject to the
same interpretations of behavior impulses and tendencies
as the adult. Now, as a matter of fact, the whole of modern
child-study is built up on the definite findings that children
do differ from their elders in much more than in matters of
quantity or size. It is not a question of gradual growth.
There are distinctions which represent totally different
attitudes, appreciations, and points of view. Knowing the

128 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

adult does not mean knowing these younger ones, as if
they were merely the same in lesser degree.

And that children are alike enough to be pigeonholed
into a few general classifications is another preconception
to be given up. We particularly would insist that the
differences between children, even of the same age, are
immense and are vitally important to know for their
successful moral or educational treatment. There are
essential variations in emotional tendencies, intelligence,
habits, experiences, and physique. If, without recogni-
tion of what these have meant and what they portend
judgment is rendered on the individual, such judgment is
absolutely shallow.

A rational study of human differences must always
include the grading up that corresponds to the best possi-
ble accomplishment, as well as the grading down that
follows discovery of innate disabilities. Both sides of the
shield need to be known for a practical diagnosis. Partic-
ularly do we need to discover latent potentialities in all
cases, even those with well defined physical or mental
defects. This being fair to the whole make-up of the
individual is a matter of social import, of the child getting
the best chance to develop into a happy, nondelinquent,
self-sustaining adult life. The loss to the person who is
baulked in enjoying the full measure of his mental birth-
right is only to be measured by the loss which, through the
failure, is sustained by society.

After a fairminded study has been made of the young
person, recommendations are necessarily in order if the
work done is to achieve results. These include, of course,
the widest variety of suggestions; it may be that we sug-
gest farm life and placing in another family, or continuance
in the home circle with better confidences and different
mental interests, or some surgical operation, or special
educational training or more physical exercise to take care

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 129

of dangerous superabundant energy, or institutional life,
or any of hundreds of other possibilities for the individual.
As the mental, the physical, and the social aspects of the
case have to be studied, so they all must have their place
in recommendations and treatment. Conclusions have to
be clearly stated, conferences and counsellings have to be
conducted and repeated, and gauges taken of the successes
or failures of the measures set in action.

What definitely has to be undertaken in the way of
curative or preventive treatment by the State or by welfare
organizations is inevitably costly and it is the part of shrewd
wisdom to have the expenditure of time, effort and money
as well directed as possible. The cost of such diagnostic
and advisory effort as we indicate is as nothing in com-
parison to the cost of an unmodified career of failure or
misconduct and appears very slight by the side of actual
outlays for unadapted therapeutic measures frequently
carried on unsuccessfully over months or years of time.

The minimum study that any of our problem cases
deserves requires considerable time and the tests used must
be of a range sufficient to bring out possible capabilities and
adaptabilities of various practical sorts as well as to grade
according to age-level or so-called intelligence scales. To
this must be added a survey of the physical needs and
capacities in general as well as in the special sensory fields.

Then the significance of the characteristics of many
individuals cannot be known without acquiring informa-
tion about their development in earlier periods of life, so
this has to be gone into with care, as well as facts of heredity
which may have bearing. It is never safe to omit inquiry
about peculiar social or mental experiences, either, or any
influences which may have counted in formation of the
tendencies or traits which are under question. And a side
of mental life which is too often forgotten by psychologist

130 HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER

in sketching estimations and superficially developed prog-
noses must never be overlooked. This has particularly to
do with the dynamic qualities of the mind and their rela-
tion to conduct. It is to be remembered that there are
sometimes blockings, irritations, dissatisfactions, sorenesses
which cause grudges, lack of normal inhibitions, subcon-
sciously active tendencies to shunt off into misconduct the
emotional effects of unfortunate experiences ; as well as the
opposites — freedom of expression of mental life, happiness
in the output of good effort, buoyancy and the like.

As a matter of first statement from the Judge Baker
Foundation — it is fully expected that later there will be
forthcoming rather elaborate studies of the meanings hid-
den in this material — it may be said that during the two
years of its existence 1200 cases have been studied. The
treatment to follow the first diagnosis has been discussed
with those responsible for setting in action reconstructive
social processes. But this does not end the matter, of course.
What would one think of a physician who, called in to a
case, diagnoses a malady as typhoid fever, let us say, gives
some advice about treatment, but never returns for further
observations of complications, progress of the case or needs
for other treatment. In a practical spirit already much
critical supervisory follow-up work has been done on a
large number of our cases.

It has been possible to extend our services in this way
and to this number through the intense devotion of our
staff to the work in hand. But our measure of achieve-
ment has been possible only through the warm cooperation
of the judge and other officers of the court, of officials of
welfare organizations, and of individual workers to whom
the chance of making a more effectual effort has appealed.
Nothing has been more delightful and helpful than our
relations with these fine-spirited people.

HARVEY HUMPHREY BAKER 131

We find that problems are being brought from ever-
widening circles and that there is more and more inquiry
concerning pre-court cases — in fact, the question is some-
times asked whether the individual ought to be brought
into court. And then it is of no small interest to note that
often, stimulated by the rationality of the study of their
child, parents arouse to a more intelligent attitude — proved
even to the extent of their bringing other problem members
of the family to be studied. Through all this the demands
upon the Foundation are steadily growing.

We now have one scholarship contributed for the purpose
of giving expert training; opportunities also have been
given over varying periods to specially qualified students
to gain insight into special aspects of our problems and
methods. We are occasionally able to extend our services
for teaching and in the future we hope our facilities will be
developed further in this direction.

JUDGE BAKER FOUNDATION

40 Court St., Boston, Mass.

President Frederick P. Cabot

Secretary Roy M. Cushman

Treasurer Charles L. DeNormandie

DIRECTORS

The above Officers and Mrs. Jessie D. Hodder

Miss Edith N. Burleigh Judge Frank Leveroni
Dr. Walter E. Fernald *Dr. James J. Putnam
Judge Philip Rubenstein

Managing Director William Healy, M. D.

Assistant Managing Director KvGVSTK F. Bronner, Ph. D.
Case Sociologist Margaret Fitz Barnes

Assistant Psychologist Viola J. Rottenberg

Holder of Federated Jewish Charities Scholarship in Applied
Psychology:

May Bere, 1917-19
Dorothy Morgenthau, 19 19-

Student assistants from School of Social Work

*Died Nov. 4, 191 8.

133

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BOSTON UNIVERSITY

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