A Delinquent System

...Vorrath has moved on to other institutions...

...Can he teach others to build this culture...

...If the programs really were creative, a truancy law would not be needed to force attendance...

...Even when evaluating innovative programs he inspected and found to be working well, he raises the right questions...

...It ruled that the doctrine of parens patriae--the legal fiction that a kindly juvenile court judge acts in place of a loving father or uncle--was constitutionally and theoretically debatable, as well as prone to unsatisfactory results in practice...

...homosexual advances are a difficulty to be anticipated...

...Thus he observes at one point, "Everyone--layman or professional --has a theory...

...Despite their humanitarian intentions, these efforts ultimately extended the state's power to punish children who had committed no criminal act...

...I suspect that if religious scruples had not blocked his vision, James would have seen that birth control clinics could be established in the vicinity of most high schools and that--the Puritan ethic aside--the wages of fathers who neglect support payments are often too small to share with a separated family...

...He spent a year inspecting jails, reform schools, detention centers, and institutions for dependent and neglected youth in 44 states...

...James should have inspected a large number of foster homes and learned how the bills are paid...

...But no one has done the serious research needed to provide a blueprint for action...

...for some poverty-bred children the experience of a day or week in the suburbs is more frightening and frustrating than helpful...

...The Court's rationale, set down in the Gault case, did more than spell out constitutional limits for procedures in delinquency hearings...

...The story that emerges is not new...

...Once separate facilities for juveniles were built, judges ordered more youngsters incarcerated...

...Shortly before James began his research, the U.S...

...Vorrath's culture of caring--what one finds in a strong, happy family--last after Mr...

...James further calls for more stringent enforcement of state child support laws, while noting, "Yet how to stop production of unwanted children--either in or out of wedlock--remains a thorny issue...

...He might have seen that juvenile centers could offer delinquents more intensive treatment if the law incarcerated only those minors who perform acts that would be regarded as crimes when committed by adults...

...It started a trend in the legislatures and lower courts toward eliminating the delinquency label for noncriminal acts, reducing the sentences of youths committed to reform schools for misdemeanors, and requiring that delinquents and nondelin-quents be housed separately...

...Like many self-proclaimed child protectors, James is at heart a Christian moralist who overemphasizes the role big-brother programs and recreation facilities can play in crime prevention...

...Unfortunately, public funds are limited and many causes--among them job training for black adults or medical care and improved education for all--take precedence over youth homes, probation departments, parole schemes and other experiments that have not yet proved their ability to substantially reduce the rate of recidivism...

...Since Children in Trouble has been written for a popular audience, James lets the children speak for themselves and deciphers the jargon of case histories compiled by social workers...

...and statistics are usually inadequate to prove that the program reduces crime...

...Given present realities, though, it would seem wiser to start by limit-ins the state's coercive power over children and expanding good optional programs...

...James repeatedly demands more money for juvenile rehabilitation projects and more jobs for young people...

...Meanwhile, a word of caution is in order to those who may read Children in Trouble and plunge willy nilly into baking cakes and inviting delinquents home for a weekend...

...Supreme Court proclaimed a radical change in juvenile law...

...Yet there are a number of practical steps that could be taken without much added expense...

...It is significant, for example, that many of the Youth Service Board children I interviewed as a Harvard Voluntary Defender preferred institutional life to placement in a foster home...

...Describing the "turnaround" Harry Vorrath effected in seven months at the Red Wing, Minnesota, reform school by using group therapy techniques, James wonders, "Will Mr...

...He mentions that some reformatory directors have been unwilling to accept the services of citizen-volunteers, but he never explains the legitimate concerns of these reluctant administrators...

...Since Gault, the pendulum has begun to swing back to the 19th-century legalistic approach to youthful offenders...

...And can youngsters so absorb this philosophy of caring deeply for others that they can survive in the harsh, dog-eat-dog world they came from...

...He advises state officials to "raise the legal school dropout age to 18, at the same time financially encouraging creative programs for youngsters with school problems...

...James, however, underestimates the importance of the Gault decision, devoting just one page to it, and omits any historical discussion of juvenile law...

...Into this system are fed not only hardened young punks, but a far greater number of youngsters charged with being wayward, stubborn, disobedient or merely homeless...

...In fact, many have discovered that volunteer programs can be very time-consuming...

...Perhaps his desire to move the reader to action prevents him from critically analyzing how such projects have been functioning...

...But in a field as barren of research and as complex as this one, no philosophy has won out...

...Our taxes support the overworked police, clogged courts, inadequate probation departments, and cruel reformatories that together form a production line for future criminals...

...He believes delinquency can be reduced through intensive probation and parole supervision, combined with an upgraded, expanded foster-home program...

...I have enjoyed the experience of being a prison volunteer...

...He has an ear for apt quotations and a talent for metaphor...

...He interviewed judges, lawyers, social workers, prison administrators, and parents...

...Treatment methods change as often as hairstyles...

...A prison by any other name is still a deprivation of liberty, reasoned the majority...

...James exposes numerous instances of beatings and long solitary confinement, plus the more common boredom and loneliness of life in America's treatment centers for children...

...Most writing in this field is either the flamboyant journalese of muckrakers who have investigated only a single institution or state, the sermonizing of well-meaning women or clergymen whose prescriptions of love and character-building are based more on faith than research, or the in-group conversation of sociologists and professional academics...

...the presence of "outsiders" creates a risk of more drugs and more escapees...

...By its own measure, the "ability to move people to do something," Children in Trouble will probably be a success...

...Reviewed by Martha Kwitny Assistant Deputy Public Defender, New Jersey In 1968 the Christian Science Monitor sent Howard James, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, across America to investigate what happens to children who become entangled in our system of juvenile justice and protective custody...

...He leaves the reader to resolve for himself the ethical dilemma posed by the use of reform schools for psychological experimentation...

...I too support foster home placements and volunteer programs...

...Most important of all, he talked with children in trouble...

...But despite these limitations, James' book is probably the best introduction in print to the problems of children in trouble...

...Teenagers over 14 who have not committed a serious crime should be able to choose to live with friends or relatives, or in private community shelters such as the centers for runaways in San Francisco (Huckleberry House), Boston, New York and other cities...

...Moreover, his report on America's juvenile treatment centers is objective and sensible...

...He also describes dozens of exciting new developments, such as the small residential projects initiated by the New York State Division for Youth and the program for potential school dropouts in Burlington, Vermont...

...James' commentary on foster homes and citizen participation in volunteer programs, however, is disappointingly superficial...

...His Children in Trouble is a direct descendant of the 1890s' treatment-oriented reform tracts urging the establishment of juvenile courts and youth institutions...

...Had James examined the legal side of the issue more thoroughly, for instance, he might have considered the recommendation of the 1967 Presidential Task Force on Juvenile Delinquency, urging that parents be prohibited from asking juvenile court judges to imprison their children...