A Teacher Examines Delinquency

...Nevertheless, many parents and educators find their use very effective...

...Our present efforts to curb juvenile delinquency are unsuccessful...

...Many reasonable people believe nut only that fear must be banished completely from a youngster's life, but also that no child must pay for his acts of insubordination, defiance, or refusal to behave as a cooperative, social individual...

...The present educational law provides that if a 15-year-old cannot profit by instruction (Section 3218 of the State Education Law) he may, with the approval of the Superintendent of Schools and the Industrial Commissioner, secure special working papers and win the rehabilitation a job often makes possible...

...The hardened youngsters defy teachers and school regulations, monopolize the time of disciplinarians, deans and guidance personnel, and seriously interfere with the education of fellow-students...

...Neither teachers, parents nor judges should permit any child repeatedly to escape with anti-social conduct, because such a policy only tends to strengthen the wrong set of values and lead to more serious crimes...

...Institutional rehabilitation of older delinquents involves a per capita cost of $3,200, and success is problematical...

...As a center of contamination, the influence of delinquents between the ages of 15 and 16, relatively few though they are, constitutes the major problem in our secondary schools...

...Educationally, the results are equally disastrous...

...Is it heresy to affirm that the many have rights that must be safeguarded and given adequate consideration...

...Some maintain vehemently that, when reason has failed, punishment or work might have succeeded...

...Because the former have been so largely minimized and the latter over-stressed, delinquency, with its mounting costs and heartaches, marches on...

...The present method of handling delinquency is essentially negative...

...Let the earliest evidence of vulnerability be given immediate attention, with all available facilities placed at society's disposal, and delinquency figures will show a steady decline...

...Yet, flowers have the discipline of wind and rain, and though I know it gives the gardener much pain, I've seen him use his pruning shears to gain more strength and beauty for some blossoms bright and he would do whatever he thought right...

...Why have we such undue solicitude only for the pre-delinquent and so little for the law-abiding...

...If we can reach errant youngsters before they become hardened, we can rehabilitate them more readily and at a much smaller cost...

...Better comics, TV programs and recreational facilities, an early curfew, fewer divorces and similar improvements might help the situation, but they cannot break the rising wave of delinquency...

...As a product of arbitrary authoritarian rule at home and in school, in which corporal punishment was too often misapplied, I believe the records show that, despite the punitive and often brutal methods used, a fairly decent crop of responsible adults developed...

...During the past few years, The New Leader has from time to time directed its attention to the field of education??not from the viewpoint of a specialized journal, nor in an attempt to report news developments, but as a supplement to both public and intramural discussion...

...All the agencies and institutions which influence the child??for good or evil??must be brought together to formulate a well-coordinated solution to this problem...

...Does not life make us pay for our mistakes or misdeeds??sometimes brutally and unfairly...

...5. Improvement of the correctional program in our institutions for rehabilitating our juvenile delinquents...

...2. Amendment of the education law so that 15-year-olds who cannot or will not learn to obey regulations can be sent to "600" schools or given working papers as provided by Section 3218...

...Hence, the solution to this increasingly serious problem seems to be a positive preventive and corrective program on the elementary level...

...A few asocial children should not be permitted to interfere with the rights of the many children who want to learn...

...While educational leaders ponder and ponder, and some of our judges follow a do-little policy, teen-age gangs multiply and the offenses increase in gravity...

...1. Buildings adequately equipped for their housing and rehabilitation, with a staff of psychologists, guidance counselors and psychiatrists...

...This article is presented in the same framework...

...As a believer in the principles of progressive education as enunciated by Professor John Dewey??not as misapplied by some overzealous and emotional disciples??and as one who accepts the more hopeful and promising mental-hygiene point of view in handling student delinquents, I am apprehensive about the misapplication or abuse of the mental-hygiene approach...

...Our attack on this vital social problem has been piecemeal rather than well planned and integrated...

...These children must develop realistic values and develop a sense of responsibility for their actions...

...Also, revision of the curriculum to fit the needs of these maladjusted youngsters...

...I do not know??yet, it seems to me that only weeds unfold naturally...

...No single agency, whether church, school, home, police or courts, can itself effectively cope with the problem...

...The attitude of judges that a child must not be held responsible for his conduct breeds contempt for the law...

...This emphasis is unwarranted, as the records of our unsuccessful efforts at correction clearly show...

...The diagnostic method has rightly won the support of most educators, because it seeks the individual as well as environmental causes of misbehavior or asocial behavior...

...Yet, when our most modern approaches have failed to alter a normal child's or even a potentially brilliant child's anti-social conduct, the school counselor or disciplinarian is bitterly assailed if he dares entertain the thought that a job, a severe penalty, or corporal punishment might help in rehabilitation...

...Offenders are often sent back to school without even a reprimand, thus to become "heroes" in the eyes of many of their fellow-students...

...The range of irresponsible and reckless conduct by adolescents includes gang warfare, mugging, assaults, vandalism of varied types, theft, rape, obscenity and sex irregularities...

...If we are to succeed in rehabilitating youngsters who have been diverted from the path that leads to proper social conduct, we must use a pluralistic approach designed to assure such children a measure of daily success, a sense of belonging and security...

...In it, Mr...

...Our emphasis should be directed at the elementary level and, above all, at the preventive rather than corrective aspects...

...Most judges can do little or nothing about offenders before them...

...Where we fail to get at the causes or lack effective solutions, our efforts prove abortive...

...4. Enactment of legislation to punish school intruders, who seriously interfere with discipline and even commit serious offenses against students and teachers...

...My fears are based on two factors: Too many parents and some progressive teachers hold the view that their youngsters must not, under any circumstances, be frustrated...

...What have school supervisors asked for to help them cope with delinquents...

...3. Ending of chronological promotions, unless classes are small enough to permit special individual instruction, or supplying of special teachers for that purpose...

...As one who has taught for almost half a century in the worst as well as the best neighborhoods and schools, I must conclude that the growing trend of permitting juvenile delinquents to escape personal responsibility for their anti-social conduct is most unfortunate, if not dangerous...

...Group play or therapy, a chance to shine, elimination of grave anxiety, natural punishment where necessary (as advocated by Herbert Spencer), a part-time paying job, as well as the resources of psychiatry to develop social values??all should be used in our efforts to eliminate undesirable conduct...

...Naturally, as a flower, he must unfold...

...Yet, nothing constructive was substituted for those admirable proposals...

...In facing the problem, we have given most of our attention to the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents and little to prevention...

...Unfortunately, educational authorities, by their reluctance to use this provision, endanger our better students??the hope of the future...

...An unknown gave us this gem, which our do-gooders and child-guidance "experts" might well ponder: "I must not interfere with my child, I have been told, to bend his will to mine, or to try to shape him through some mold of thought...

...Delinquency continues until a serious violation of law may lead to commitment of the youngster and even, if he is over 16, to a prison sentence...

...In this connection, I might mention that even the comprehensive proposals for combating delinquency offered by the High School Principals' Association, based on the pluralistic approach to this serious problem, were unfairly assailed and misrepresented...

...Are these judges facing reality...

...But far more interesting are the results of a study by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, which indicates that 88 per cent of the delinquents are discoverable before they are 12 years of age and nine-tenths of them are behavior problems in school...

...Society's failure has resulted in the development of a contempt for law's impotence and an encouragement to attempt graver crimes...

...We have not been able to get into and influence the home, or to do effective preventive work...

...yet, life demands that frustrations be faced and overcome...

...Lefkowitz, a teacher for many years and a leader in the American Federation of Teachers, challenges many of the most cherished liberal notions on delinquency...

...Indeed, the seriousness of these offenses is an indication of how our social machinery has broken down...

...Principals can cite many such cases of repeated refusal by judges to hold children responsible for their acts...

...It's easier and less expensive to prevent it than to cure it A Teacher Examines Juvenile Delinquency By Abraham Lefkowitz PEOPLE ARE apt to be surprised when they learn that delinquency among children between the ages of 10 and 17 years has increased 29 per cent since 1948...

...Institutional facilities are lacking or inadequate...