the country, and it is now in many places. Every
boy who makes a mistake or, if you will, every
child that shows any tendency to crime is sent
to a school where crime is taught. Is it any wonder that juvenile crime is on the increase ?”
And the Judge found that juvenile crime was on the increase generally in the United States. He engaged the services of a clipping bureau, and he quotes, in his “ Problem of the Children,” some of the results: “Five Thousand Boys Arrested Arrests Last Year Were Boys Under Twenty” (in a city of less than 150,000); “Bandits Caught Mere Boys” (a frequent head line); “Over Half the Murderers Last Year Were Boys”; “ Boy Burglars Getting Common”; “Thieving Increasing Among Children”; “Desperate Boy Bandits Captured” (aged twelve, thirteen, and fifteen). And he cites the Van Wormer boys of New York; the Biddles of Pennsylvania; the car-barn murderers of Illinois; the Collinses of Missouri; the boy murderers of Nebraska; the Youngblood murderers of Denver; the boy train-wreckers of the West, and the reform-school boy murderers of California. The phrase “mere boys” indicated that the news editors regarded juvenile crime as exceptional and remarkable; it isn’t. Three-quarters of the crimes committed in the United
