Review: Boys in Trouble
| Published date | 01 July 1931 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3100400324 |
| Date | 01 July 1931 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
THE POLICE JOURNAL
further, that of the two influences heredity is infinitely more important than
environment. Practical suggestions for prevention and treatment follow.
The
writer would doubtless agree that 30 cases hardly form an adequate
basis for reliable conclusions and that more investigations on similar lines are
required. Further, as Professor Haldane points out, athird class of records is
needed to complete the story, viz. those of monozygotic twins who had been
separated from early infancy.
The
book is intelligible to the general reader and will be found very
interesting both by theoretical students of crime and by those practically
concerned with its prevention and treatment.
BOYS
IN
TROUBLE.
By
MRS.
LE
MESURIER.
6s. net. (John Murray.)
THIS is a study of crime on the part ofmale adolescents, i.e. lads from
16
to
21,
and its treatment, written by the leader of the Women Workers at the Boys'
Prison, London, with an Introduction by Alexander Paterson, Commissioner
of Prisons.
After generations of neglect and indifference public opinion was aroused
in the first decade of this century and notable improvements were made,
but
even up to
1922
the young Londoner on remand spent a week or more with a
variety of adult criminals in Brixton Prison. Since
1922
all such lads have
been kept in a separate block, first at Wandsworth Prison and now at Worm-
wood Scrubs, named the Boys' Prison, to which are also sent temporarily all
the youths sentenced to Borstal training.
In
many districts outside London
the conditions which obtained at Brixton up to
1922
still exist.
The
writer insists that we still lag far behind such a country as Holland
in these matters. For adolescent remands she would like to see Investiga-
tion Centres or Clinics similar to those provided for young criminals under
16
These should be national institutions under the Home Office entirely
separate from any existing prison and untouched by its stigma.
For
adoles-
cent convicts she disapproves entirely of fines, corporal punishment and
imprisonment, and would extend the Probation and Borstal systems, of which
she gives a full and sympathetic account as well as of the work at the Boys'
Prison, of which she was herself the pioneer.
WOMEN
OF
THE
UNDERWORLD.
By
MRS.
CECIL
CHESTERTON.
5s. (Stanley Paul.)
AT a time when the underworld is being so freely exploited in novels and
autobiographies it is particularly refreshing to find a writer who does not go
out of her way to paint a lurid picture of crime and immorality,
but
who
prefers to analyse the causes from which they arise and to point out ways and
means by which they may be diminished. Love of comfort, vanity, mono-
tony and desire for adventure are among the underlying motives which prompt
a first
lapse;
the ultimate result is a question of temperament no less than of
circumstances. Mrs. Cecil Chesterton has clearly been at great pains to
collect all her material on the spot, and all her points are illustrated from real
life. Stark tragedy is seen in many of the stories, and yet in others the reader
is driven to admiration (an admiration which is obviously shared by the
author) for the pluck and determination which prevent even the oldest and
weakest seeking the shelter of the poorhouse. Readers of this Journal
will probably not learn from the criminal exploits narrated much that they
did not know before,
but
Mrs. Chesterton's analysis of the causes of mis-
demeanours and crimes is worthy of the most careful study.
The
searcher
after sensational literature should save his 5s.
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