One of the most important reforms that have been made is that in the treatment of juvenile offenders.  The main feature of this is the establishment of a juvenile court, where the usual procedure and publicity of a criminal court are avoided, and where the judge takes a fatherly attitude toward the accused.  Each case is carefully investigated to discover the cause of trouble and to arrive at a wise conclusion as to the treatment to be given.  In the case of first offenders, or where other conditions justify it, the prisoner is released on probation.  That is, he is given his freedom on his honor, but under the supervision of a probation officer to whom he must report at regular intervals.  In the case of more serious offenses, or of repeated wrong-doing, or of violation of parole, offenders are sent to reform schools or industrial schools.  The entire effort is to set the young offender on the right road to honest self-support and good citizenship.  Unfortunately, however, this machinery for the treatment of juvenile delinquency is so far found almost exclusively in cities.  The problem of juvenile delinquency in rural communities is one that requires more attention than has been given to it.  It is a problem that the young citizen himself can greatly help to solve by the cultivation, in himself and in his friends, of right conceptions of citizenship.

Investigate and report on the following: 

The organization of your county and town governments to protect persons and property against criminals, to apprehend law violators, and to bring them to justice.

The cost to your county or town of this organization.

The desirability or undesirability of differing definitions of crime in different states, and of different punishments for the same crime.

The efficacy of severe punishments in preventing crime.

Should capital punishment be abolished?

The meaning of “bail,” and why it is provided for.

The effect of prohibition upon the amount of crime in your community.

The number of prisoners confined in your county jail during the past year, why they were there, and what it cost to keep them.

The meaning of “fitting punishment to the criminal rather than to the crime.”

The treatment of prisoners in your state penitentiary.

The method of dealing with juvenile offenders in your community.

The meaning of “probation”; of “parole”; of an “indeterminate sentence.”

The extent of juvenile delinquency in your community; its causes.

The use of convict labor outside of prisons.

READINGS

Reports of county and town authorities.

Reports of state board of charities and of administrative boards of state institutions.

Publications of the Children’s Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor.  Send for list from which to select.  Two valuable publications of this Bureau are: