by the probation officer offered his home, his personal service and new school associations, together with membership in a Junior Y. M. C. A. which offered swimming and other recreations. Accordingly No. 3 was put on probation to live at the home of his brother.

In a group case like this some judges are careful to have only one delinquent and his friends present at the time his decision is given, but even if all three boys and their friends are present, the emphasis of the judge, not alone upon the wrong-doing of each, but upon such conditions of home, play, school and work opportunity and supervision as will give each boy a real chance to conquer his delinquent tendencies, gives all an impression of a square deal in the light of facts as they are. Good case treatment of several delinquents who have been caught in the same offense does not often demand identical decisions by the judge, but usually a different decision in some particular for each. To the degree that the differences in decisions are based on accurate knowledge of facts, understood by the delinquents themselves as well as by the judge, they and their friends will approve these variations in decision. Such variations in the judge's decisions, however, are not likely to be approved by the delinquents and their friends if the major emphasis, as is too often true in criminal courts, is laid on the offense rather than on the task before each offender of so living in future that no other offense will be committed.

CASE TREATMENT BY THE PROBATION OFFICER

The case treatment now passes into the hands of the probation officer. The equivalent of the first interview (in family cases needing a social worker), of investigation, of analysis of facts, of diagnosis, and of the formation of the outlines of a plan has already been taken.

It is now the task of the probation officer to work out with the delinquent and his parents or guardians the details of a course of life and conduct that will lead to prevention of further delinquency and to right habits and ideals of life. Right here is where too many probation officers fail to do good work. The delinquent knows he has done wrong. He usually has at least a brief desire and intention to do right. What he needs and his parents need is a clear but elastic program for the week which will give the delinquent such good

times as boys and girls ought to have, without constant temptations to evil and further delinquency. In other words he needs a possible program of things to do which seem to the delinquent worth doing in all his spare time. To this end a careful study of the resources of home, school, playground, club, park, library, etc., needs to be made by the probation officer, the delinquent and his parents, until it is clear how a week can be spent without doing wrong and yet in such ways that the delinquent can enjoy most of it. Unless such a program can be fairly definitely, but with great elasticity, laid out and approved by the delinquents, the chances for overcoming serious delinquencies are poorer than they ought to be.

It is essential to the success of probationary care of delinquents that they be helped to see and to choose possible right courses of action at the precise points where before they have once, or frequently, chosen wrong courses of action. It is plainly futile to expect reform under probation unless the child himself can be led to see and feel that right action is not only possible but worth while from his own point of view. Not alone what the probation officer thinks is right and desirable for the child, but what the delinquent himself can be led to see is right, desirable and possible, will be really effective in changing his behavior. To this end the relation of probation officers to probationers must become one of reciprocal confidence and sympathy. Underneath this, but rarely used, is of course the authority of the court. The probation officer should also have such an intimate knowledge of the habitual life of the delinquent at school, at home, in playground, street, and spare time, that the delinquent will feel the probation officer, while his friend, cannot be fooled.

Whether the probation officer should be the same person who made the investigation of the delinquent's home and habits for the hearing is a secondary question. The success of a good probation officer depends upon his skill in influencing the probationer and changing wrong behavior into right behavior, not on the mere fact that he came into the life of the delinquent before or after the hearing before the judge.

A similar question is that of reporting to the probation officer by the probationer. In some way the delinquent must be led to act honestly and on his own responsibility toward his own reform. In many cases to report to the probation officer at a certain time and

place tends to develop his honesty and sense of responsibility. The probation officer must, however, have many other sources of information and means of guidance of the probationer. If he relies on the report alone, he will often be fooled and his influence be reduced to less than nil. Good case treatment means an adoption of available means to the end that habit and voluntary behavior become right with each child. No general rules are applicable to all cases of sick morals any more than to sick bodies. Until a probation officer learns this he is not so successful as he ought to be.

The application of this principle of individualization of treatment explains what the right time and method of ending the probation period are. If opportunities for right choices of behavior for 24 hours a day for seven days in the week are found impossible for a delinquent in his home, and neighborhood; or if, although good choices are possible, his actual choices are habitually wrong, the probationary period ought to end by commitment so that control may be enforced, or by some change of environment or supervision that promises progress toward reform. On the other hand, when not only real opportunities for right choices of behavior have been seen by the delinquent but he has learned to choose them for himself, the probation officer should give the delinquent the encouragement of knowing that the authority of the court has been ended. Likewise this termination of probation should be entered on his record at the court. He should know that henceforth he is thought strong enough to do right with merely the personal encouragement of the probation officer. Whether or not this close of the period of probation shall be celebrated by having the delinquent released in person by the judge cannot be stated without knowledge of the case. Plainly some girls who have left sex offenses far in their past, should not be compelled to go again to court. Good case, treatment of delinquents demands, at the close, as at the beginning and all through, that the process of release from probation should be not a matter of cold routine, but an act of "constructive friendship."

The final step is that the probation officer should be a voice in his community urging, in season and out of season, the suppression of causes and conditions which make for delinquency and also urging with still greater earnestness the provision of adequate facilities and agencies that make for wholesome juvenile life and education.

THE HOMELESS

By STUART A. RICE,

Formerly Superintendent, New York Municipal Lodging House.1

Intelligent treatment of homeless men and women requires a vivid understanding of the reasons for their homelessness. Under present methods of industrial management this condition is demanded of a vast number of workers. By becoming or remaining homeless, they render specialized services of great importance to society. Nevertheless, the living and working conditions under which the services are performed react disastrously upon their character, even to making them subjects of social case treatment!

The truth of these statements is to be illustrated in the employment office districts of any large city. A recent inspection of the labor agencies from Fourteenth Street to Chatham Square, along the Bowery in New York, disclosed, in all, opportunities for fourteen men with families! And these were required to be "foreigners!" The thousands of other jobs offered (tacitly understood, not openly stated) were for "homeless men only."

THE HOMELESS IN RELATION TO SOCIETY AND INDUSTRY

The writer has been a member of one of those unkempt companies you have seen slouching along the street from the labor agency to the railroad depot. He has made his abode in the bunk houses provided for these men. His experiences have led him to a real appreciation of the abnormal living conditions that are forced upon great masses of casual and seasonal workers throughout America. Many of the evils inevitably resulting from these unnatural conditions may be removed in individual cases by careful diagnosis and persistent social treatment. But the background of industrial organization (or disorganization) will in nowise be altered by the most careful case work. Either the men and women recorded in our own case files, or thousands of others like them, will still be compelled to live abnormal lives in order that they may live at all.

1 At the time of writing this article Mr. Rice was still holding this position. -EDITOR.

Homeless men are demanded to build the bridges and tunnels, the irrigation systems and railroads, to harvest our forests and embank our rivers. They are the pioneers of modern industry. They go hither and thither to the rough, unfinished, uncomfortable places of the world, to provide homes and civilized comforts for those of. us who follow. Meanwhile they live in bunk houses. Homeless women are preferred to do the "dirty work" in our public institutions and to scrub and clean at night in our hotels. Generally only they are willing to accept the work and the hours demanded.

Homeless men, for the most part, make up our "labor reserve." This reserve is highly essential. If some workers were not unemployed in slack or normal conditions of industry, additional hands could not be employed in periods of increased activity. The homeless are usually the less efficient. Furthermore, they are without dependents. Socially and economically, therefore, as things now are, it is advantageous for society that they shall be the first employes discharged when reductions in force are essential and likewise the last to be reëmployed.

Homelessness and intermittent employment, therefore, go together. They are the major characteristics demanded by society of a large number of its workers. But certain other characteristics are encouraged. In the absence of organized social control over industry a restless instability of temperament is desirable to afford fluidity to the labor supply. Employes' indifference to cleanliness is fortunate for numerous employers who find it impracticable to supply bunk houses with running water. Even the periodical debauch in the city after pay day has psychological results which prove convenient to the employer. Men or women without money are docile. How otherwise could they be induced to return to jobs affording no chance of normal living? These unfortunate developments of habit and character we attempt to combat in individuals by social case treatment. Yet, they are in a sense vital elements in our patients' professional training!

CLASSIFICATION OF THE HOMELESS

It is convenient to use the following grouping employed by Mrs. Alice Willard Solenberger:2 (1) the self-supporting; (2) the temporarily dependent; (3) the chronically dependent; (4) the parasitic.

A. W. Solenberger, "One Thousand Homeless Men," p. 10.