--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Anderson, Hugo B. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 23 number: 9 published: 1920-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Hugo B. Anderson, "The Relation of the Juvenile Court to the Educational System of the State," *Improvement Era* 23, no. 9 (July 1920): 765–772.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2309unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2309unse start_page: 765 end_page: 772 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1920-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2309unse publication_year: 1920 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1920, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Relation of the Juvenile Court to the Educational System of the State IMPROVEMENT ERA Vol. XXIII JULY, 1920 No. 9 The Relation of the Juvenile Court to the Educational System of the State By Hugo B. Anderson, A. B., J. D., Judge of the Juvenile Court, Third Judicial District The close relation of the Juvenile Court to the educational system of the State was clearly stated by Justice J. E. Frick of the Supreme Court of the State of Utah in his masterful de- cision in the case of Mill vs. Brown, 31 Utah Reports 473, thirteen years ago, as follows: "Such laws [Juvenile Court laws] are most salutary and are in no sense criminal and not intended as a punishment, but are calculated to save the child from becoming a criminal. The whole and only object of such laws is to provide the child with an environment such as will save him to the state and society as a useful and law-abiding citizen, and to give him the educational requirements necessary to attain that end" The far reaching educational program provided for the State by the legislature of 1919 has given new meaning to the words of Judge Frick and has made advisable a comprehensive and intelligent analysis of the court organization and functions with a view to the possible readjustment of the work of the court and the school system. Under the common law, and under the statutes before the passage of the Juvenile Court Law, in 1905, a child under seven years of age was conclusively presumed incapable of criminal intent; between 7 and 14 years of age he was presumed in- capable of criminal intent but the contrary might be shown; between 14 and 21 years he was presumed capable of criminal intent but might be shown to be incapable. Since criminal in- tent is a necessary part of every crime, a child was either found guilty under the above rules and punished as any other crim- inal or was released outright as an acquitted prisoner. There 766 IMPROVEMENT ERA was no middle ground. Within the last hundred years children have been hanged in England for petit larcenies and the author only recently heard of a case in one of our own states where a young boy held in a prison cell with other criminals was not only allowed but compelled to witness the execution of a con- victed murderer. The juvenile courts arose as a protest against the view that a delinquent child should either be punished as a criminal or turned loose to become a criminal. The founders of the system contended that there was a middle ground, the ground of constructive and special education between the schools and the jails for those with criminal tendencies. It is assumed un- der such a theory that child welfare is a community responsi- bility; that the responsibility rests first of all on the home, the school, the church and private welfare agencies; but that the state as guardian of all its children should safeguard the fail- ures of those institutions and provide for them the training necessary to make of them good citizens, if that is possible. The problem is clearly one of special education, and if the present school laws had been in operation when the juvenile courts were established in our state, without doubt it would have occurred to the framers of the law that a great many of the tasks imposed on the Juvenile Courts were properly problems of educational administration. But at that period the law provided for compulsory education through the eighth grade only. Sixty per cent of juvenile offenders brought into the courts are between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Conse- quently it was necessary for the state to create a new educational system apart from the school system to provide special training for youthful offenders. That system took the form of the Juvenile Court with its probation department, county detention homes, and the state industrial school. The Juvenile Court system provided for by the Utah law is one of the finest in the United States. Utah is one of the very few states, if not the only state in the Union which has a state-wide system of special courts for hearing juvenile cases; the law providing for such a special and independent court in each of the seven judicial districts of the state. Each juvenile court judge has jurisdiction over three or more counties. The judge is therefore a sort of circuit judge hearing cases where necessity demands, and every portion of the state, rural as well as urban, could have the advantage of a specially trained judge with the appointment of only seven for the entire state. The necessity for some such system is being keenly felt by social workers throughout the Union, as in most states where juvenile court work is being done the rural communities are entirely neg- lected even where intensive work is being done in the large RELATION OF JUVENILE COURT TO EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM 767 centers of population. (See report of Children s Bureau, U. S. Dept., of Labor Courts in the United States Hearing Chil- dren's Cases. Dependent, Defective and Delinquent Classes Series No. 8, Bureau Publication No. 65.) This uniform distri- bution of effort and money over the state, while of decided advantage to the smaller community which could not otherwise support a children's court, necessarily means less money and consequently less intensive work in the large cities than would be the case if the local community merely provided its own court. Nevertheless the wisdom of the state policy of equalizing the educational opportunities for all children of the state can- not be questioned in this particular, any more than in the general educational program. Another striking advantage of the Utah Juvenile Court sys- tem is the provision for a state commission for supervising, co-ordinating and unifying the work of the several courts. The State Juvenile Court Commission is composed of the Attor- ney General, representing the legal side of the system, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, representing the educa- tional functions of the system, and the governor. All judges and chief probation officers are appointed by the commission and every court is required to make monthly and annual reports to the commission through its secretary. No other state in the Union can boast of so adequately balanced a plan for state control; in fact, with but a few exceptions, no other states have any system of state control. The only criticism which can be properly made of the plan is that it is more closely connected with politics than a combined educational and judicial system should be. This difficulty might be overcome by provision for the members of the commission to hold over for a year or more after expiration of their term of political office. It has been suggested as a solution that the judges and probation officers be appointed by the State Board of Education. Such a plan may be advisable as far as the probation officers are concerned, and might solve the problem of a co-ordination of the probation department of the courts with the attendance department of the schools. But in the opinion of the writer, to allow the public schools, which now have a broader control over children in Utah than in any other state in the Union, to appoint the judicial officer who hears the complaints of truant officers, schr^ nurses, and vocational supervisors, would not only destroy the splendid balance between the law and the schools which now obtains in the appointive body but would throw the entire educational program of the state open to distrust and condem- nation as an intellectual autocracy. The court which adjudicates a disputed right between the schools and the parent should not be appointed by one of the parties to the dispute. 768 IMPROVEMENT ERA Many people apparently assumed that, when our excellent Juvenile Court law was made effective, it would prove a "cure all" for the problem of juvenile delinquency, and some, being disappointed in its efficacy as a "cure all," now openly advocate a repeal or fundamental alteration of it. A careful analysis of the complaints often made against the Juvenile Courts should convince the open minded that the difficulty is not with the law or the fundamental ideas on which it is based, but rather with the manner in which it has, or perhaps the manner in which it has not, been administered. The grave mistakes which have doubtless been made should be carefully considered, as only through an understanding of them can we hope for future improvement. They are of two classes: first, those mistakes arising from an inadequately trained court per- sonnel, and secondly, those mistakes arising from a failure to distinguish between the administrative and the judicial func- tions of the court and a consequent tendency to do judicial acts in an administrative manner, or administrative acts in a judicial manner. Every child who comes before the juvenile court repre- sents a failure of one or more of the normal educational insti- tutions, the home, the school and the church. The child is brought to the court on the assumption that the State through the court in co-operation with other agencies can accomplish that for the child which the other agencies have failed to ac- complish. If that is to be more than an assumption obviously the court worker must better understand the social and indi- vidual problem involved than the parent, school teacher or religious adviser. The delinquency of childhood and youth may be the reaction of a normal child to a disordered home, school, church or community, or it may be the reaction of a dis- ordered child to a normal institution. It is the problem of the probation officer and the judge to diagnose the individual case, and after determining the probable causative factors of the delinquency, attempt to do or have done for the child the con- structive work necessary to bring the child or his social life back as near to normal as possible. The court officers must therefore know what constitutes normal family, school and community life, and they must have sufficient knowledge of physiology, psychology and psychiatry so that physical, mental or psychopathic abnormalities which may cause the delinquency will not be passed over unnoticed. In addition to these qualifi- cations the judge, at least, must, to use the words of Judge Frick in the case cited above, be "learned in the law and versed in the rules of procedure, to the end that the beneficent purposes of the law may be made effective and individual rights re- spected." Juvenile Court work is the most technical branch of RELATION OF JUVENILE COURT TO EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM 769 our educational system, and workers should be trained for it and given pay commensurate with their training and the im- portance of their work. When our Juvenile Courts are provided with such a personnel a large proportion of the harsh criticism directed against them will be obviated. One of the great problems of child welfare in most states of the Union is the harmonious co-ordination of the work of various child welfare agencies, and the co-operation of the .agencies with the Juvenile Courts. The number of child-caring agencies in Utah is decidedly limited. In fact outside the home, school and church the Juvenile Court is the only child-caring agency doing general work throughout the State. As a conse- quence of this condition the Juvenile Court has assumed, or had thrust upon it, a great body of administrative work which in most states is done by other agencies. Thus, in addition to the 1,487 juvenile cases and 284 adult cases handled by the court, over which the writer presides, in 1919, and the supervising of some 600 juveniles on probation, the court placed 25 children for adoption, secured 90 positions of employment for boys and girls, and made a total of about 170 examinations, including physical, mental and psychiatric, and treatment given in some 136 cases. The court collected $2,258.50 in fines from adults for contributing to the delinquency of minors and collected $12,352.15 from negligent fathers for the support of their chil- dren. It is readily seen that a large part of this work is in no sense judicial. It is in its nature purely administrative. In fact 75 per cent of all the cases handled should have been handled, in the opinion of the writer, purely as administrative tasks. The problem in Utah is not, then, one of co-ordinating the work of many child-caring agencies but of following one of two courses open to us: first, to make of the juvenile court with its probation department a great state-wide administrative as well as judicial scheme for child welfare; or, secondly, as rapidly as possible to transfer the administrative functions to other administrative agencies, making possible needed improve- ment of the judicial functions of the Court. To the writer it seems that the latter is the more promising course and that the public school system is the agency which is best adapted to and which under its program must necessarily assume an increas- ing part of the administrative work now done through the probation department of the Court. The new school law in effect gives the Public School system jurisdiction over all children up to the age of eighteen years, the same age to which the juvenile court has jurisdiction; whether the child is enrolled in the regular, part-time, or vo- cational schools he is under the supervision of the school sys- tem every day of the year. Child employment is subject to 770 IMPROVEMENT ERA permit by the school system; provision is made for physical and mental examination of every child; even the physical wel- fare of children of pre-school age, including the education of parents in matters pertaining to child welfare, is provided for. In other words the school is in a position to know practically everything about the child which the probation officer must learn in order to diagnose and treat a case of delinquency. Furthermore, all school teachers are required under the law to take a course in health education; their work in psychology and sociology has given them the basis on which with little additional training in social service they could comply with the technical requirements indicated above as necessary qualifica- tions for a probation officer.The attendance officers of the Salt Lake City and County public schools have for some time been doing this work and materially decreasing the work of the probation department of the court. If the school system should undertake to supervise all children placed on probation by the juvenile court there would be not to exceed one pro- bationer for each school teacher; whereas, there is a hundred or more for each probation officer. The resulting increase in efficiency and prevention of delinquency can scarcely be doubted. The great pedagogical problem of Utah's educators is to make provision for determining the capacity of every child and providing for him the sort of school and the kind of training to meet his needs. It is perhaps a safe estimate that not more than fifty per cent of children can successfully complete the work of the senior high school as its curriculum has hereto- fore been constituted. To attempt to compel all children up to eighteen years of age to attend school means either that the state will provide a system of education as broad as the needs of every child, or else that the state will force into delinquency those whose needs are not met by the school system. If the former course is not followed then the Utah educational pro- gram will prove top heavy and tumble. Once the school system succeeds in doing that which it now seems necessary that it undertake to do, to provide schools to suit the needs and capacities of every child up to eighteen years of age, the problem of the relation of the juvenile court and the schools is practically solved. To accomplish that means first of all that the school system must know the mental capacity of the children under its jurisdiction. For this purpose clinics for studying the child are necessary. Clinical study pending hearing is the purpose of detention homes under the juvenile court system, and these could readily be made clinics under the control of the public schools. Knowing the likes, dislikes and mental capacity of the child the Boards of Education RELATION OF JUVENILE COURT TO EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM 771 can then, as an administrative act, place the child in the school which fits his needs. The school now, as administrative acts, transfers a child from one school to another, from regular to part time or vocational school, from regular class to a class for backward students. There is no reason, so long as the parents are willing, why the Boards of Education should not in like manner transfer a child from the regular school to a parental school, a school for the feebleminded, a school for psychopaths, or to the Industrial School. Why a parent must bring a child into court, have the child declared delinquent and himself de- clared unfit to have the custody of the child, in order to secure for the child the kind of training which the child needs is dif- ficult to understand. The psychological effect on the child of a court finding that parent is unfit, often forever makes im- possible the very object for which the proceeding is insti- tuted, the training of the child and the rehabilitation of the home. In other words, as long as there is no disputed right there is no ground for judicial proceedings or court action. Clinical investigation, probation and transfer from school to school are administrative functions which should properly be handled by the school system rather than by the juvenile court. The educators of the state are already realizing that their obligation to supplement the work of the home in train- ing the child extends over the vacation period as well as the school year. It is but logical for them to take the next step and realize that to properly train the child offender they must be ready when necessity demands to supplement the work of the home during twenty-four hours of the day and not during school hours only. It has been estimated that from fifty to seventy-five per cent of delinquency. is preventable in the school system. Once the school principal and teacher grasp the con- ception that to prevent that delinquency is as much their job as teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, the juvenile court will be relieved of the administrative work which is clog- ging its calendar, overworking its officers and driving the court into the grievous error of doing work really judicial in an administrative way and mere administrative work in a semi- judicial way. Relieved of that administrative work the court will be able more carefully and effectively to perform the ju- dicial functions necessary in the work of child welfare. The judicial work of the juvenile court consists in giving state authority to the work of the administrative agencies en- gaged in child welfare by furnishing in any proper case the legal compulsion made necessary in a disputed case in order that they may accomplish their purpose; in hearing criminal cases involving the contributing to the delinquency, dependency or neglect of juveniles, and in changing, in the interest of the 772 IMPROVEMENT ERA State and the child, the custody or guardianship of children whose parents have refused or neglected to fulfil the parental responsibilities on which their right of guardianship depends. Wherever there is a dispute between parties claiming right of control over or interest in the child, there is a case for juvenile court adjudication. The refusal of a parent to send a child to school; the refusal of a parent to give a child medical at- tention on orders of the school nurse; the opposition of a par- ent to a child's being sent to the Industrial School as recom- mended by the school authorities; the alleged sale by a mer- chant of tobacco to a minor; the alleged practice of a dance hall or moving picture house in selling admission to minors unac- companied by parents after nine o'clock at night; the alleged act of an adult in encouraging or aiding child immorality; the alleged change of custody or guardianship of a child with- out state sanction, by gift, barter, sale or abandonment of child on a doorstep; the alleged unfitness of a parent to have custody of a child by reason of the parents' immorality, vice, abuse or neglect of child, threatening the child's health or morals; all these and many others are cases properly requiring judicial findings and the interposition of the juvenile court to settle the conflicting claims. The juvenile court in this field is like a safety device quickly applied in the interest of the State and the child, to any point of breakdown in the child-caring sys- tem. With a proper appreciation of the mistakes which have been made in the administration of our Juvenile Court law and an equal appreciation of the value of the work which has been done and the inestimable power for good in our Juvenile Court law properly co-ordinated and administered with the match- less school law of Utah, we may confidently anticipate the day of Utah's leadership of the states of the Union in child wel- fare work. We have an enviable opportunity and the socia workers of the country are watching with interest the develop- ment of our unique situation. The course of that development should, and in the opinion of the writer will, lie in the direction of a co-ordination, along the lines suggested, of the proba- tion department of the court with the school system, the at- tendance or truant officers being the point of contact; a conse- quent enormous reduction in the administrative work of the court and a corresponding increase in the efficiency and dignity of the judicial function of the court, an ultimate enlargement of the judicial functions of the court to include all cases of di- vorce, separate maintenance, bastardy, non-support and adop- tion, as well as the cases now handled; a small problem de- partment for adults as well as juveniles, consisting of experts in social diagnosis, with power to make social, medical, psy-