Corpun file 24320 at www.corpun.com
The Dominion, Wellington, 23 April 1913, p.3
[Letters to the editor]
The Juvenile Court.
(extract)
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As the Minister for Marine has held an inquiry into the
alleged flogging on the Amokura, I would like to respectfully
suggest that the Minister for Justice should likewise have an
investigation into the floggings (euphemistically known as
"birching") administered by order of the Juvenile
Court, and into the working of that tribunal.
The Juvenile Offenders Act directs that when corporal punishment
is meted out, strokes shall be applied with a "birch
rod." Well, sir, a birch rod is not used; no doubt the
instrument of punishment (a blood-curdling one to look at) was a
rod originally, but it has been purposely split for about half
its length into a number of tails, and is there bound with cord
to 'prevent it splitting' further, the tails being bound also at
the ends. The result of this is, that when a boy is ordered, say,
six strokes, he really receives a number of stripes equal to six
multiplied by the number of tails. I know the case of a boy who
was beaten so severely that his screams could be heard from the
closed cell behind the watch-house (where the
"birching" was inflicted) to the other side of Lambton
Quay. When examined at his home, the boy's back and loins were
found to be literally covered with purple stripes, and where the
bound tail ends met over his hip, there was a contused-looking
bruise which remained plainly discernible sixteen days
afterwards; a member of the Legislative Council saw the bruise
nine days after its infliction.
The Juvenile Offenders Act further enacts that where birching is
ordered, the parents or guardians may, if they so choose, witness
the punishment, but they are not informed of this right by the
Court. The Act should be amended to make it obligatory on the
Court to do this.
Now for another phase of the Juvenile Court: An officer of the
Labour Department has, I understand, been visiting some of the
large centres of the Dominion inquiring, among other things, into
the scarcity of boy labour. Let him try Wereroa, Stoke, Burnham,
Caversham, and other sites of boy-reformatories. At Wereroa
alone, there are about two hundred and fifty (250) boys, and the
Education Departmental records can tell how many are at the other
places. Now, how is it so many hundreds -- perhaps thousands --
of boys out of our small population are in this unfortunate
predicament? In my opinion, it is largely the outcome of the
methods of the Juvenile Court. The Juvenile Court was instituted
with the best of intentions; but in secret tribunals abuses will
creep in. Evidence is there tendered which would never bear the
light of day -- the evidence of infants from five to eleven years
of age, who afterwards, when relieved from the hypnotism of the
blue uniform, have in some instances told quite an opposite story
(as in the case of the boy referred to). It is monstrous that
respectable, law-abiding citizens should have their children
unmercifully scourged and taken from them [...]
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