Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/167

 SOCIAL ASPECT OF NEW YORK POLICE COURTS I 53

police force would insure that no citizen should get into the police court who does not belong there, and that 33 per cent, of all arrests should not be discharged, as at present.

The second step in the betterment of police courts has already been taken in New York city : the magistrates are appointed by the mayor in order that the responsibility may rest obviously and definitely with him and his party ; the appointment should be for good behavior, instead of for ten years. No lawyer of real ability is likely to accept such an appointment when he knows that at the end of it he must work into a new line of his profes- sion. Ten years of police-court practice under the present conditions would almost unfit a man for any other sort of law work.

The number of courts should be sufficient so that the magis- trate may give proper attention to each case. In the second district in New York the judge has an average of sixty-eight cases per day throughout 365 days in the year, while in the sixth district there is an average of forty-five cases per day. At pres- ent Essex Market court is much overcrowded, beside being in an old, dilapidated, unsanitary building.

Visitors who have no real business in court should be excluded. Day after day the courtroom is filled with hangers-on, who look at the procedure as a sort of free theatrical performance. A woman, with three decently dressed children, sat through the whole afternoon, although she had no personal interest in any prisoner. Many people came there day after day for amusement and a comfortable place to sit. The only advantage in the pres- ent nois}- and confused procedure of the court is that the audi- ence is not so much contaminated as it would be if it could hear and understand.

Sixty per cent, of the persons appearing in the six courts considered were foreign born. The patrolman and the magis- trate are the foreigner's chief instructors in the character of gov- ernment and the rights and duties of citizenship. What sort of political education does he receive, what sort of respect for democratic institutions does he attain from these sources ? What wonder that he becomes the blind, irresponsible victim of the