Quarterly Commentary
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X5903200102 |
| Published date | 01 January 1959 |
| Date | 01 January 1959 |
| Subject Matter | Quarterly Commentary |
Quarterly
Commentary
MORE
BAD YOUNG
MEN
THOSE WHO, like ourselves, have unfailing confidence in the ability
of the rising generation to take over and tackle the manifold prob-
lems of the atomic age are bound to get an occasional jolt. One
such was felt when publication of the Criminal Statistics (England
and Wales) for 1957 confirmed that the worsening record of juvenile
crime for 1956 was followed by a new and steeper record for 1957.
Persons found guilty of indictable offences went up by thirteen per
cent, but the number of boys between 14 and 17 found guilty of
indictable offences increased during the year by no less than twenty-
one per cent, while those between 17 and 21 went up by twenty-six
per cent on the figures for the previous year.
The rise in crimes known to the police became steeper than ever,
for whereas the total of indictable offences recorded in 1956 was
479,710, an increase of 9.5 per cent on the figure for 1955, that for
1957 (545,562) showed a 13.7 per cent. increase on 1956.
The
increase was bigger than in any of the past twenty years.
Among all the evidence of increased wrong-doing of a serious
kind, the gravest is that more adolescents and young people were
found guilty of criminal offences. The worst increases were in
offences classified and grouped as breaking and entering, robbery
and violence against the person, and stealing. The success of efforts
by police and public to clear up "crimes known" is shown to have
been 47.2 per cent. Persons found guilty in 1957 of breaking and
entering increased by one-quarter over the number in the previous
year; of robbery, by twenty-eight per cent; of violence against the
person by eighteen per cent; and of sexual offences by five per cent.
Any study, from whatever angle, of the Criminal Statistics for
1957 will inevitably increase the gloom and sense of frustration of
all engaged in social service. Full employment, social betterment,
slum clearance, secondary education and the amenities and privileges
of the welfare state have been unaccompanied by any downward
curve of the crime graph. Attempts to explain the trend may seem
futile, but they need fresh examination.
It
seems an extraordinary
state of affairs that in
av.
age when more and more young men are
seizing new opportunities for scientific exploration, when ordinary
men and women are proving again and again the superiority of
their race and age in physical endurance and moral achievement in
probing the mysteries of land, sea and air, a small but growing
2The Police Journal
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