Part 31 (2/2)
New York is the only large city in the world where there has been a comprehensive organization to deal with the sources of crime among children; an organization which, though not reaching the whole of the dest.i.tute and homeless youth, and those most exposed to temptation, still includes a vast mult.i.tude every year of the _enfants perdus_ of this metropolis.
This a.s.sociation, during nearly twenty years, has removed to country homes and employment about twenty-five thousand persons, the greater part of whom have been poor and homeless children; it has founded, and still supports, five Lodging-houses for homeless and street-wandering boys and girls, five free Reading-rooms for boys and young men, and twenty Industrial Schools for children too poor, ragged, and undisciplined for the Public Schools. We have always been confident that time would show, even in the statistics of crime in our 19 prisons and police courts, the fruits of these very extended and earnest labors. It required several years to properly found and organize the Children's Aid Society, and then it must be some ten years-when the children acted upon in all its various branches have come to young manhood and womanhood--before the true effects are to be seen. We would not, however, exclude, as causes of whatever results may be traced, all similar movements in behalf of the youthful criminal cla.s.ses. We may then fairly look, in the present and the past few years, for the effects on crime and pauperism of these widely-extended charities in behalf of children.
CRIME CHECKED.
The most important field of the Children's Aid Society has been among the dest.i.tute and street-wandering and tempted little girls, its labors embracing many thousands annually of this unfortunate cla.s.s. Has crime increased with them? The great offense of this cla.s.s, either as children or as young women, comes under the heading of ”Vagrancy”-this including their arrest and punishment, either as street-walkers, or prost.i.tutes, or homeless persons. In this there is, during the past thirteen years, a most remarkable decrease--a diminution of crime probably unexampled in any criminal records through the world. The rate in the commitments to the city prisons, as appears in the reports of the Board of Charities and Correction, runs thus:--
Of female vagrants, there were in
1857..........3,449 1859..........5,778 1860..........5,880 1861..........3,172 1862..........2,243 1863..........1,756 1864..........1,342 1869............785 1870............671 1871............548.
We have omitted some of the years on account of want of s.p.a.ce; they do not, however, change the steady rate of decrease in this offense.
Thus, in eleven years, the imprisonments of female vagrants have fallen off from 5,880 to 548. This, surely, is a good show; and yet in that period our population increased about thirteen and a half per cent, so that, according to the usual law, the commitments should have been this year over 4,700. [The population of New York increased from 814,224, in 1860, to 915,520, in 1870, or only about twelve and a half per cent. The increase in the previous decade was about fifty per cent. There can be no doubt that the falling-off is entirely in the middle cla.s.ses, who have removed to the neighboring rural districts. The cla.s.ses from which most of the criminals come have undoubtedly increased, as before, at least fifty per cent.
I have retained for ten years, however, the ratio of the census, twelve and a half per cent.]
If we turn now to the reports of the Commissioners of Police, the returns are almost equally encouraging, though the cla.s.sification of arrests does not exactly correspond with that of imprisonments; that is, a person may be arrested for vagrancy, and sentenced for some other offense, and _vice versa._
The reports of arrests of female vagrants ran thus:--
1861....................2,161 1862....................2,008 1863....................1,728 1867....................1,591 1869....................1,078 1870......................701 1871......................914
We have not, unfortunately, statistics of arrests farther back than 1861.
Another crime of young girls is thieving or petty larceny. The rate of commitments runs thus for females:--
1859......................944 1860......................890 1861......................880 1863....................1,133 1864....................1,131 1865......................877 1869......................989 1870......................746 1871......................572
The increase of this crime daring the war, in the years 1863 and 1864, is very marked; but in twelve years it has fallen from 944 to 572, though, according to the increase of the population, it would have been naturally 1,076.
Another heading on the prison records is ”Juvenile delinquency,” which may include any form of youthful offense not embraced in the other terms. Under this, in 1860, were two hundred and forty (240) females; in 1870, fifty-nine (59).
The cla.s.sification of commitments of those under fifteen years only runs back a few years. The number of little girls imprisoned the past few years is as follows:--
1863......................408 1864......................295 1865......................275 1868......................239 1870......................218 1871......................212
CRIMES CHECKED AMONG THE BOYS
The imprisonment, of males, for offenses which boys are likely to commit, though not so encouraging as with the girls, shows that juvenile crime is fairly under control in this city. Thus, ”Vagrancy” must include many of the crimes of boys; under this head we find the following commitments of males:--
1859..........2,829 1860..........2,708 1862..........1,203 1864..........1,147 1865..........1,350 1870..........1,140 1871............984
In twelve years a reduction from 2,829 to 994, when the natural increase should have been up to 3,225.
Petty larceny is a boy's crime; the record stands thus for males:--
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