Prevention of Juvenile Crime
| Date | 01 October 1930 |
| Published date | 01 October 1930 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3000300411 |
| Author | Donald C. Wright |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Prevention
of
Juvenile Crime
LESSONS
FROM
LATIN
AMERICA
By
DONALD
C.
WRIGHT
Associate Editor, Review of South and Central America
PROGRESS in psychology, sociology,psychiatry, penology,
and associated fields has shown the world the wisdom of a
new viewpoint of criminology, and of Latin America in general
it might be said that the nations of that group have so modelled
their prisons and their systems that to-day they are leaders in
the school which asserts that penalties imposed should not take
a form of punishment,
but
should be a social measure seeking
the regeneration of the delinquent.
Particularly is this the case in regard to juvenile offenders.
In
many very important directions, Latin America is offering
much older areas of the earth shining examples of progress and
a high order of human attainment,
but
none of them offers an
approach to the advancement made in the treatment of the
child who has wandered into crime.
The
young offender is
looked upon not as a person who has incurred a penalty and
who must be made to suffer for the crime committed,
but
as
one who needs every help and assistance that the State can give
him. He is to be the citizen of to-morrow. As such he must
be taught the ethics of an honest life and of his place in the
social scale.
In
the justice of their legal and penal institutions generally,
Latin American countries are in the vanguard.
Their
task has
been not to make improvements on faulty systems
but
to evolve
new procedures in the solving of their own problems. Anti-
quated principles of the classical and positivist schools have
been ruthlessly abandoned, and, in certain cases, the advances
in penal codes are beyond those found in recent Russian and
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