The Young Delinquent It is satisfactory that the new Session
of Parliament proposes to devote some of its energies to improving the welfare of the country's youth. Besides the benefits likely, to result from the newly launched public health campaign, the King's Speech promises legislation for the provision of meals to boys and girls attending junior instruction centres and medical care for young persons who have left school and taken up employment. And to add to this the Home Secretary has announced that a scientific investigation into juvenile crime is to be undertaken, a step dictated, no doubt, by the increasing numbers of juvenile delinquents during recent years. It is reported that a provision is to be included in the forthcoming Prison Reform Bill that offenders under 21 years of age shall not in future be sent to prison pending their removal to Borstal institutions, but shall be provided for in special observation centres in which doctors and trained psychologists will take the place of prison warders. This is both humane and sensible. Criminal tendencies, like disease, will stand a far greater chance of being cured if scientific treatment is administered in the early stages.
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