Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/140



States, the Judge says, are done by boys under twenty-three!

“And why not?” he asks. “The children of parents who die or fail in their duty are taken by the State and sent for their schooling into the streets or jails where they pick up false ideals and criminal arts. With few exceptions, all these boy criminals named above, whom society has sent to the slaughter-house to be killed, had been sent to jail in their teens by society for other crimes. And most of them were first imprisoned as little children.”

In other words, our criminal court system does not prevent, it fosters crime. Our “businesslike” procedure of heartless, thoughtless “justice” makes criminals. What should the State do ? The Judge says that when the State gets hold of a “bad” child, it takes the place of the parent, and like a good parent, it should try to mould that child into a good citizen. He gives an illustration in his “Problem of the Children.”

“We recall the case (and it is one of hundreds),” the Judge says there, “of a young man who had been in the criminal courts at the age of thirteen. At twenty he shot down a policeman who was heroically doing his duty. Suppose that at the age of thirteen that boy had been studied, helped, looked after, and carefully handled; would that