Judge Benjamin B. Lindsey speaks as follows of his work in dealing with
juvenile delinquents:
I have often been asked how it is if I can trust a youthful
burglar to go alone to a reformatory why can not I trust him to
go alone to work?
The answer is that the individual is weak rather than vicious.
He is strong enough to last over night, but not strong enough to
last a month. He goes to the institution. He learns the trade
of a carpenter or a stone-cutter--then he has some incentive in
life. He gets out of the habit of being bad. When he comes out
he is proud of his job, and as soon as we get him work he wants
to show how well he can do it--the past is behind him forever.
This new children’s crusade started in 1900. We are now going
on the theory that the law is not one-tenth of the problem.
Psychology, for want of a better word, is the other nine-tenths.
The solution of the problem of child delinquents lies chiefly
in knowing how to get at truth, in getting loyalty to the state
and to the law. Once you get a boy to go regularly to school
the problem is solved. On the other hand, we do not want him to
think that the court is a brute or dead easy.
(370)