[The following important article, from the New York Times of February 15, brings some of the results of a year’s Study of New York juvenile crime, as related to the recreation problem.]
The relation of play to juvenile crime is coming to be more and more recognized by the student of juvenile delinquency and the discerning social worker. But the problem has not been studied intensively. The facts which show how the most celebrated gangster in New York City can get his start playing kick-the-can or baseball in the city streets have only but been regarded in a general way.
For the past year Edward Barrows, special investigator for the People’s Institute, has been making a study of the evolution of the crime of children from a purely legal fact to a moral evil, and his report on the year’s work represents not only general conclusions but an intensive study of 193 individual cases of juvenile arrest.
Mr. Barrows has lived for about three years in the middle west side of Manhattan, which is popularly called the Hell’s Kitchen district. He was not known as a social worker or an investigator, but as a free lance newspaper man and a good fellow generally. He has studied juvenile delinquency in the courts, in the streets and the homes, and has been an actual member of numerous boys’ gangs. The hundreds of adults and children with whom Mr. Barrows became intimate are still without an inkling as to his identity. In summing up his report, Mr. Barrows says:
I became aware several years ago that the child life of the New York tenement neighborhoods is a world apart. The middle west side was chosen for investigation, both because it stands high among New York districts for its juvenile crime record, and because it is a relatively old neighborhood, representing the condition toward which the newer congested neighborhoods are developing.In the middle west side the child life is organized—yes, definitely and somewhat elaborately organized—into what amounts to a defensive secret league, with tens of thousands of members. This league is made up of small gang units, which are sometimes federated for brief periods, which war on eachother, but are united against the common enemy—against the law and its agents, who are aliens, and generally against the adult community as such. This condition means that no investigator who is known as an investigator can find his facts. Still less can an “uplifter” find his facts or do his work if he is known as an “uplifter.”Twelve thousand children are arrested annually in New York. These are not exceptional children, and they are not a special problem. Rather, they are typical children. They are mere exhibits drawn from the mass of those children who live in the congested neighborhoods, a small proportion of the children who have done the same things and have not been caught.These children are not sub-normal, and they come from homes which are typical of whole enormous population districts. They are arrested for the only thing a child can do on the street, and they have no place but the street in which to do anything. These children represent the child population of half or more of the tenement districts of New York City.I made an intensive study of 193 out of the 12,000 arrests for the past year—all of them typical cases. All these arrests fall within the middle west side region. They were made on the following direct charges:Assault, attempt at burglary, begging, bonfires, burglary, disorderly conduct, destruction of property, fighting, playing football on the streets, gambling, intoxication, jumping on cars, kicking the garbage can, loitering, picking pockets, pitching pennies, playing ball, playing with water pistol, putting out lights, selling papers, playing shinney, shooting craps, snowballing, stealing, subway disturbances, throwing stones, trespass, truancy.It is clear at the very start that the punishment, as far as the law goes, has little relation to the alleged crimes as listed above. The same section of the Penal Code punishes baseball and burglary, and both of these acts are punishable under several other sections of the Penal Code. Frequently the arrest brings out a series of acts, committed in previous days or weeks, which bear little relation to the direct cause of the arrest. We find cases of children arrested for playing ball, but whose story in court reveals stealing, assault and burglary. Again, we find a child rearrested under three or four different sections of the Penal Code for the same repeated act, be it the kicking of a garbage can or assault and battery. We find in the court records the most indiscriminate blending of arrest and punishment for innocent play with arrest and punishment for deviltry or perverse crime of a serious nature.To make the case specific rather than general, a few typical instances may be given:John C. was arrested for creating a disturbance. This is a nuisance and, from the standpoint of the adult, a moral offense in a crowded city. Special inquiry developed that John C. was one of a number of boys who gathered in front of a tenement home late one evening and sang in chorus. Incidentally only one of the several malefactors was caught.Charles C. was arrested for violating Penal Code Section 675, relating to disorderly conduct and committing nuisance. His act consisted in throwing a baseball on a public street.William C., arrested for disorderly conduct, was charged with playing football on the street. The record showed that he was an athletic enthusiast, and there was no other football field but the street. In contrast with this fact, it should be mentioned that the New York Board of Education maintains an elaborate and costly organization for encouraging the athletic spirit among boys.George C. was arrested for throwing stones. The record showed that George C. had been one of a group engaging in a street fight, the street fight being a typical form of vigorous play among children of this district.Thomas C. was arrested for throwing stones. He had thrown a stone in revenge and with murderous intent at an unsuspecting enemy. His motive was wholly different from that of George C., but they were classified together in law.The figures in the Children’s Courts are of almost no value as showing the quantity of law-breaking, innocent or otherwise, on the part of the city’s children. Nathan A., for instance, was arrested for crap-shooting. There was no other arrest. Similarly with Joseph B., William C. was arrested for playing baseball, and the rest of his team are not mentioned. George C. was arrested for fighting with no mention of his fellow-combatant or combatants.The acts which lead children to arrest are nearly always games. They are games which are against the law only because they are played on the street, and games which through their nature involve an infraction of the penal code. In the first class we find baseball, football, jackstones, singing, and marbles. In the second we find stealing, fighting, destruction of property, and similar violations of the code of social procedure.But the point which is overlooked by the law, and in a large measure by the law enforcer, is that both these forms of play are to the child merely or mainly play, representing a perfectly normal childish instinct which has, in many of the cases of arrest, been distorted through a morbid street environment.The following is an analysis of 170 of the cases here being considered:
I became aware several years ago that the child life of the New York tenement neighborhoods is a world apart. The middle west side was chosen for investigation, both because it stands high among New York districts for its juvenile crime record, and because it is a relatively old neighborhood, representing the condition toward which the newer congested neighborhoods are developing.
In the middle west side the child life is organized—yes, definitely and somewhat elaborately organized—into what amounts to a defensive secret league, with tens of thousands of members. This league is made up of small gang units, which are sometimes federated for brief periods, which war on eachother, but are united against the common enemy—against the law and its agents, who are aliens, and generally against the adult community as such. This condition means that no investigator who is known as an investigator can find his facts. Still less can an “uplifter” find his facts or do his work if he is known as an “uplifter.”
Twelve thousand children are arrested annually in New York. These are not exceptional children, and they are not a special problem. Rather, they are typical children. They are mere exhibits drawn from the mass of those children who live in the congested neighborhoods, a small proportion of the children who have done the same things and have not been caught.
These children are not sub-normal, and they come from homes which are typical of whole enormous population districts. They are arrested for the only thing a child can do on the street, and they have no place but the street in which to do anything. These children represent the child population of half or more of the tenement districts of New York City.
I made an intensive study of 193 out of the 12,000 arrests for the past year—all of them typical cases. All these arrests fall within the middle west side region. They were made on the following direct charges:
Assault, attempt at burglary, begging, bonfires, burglary, disorderly conduct, destruction of property, fighting, playing football on the streets, gambling, intoxication, jumping on cars, kicking the garbage can, loitering, picking pockets, pitching pennies, playing ball, playing with water pistol, putting out lights, selling papers, playing shinney, shooting craps, snowballing, stealing, subway disturbances, throwing stones, trespass, truancy.
It is clear at the very start that the punishment, as far as the law goes, has little relation to the alleged crimes as listed above. The same section of the Penal Code punishes baseball and burglary, and both of these acts are punishable under several other sections of the Penal Code. Frequently the arrest brings out a series of acts, committed in previous days or weeks, which bear little relation to the direct cause of the arrest. We find cases of children arrested for playing ball, but whose story in court reveals stealing, assault and burglary. Again, we find a child rearrested under three or four different sections of the Penal Code for the same repeated act, be it the kicking of a garbage can or assault and battery. We find in the court records the most indiscriminate blending of arrest and punishment for innocent play with arrest and punishment for deviltry or perverse crime of a serious nature.
To make the case specific rather than general, a few typical instances may be given:
John C. was arrested for creating a disturbance. This is a nuisance and, from the standpoint of the adult, a moral offense in a crowded city. Special inquiry developed that John C. was one of a number of boys who gathered in front of a tenement home late one evening and sang in chorus. Incidentally only one of the several malefactors was caught.
Charles C. was arrested for violating Penal Code Section 675, relating to disorderly conduct and committing nuisance. His act consisted in throwing a baseball on a public street.
William C., arrested for disorderly conduct, was charged with playing football on the street. The record showed that he was an athletic enthusiast, and there was no other football field but the street. In contrast with this fact, it should be mentioned that the New York Board of Education maintains an elaborate and costly organization for encouraging the athletic spirit among boys.
George C. was arrested for throwing stones. The record showed that George C. had been one of a group engaging in a street fight, the street fight being a typical form of vigorous play among children of this district.
Thomas C. was arrested for throwing stones. He had thrown a stone in revenge and with murderous intent at an unsuspecting enemy. His motive was wholly different from that of George C., but they were classified together in law.
The figures in the Children’s Courts are of almost no value as showing the quantity of law-breaking, innocent or otherwise, on the part of the city’s children. Nathan A., for instance, was arrested for crap-shooting. There was no other arrest. Similarly with Joseph B., William C. was arrested for playing baseball, and the rest of his team are not mentioned. George C. was arrested for fighting with no mention of his fellow-combatant or combatants.
The acts which lead children to arrest are nearly always games. They are games which are against the law only because they are played on the street, and games which through their nature involve an infraction of the penal code. In the first class we find baseball, football, jackstones, singing, and marbles. In the second we find stealing, fighting, destruction of property, and similar violations of the code of social procedure.
But the point which is overlooked by the law, and in a large measure by the law enforcer, is that both these forms of play are to the child merely or mainly play, representing a perfectly normal childish instinct which has, in many of the cases of arrest, been distorted through a morbid street environment.
The following is an analysis of 170 of the cases here being considered:
Total arrests for moral but illegal play:
Bonfires19Disorderly conduct (shouting and harmless disturbances)13Football4Baseball22Snowballing2Throwing various missiles24Total84
Total arrests for immoral and illegal play:Assault8Disorderly conduct6Burglary12Putting out street lights2Stealing42Throwing various missiles16Total86
Total arrests for immoral and illegal play:
The attitude of the law with reference to the innocent class of acts leading to arrest is suggested by the wording of the charges preferred against various children:Charged with annoying and interfering with others and endangering their safety and property by playing with a hard ball on a public street.Charged with playing game called baseball on the public street, thereby interfering with free use by persons of that street.Charged with another ... with playing on the sidewalk of the public street a game called pitching pennies, thereby obstructing the sidewalk and interfering and annoying persons on the public street.Charged with another boy with obstructing the sidewalk while playing a game called pitching pennies. (Note that while in the previous case the boy was charged with pitching pennies and thereby obstructing the sidewalk, in this case he is charged with obstructing the sidewalk while pitching pennies.)Charged with playing a game called craps on the public street to the annoyance of persons thereon. (Note that this arrest also was for obstructing the street and not for gambling.)The law deals with the child from one standpoint only—the annoyance he causes the adult passerby, and the store windows he breaks.You can see why the moral aspects of the deeds for which children are arrested must generally be hazy to the little wrong-doers themselves. Gambling is a case in point. Public opinion classes gambling as a vice and a crime ranking with theft and sexual immorality. Yet the tenement streets of New York are infested with adult and juvenile gamblers, who gamble usually through shooting crap or pitching pennies. Street gambling is hardly less common than baseball or any of the other street games. The unwritten law of the streets has sanctioned gambling for many child-generations, until gambling has lost all moral significance to the children of New York. As for the law, we have seen how it adds to the confusion of moral values. The law treats crap shooting as being identical in terms both of punishment and of why the punishment is given, with chalk games, or ring-around-the-rosy, or kick-the-can. The arrests for gambling and for chalk games alike are treated as cases of street obstruction.But strangely enough, one offense is particularly singled out in law to be prohibited on the streets. This offense is baseball. Baseball is no sin and the children know it. They merely know that they will be arrested if they play baseball. They know that if they are going to play ball they must send out pickets to announce the coming of the policeman.So much for the innocent group of child offenses. The vicious group includes the many organized games which have been developed by street conditions. They involve acts which the children know to be immoral, but which gang standards allow.An example of this type of child crime is the widely popular sport of gang stealing. Gang stealing is recognized as a sport and game by unknown thousands of children in New York.A band of boys, from three to six or seven in number, will go from tenement to tenement on Saturday evenings, taking orders from the housewives for fruits, vegetables, groceries, light hardware and clothing, just as though they were delivery clerks. When they think they have a sufficient number of orders they go out on the street and by a series of organized raids secure the goods which the housewives have ordered.These goods are sold on a regularly established scale of prices, which in most parts of the city is arbitrary, with no relation to the market value of the stolen articles. After the boys have their money they retire to their “hang-out,” where the money is divided into equal parts and the possessors shoot craps until one of them has it all. This boy divides the winnings into two parts, one of which he spends in treating the other members of the gang. The other half he is permitted to keep and spends for himself.This is a regularly organized form of amusement, which has existed to the writer’s personal knowledge for a decade or more on the middle west side. As far as the boys themselves are concerned, it is a game and nothing more. The crimes committed are incidental to the game. The elements the boys are striving for are the dramatic adventure in obtaining stolen goods, the excitement of gambling, which to them is no crime, and the physical joys of the soda water, cigarettes, motion picture shows, etc., which follow the game.These boys start out to seek adventure, excitement, and a “treat.” Unguided and irresponsible, and with a tradition of lawlessness based upon the hostile indifference of their elders, they have gone after their ends without regard to consequences, with the result that before their game is over they will have obtained money under false pretenses, committed larceny, and gambled; for any one of which acts they are criminally liable. Yet punishment for any one of these acts leaves the zest for adventure, the lust of gambling,and the tastes for sweets and cigarettes as strong as ever.A child is arrested for burglary and is tried on the specific charge of “entering an inhabited dwelling in the night season with intent to commit a felony.” Yet this may have been simply an unguided expression of the child’s dramatic play instinct. The boys may have organized into a gang of robbers and may, for the game of the thing only, have committed the burglary. Thus there was no criminal intent on the part of the marauders.Gang fighting, another common and serious offense, is a product of the complex gang organization which is the basis of all boy life in the streets of New York. It has its sources either in gang rivalry or in the infliction of a wrong by one gang upon another, which results in a long series of retaliatory fights, sometimes extending through many months. From being simply physical contests between gang and gang, these fights often become neighborhood feuds in which small boys are maimed and on rare occasions killed outright, windows are broken, and all kinds of neighborhood outrages are perpetrated.There is a great distinction between these organized gang fights and the smaller misunderstandings which result in fights between two small boys. Gang fights are a part of the traditional play life of the New York boys. Except among the older boys they are carried out in the spirit of play, and the theft, destruction of property, and mayhem which accompany them are regarded as incidental.When we trace back to their source even the fights for revenge, we generally find a play motive there also. Two years ago the small boys on West Fiftieth Street and West Fifty-third Street, near Eleventh Avenue, were celebrating election night with bonfires on their respective streets. The Fiftieth Street boys had more material than the Fifty-third Street boys. When the Fifty-third Street boys ran out of material they raided Fiftieth Street, extinguished all the bonfires, routed the celebrants, and triumphantly carried the bonfire material to their own street.This was the beginning of a feud which lasted over a year between the denizens of the two streets, during which time a score of boys were jailed, a number seriously maimed, and hundreds of dollars’ worth of property destroyed. Yet, despite the number of arrests on the charge of fighting, disorderly conduct and destruction of property, the feud itself continued unabated, until a compromise was arrived at by the boy leaders themselves.This feud was a typical instance of the play spirit expressing itself through rivalry, without any attempt to check it as such. Of the thirty or forty boys who were arrested as a direct outcome of these fights, not one but was arrested as an individual criminal without reference to the motive of his wrong doing. The result was that after his arrest the boy responded to the same motive as promptly as if he had never been arrested. Again we are brought to the serious question of whether or not all this destruction to property and morals could not have been avoided had there been proper facilities and a leadership to have turned the spirit of rivalry into legitimate play channels.
The attitude of the law with reference to the innocent class of acts leading to arrest is suggested by the wording of the charges preferred against various children:
Charged with annoying and interfering with others and endangering their safety and property by playing with a hard ball on a public street.
Charged with playing game called baseball on the public street, thereby interfering with free use by persons of that street.
Charged with another ... with playing on the sidewalk of the public street a game called pitching pennies, thereby obstructing the sidewalk and interfering and annoying persons on the public street.
Charged with another boy with obstructing the sidewalk while playing a game called pitching pennies. (Note that while in the previous case the boy was charged with pitching pennies and thereby obstructing the sidewalk, in this case he is charged with obstructing the sidewalk while pitching pennies.)
Charged with playing a game called craps on the public street to the annoyance of persons thereon. (Note that this arrest also was for obstructing the street and not for gambling.)
The law deals with the child from one standpoint only—the annoyance he causes the adult passerby, and the store windows he breaks.
You can see why the moral aspects of the deeds for which children are arrested must generally be hazy to the little wrong-doers themselves. Gambling is a case in point. Public opinion classes gambling as a vice and a crime ranking with theft and sexual immorality. Yet the tenement streets of New York are infested with adult and juvenile gamblers, who gamble usually through shooting crap or pitching pennies. Street gambling is hardly less common than baseball or any of the other street games. The unwritten law of the streets has sanctioned gambling for many child-generations, until gambling has lost all moral significance to the children of New York. As for the law, we have seen how it adds to the confusion of moral values. The law treats crap shooting as being identical in terms both of punishment and of why the punishment is given, with chalk games, or ring-around-the-rosy, or kick-the-can. The arrests for gambling and for chalk games alike are treated as cases of street obstruction.
But strangely enough, one offense is particularly singled out in law to be prohibited on the streets. This offense is baseball. Baseball is no sin and the children know it. They merely know that they will be arrested if they play baseball. They know that if they are going to play ball they must send out pickets to announce the coming of the policeman.
So much for the innocent group of child offenses. The vicious group includes the many organized games which have been developed by street conditions. They involve acts which the children know to be immoral, but which gang standards allow.
An example of this type of child crime is the widely popular sport of gang stealing. Gang stealing is recognized as a sport and game by unknown thousands of children in New York.
A band of boys, from three to six or seven in number, will go from tenement to tenement on Saturday evenings, taking orders from the housewives for fruits, vegetables, groceries, light hardware and clothing, just as though they were delivery clerks. When they think they have a sufficient number of orders they go out on the street and by a series of organized raids secure the goods which the housewives have ordered.
These goods are sold on a regularly established scale of prices, which in most parts of the city is arbitrary, with no relation to the market value of the stolen articles. After the boys have their money they retire to their “hang-out,” where the money is divided into equal parts and the possessors shoot craps until one of them has it all. This boy divides the winnings into two parts, one of which he spends in treating the other members of the gang. The other half he is permitted to keep and spends for himself.
This is a regularly organized form of amusement, which has existed to the writer’s personal knowledge for a decade or more on the middle west side. As far as the boys themselves are concerned, it is a game and nothing more. The crimes committed are incidental to the game. The elements the boys are striving for are the dramatic adventure in obtaining stolen goods, the excitement of gambling, which to them is no crime, and the physical joys of the soda water, cigarettes, motion picture shows, etc., which follow the game.
These boys start out to seek adventure, excitement, and a “treat.” Unguided and irresponsible, and with a tradition of lawlessness based upon the hostile indifference of their elders, they have gone after their ends without regard to consequences, with the result that before their game is over they will have obtained money under false pretenses, committed larceny, and gambled; for any one of which acts they are criminally liable. Yet punishment for any one of these acts leaves the zest for adventure, the lust of gambling,and the tastes for sweets and cigarettes as strong as ever.
A child is arrested for burglary and is tried on the specific charge of “entering an inhabited dwelling in the night season with intent to commit a felony.” Yet this may have been simply an unguided expression of the child’s dramatic play instinct. The boys may have organized into a gang of robbers and may, for the game of the thing only, have committed the burglary. Thus there was no criminal intent on the part of the marauders.
Gang fighting, another common and serious offense, is a product of the complex gang organization which is the basis of all boy life in the streets of New York. It has its sources either in gang rivalry or in the infliction of a wrong by one gang upon another, which results in a long series of retaliatory fights, sometimes extending through many months. From being simply physical contests between gang and gang, these fights often become neighborhood feuds in which small boys are maimed and on rare occasions killed outright, windows are broken, and all kinds of neighborhood outrages are perpetrated.
There is a great distinction between these organized gang fights and the smaller misunderstandings which result in fights between two small boys. Gang fights are a part of the traditional play life of the New York boys. Except among the older boys they are carried out in the spirit of play, and the theft, destruction of property, and mayhem which accompany them are regarded as incidental.
When we trace back to their source even the fights for revenge, we generally find a play motive there also. Two years ago the small boys on West Fiftieth Street and West Fifty-third Street, near Eleventh Avenue, were celebrating election night with bonfires on their respective streets. The Fiftieth Street boys had more material than the Fifty-third Street boys. When the Fifty-third Street boys ran out of material they raided Fiftieth Street, extinguished all the bonfires, routed the celebrants, and triumphantly carried the bonfire material to their own street.
This was the beginning of a feud which lasted over a year between the denizens of the two streets, during which time a score of boys were jailed, a number seriously maimed, and hundreds of dollars’ worth of property destroyed. Yet, despite the number of arrests on the charge of fighting, disorderly conduct and destruction of property, the feud itself continued unabated, until a compromise was arrived at by the boy leaders themselves.
This feud was a typical instance of the play spirit expressing itself through rivalry, without any attempt to check it as such. Of the thirty or forty boys who were arrested as a direct outcome of these fights, not one but was arrested as an individual criminal without reference to the motive of his wrong doing. The result was that after his arrest the boy responded to the same motive as promptly as if he had never been arrested. Again we are brought to the serious question of whether or not all this destruction to property and morals could not have been avoided had there been proper facilities and a leadership to have turned the spirit of rivalry into legitimate play channels.
A summary of the record of Mr. Barrow’s 193 cases shows that 188 of them, or all but nine, can be traced directly to a play motive, normal or perverted. Of the nine, two were acts of personal revenge and seven showed an economic motive.
According to Mr. Barrows these 193 cases did not include a single one where mental deficiency was the predominant cause. He says:
To conclude, child crime in New York is built on play—wholesome, educational play—which the law treats as crime and which street conditions gradually pervert until innocent play becomes moral crime.Child crime begins with the attempt to play on streets in violation of law, and in forbidden places under conditions of trespassing. The first arrest is normally a punishment for the attempt to play, and to play in ways which are intrinsically good.This condition presses on the child life of all the tenement districts of New York City. It is a uniformly operating cause which results in a fairly uniform method of resistance on the part of the children. Not only are the statutory crimes of fighting and stealing regarded as play by the children, but the more innocent kinds of play, like baseball, are in law regarded as crimes and are so punishable.This is not, on the one hand, a defect of child character, nor on the other hand a mere stupidity of law, but is a real condition, inherent in the fact that the street, with its traffic, and the street front, with its stores and windows, are the only playground of 95 per cent. or more of the city’s children.The result is a fundamental schism between the child community and the adult community. The child community is a nuisance. The adult community is a tyrant. Neither is to blame. Our laws, our court procedure and our probation system, imperfect though they be, are not to blame. The blame rests with the city which has not provided play space and which does not intelligently use even the little play space that is provided. Juvenile crime is a play problem not only in the sense that play is an alternative to crime—a cure for crime: but in a more specific sense, namely, in the streets of New York, under present conditions, play is crime and crime is play.And play is crime all over New York, not merely in the middle west side. The city’s total juvenile crime rate is growing.What is to be done about it? Provide outlets. Consider specifically that west side district.The remedies are at hand. For instance:Public school buildings in the middle west side are used to as small an extent of their capacity as is the case in the city at large. This means a 40 per cent. non-use or more.There is a large recreation pier at West Fiftieth Street, where the activities could be multiplied.The DeWitt Clinton Park, at Fifty-ninth Street and the North River, is unused during the evenings and very inadequately used during the day. It is one of the finest playgrounds in the world.There are at least ten city blocks in the middle west side which could if the city government desired it, be devoted to playground uses for at least several hours of every day. Apparatus would not be needed, and the only supervision required would be police supervision.
To conclude, child crime in New York is built on play—wholesome, educational play—which the law treats as crime and which street conditions gradually pervert until innocent play becomes moral crime.
Child crime begins with the attempt to play on streets in violation of law, and in forbidden places under conditions of trespassing. The first arrest is normally a punishment for the attempt to play, and to play in ways which are intrinsically good.
This condition presses on the child life of all the tenement districts of New York City. It is a uniformly operating cause which results in a fairly uniform method of resistance on the part of the children. Not only are the statutory crimes of fighting and stealing regarded as play by the children, but the more innocent kinds of play, like baseball, are in law regarded as crimes and are so punishable.
This is not, on the one hand, a defect of child character, nor on the other hand a mere stupidity of law, but is a real condition, inherent in the fact that the street, with its traffic, and the street front, with its stores and windows, are the only playground of 95 per cent. or more of the city’s children.
The result is a fundamental schism between the child community and the adult community. The child community is a nuisance. The adult community is a tyrant. Neither is to blame. Our laws, our court procedure and our probation system, imperfect though they be, are not to blame. The blame rests with the city which has not provided play space and which does not intelligently use even the little play space that is provided. Juvenile crime is a play problem not only in the sense that play is an alternative to crime—a cure for crime: but in a more specific sense, namely, in the streets of New York, under present conditions, play is crime and crime is play.
And play is crime all over New York, not merely in the middle west side. The city’s total juvenile crime rate is growing.
What is to be done about it? Provide outlets. Consider specifically that west side district.The remedies are at hand. For instance:
Public school buildings in the middle west side are used to as small an extent of their capacity as is the case in the city at large. This means a 40 per cent. non-use or more.
There is a large recreation pier at West Fiftieth Street, where the activities could be multiplied.
The DeWitt Clinton Park, at Fifty-ninth Street and the North River, is unused during the evenings and very inadequately used during the day. It is one of the finest playgrounds in the world.
There are at least ten city blocks in the middle west side which could if the city government desired it, be devoted to playground uses for at least several hours of every day. Apparatus would not be needed, and the only supervision required would be police supervision.