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total number examined must be greater than would appear from the statistical
returns.
The practice with regard to the maintenance and use of " Places of Detention "
varies considerably. The detention homes are intended primarily for the care of
the children pending the decision of their case, but they are at some times and in
some places called upon to serve as short term disciplinary institutions. The
limitations of institutions for delinquents often make it necessary to care for children
who have been committed to institutions, but whose admission cannot immediately
be arranged. Where no other institution is available, the detention home may be
used for the care of dependent, neglected, or lost children. Runaway children
are often kept for considerable periods pending arrangements for their return home.
In some parts of the United States probation officers are sometimes authorised
to send probationers to the detention homes for short periods as a means of
discipline without official action by the Court.
In Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver and some other Canadian cities,
the detention homes are comparatively simple, and form part of the building of the
Juvenile Court. The superintendence is of much the same character as in England,
the medical attention is given by visiting medical officers, and children are usually
taken elsewhere for mental examinations. In other cities, shelters maintained
by some child welfare agencies are employed for the purpose.
At Boston there is no detention home. Dr. Healy, the Director of the Judge
Baker Foundation at Boston, states that he has been converted to the feeling that
in most cases it is better for a child not to be placed in a detention home at all. In
Boston the majority of the cases are either allowed to return to their homes, provided
they come up for examination as ordered, or are placed temporarily in carefully
selected private homes under the protection of the Boston Children's Aid Society.
The method of boarding-out, it is said, prevents social contamination of one child
with another, which has been found a definite evil in juvenile detention homes
throughout the States, but there is the arrangement that the small number of
children, probably about 100 in any given year, who cannot be trusted to remain
with their own parents, or under special observation in a private family, can be
placed temporarily in the City jail in a section apart from all the other prisoners.
Under the Massachusetts law, Juvenile Courts are responsible for children
up to the age of 18, and most of the children thus committed temporarily to jail
represent those in the latter age groups, who would go to a remand prison in any
case, if the Juvenile Court jurisdiction ceased at 16.
At Boston the mental examinations are conducted at the Judge Baker Foundation,
where there is one medical officer assisted by several psychologists and a staff
of social workers.
In New York City the children who need detention are committed to the care
of the " New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children," which devotes
itself entirely to law enforcement work. This society has a large home on several
floors with six large school-rooms in charge of teachers furnished by the Department of
Education for the City of New York. They receive for shelter between six and seven
thousand children per year. Arrangements are made for the absolute segregation
of various types of children, so that those in custody because they are without
proper guardianship do not mingle at all with those charged with delinquency, but
have separate dormitories, playgrounds and classes. All children from 6 to 16 are
divided into three classes, while the sexes are also separated. The three classes
distinguished are :—
Class A.—Those who come into custody as the result of improper guardianship,
destitution, brutality, or other offences against them.
In Class B are placed children in custody for reasons of delinquency of a
minor character ; and in