 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? Larry Lusser from the CBS television news staff, and James Keough, associate editor of Time Magazine. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Judge Samuel S. Lebowitz. Perhaps nothing is shocked this city and the nation more in recent weeks than the crimes committed by some of our young men. Now our guest tonight is almost without a peer in his experience in handling criminal cases both as a distinguished attorney, defense attorney, and as a judge. Judge Lebowitz, is there any way of accounting for the fact that most of the crimes committed nowadays are committed by the youngest group in our country? Well, Mr. Lusser, I've seen this coming for a long, long time. I remember when I was a kid lawyer, on indictment day, when the new indictments would come in, new cases would be brought to the attention of the court. You'd see men of 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, and so on, and older, being a rain before the bar for murder and robbery and rape and philomias assault and grand larceny and so on. But today, if you come to our criminal courts all over the nation, you'll find a veritable procession of kids, youngsters, who if the clock were turned back, they would be in knee pants. Now, the cause of that is apparent to seeing eyes. We've had a decline in the age incidents over the years, so that year after year, the age of the criminal has decreased, so that today we have a veritable procession of kids that come into these criminal courts charged with the most terrible, horrible crimes. Judge, do you think that the young people of today really are worse than they were when you were a boy? Oh, good heavens, no. I don't mean to indict a whole nation of youths. God help us if all of our kids were juvenile delinquents or juvenile criminals. But we've had a terrific increase in the number of youngsters who fall by the wayside and who turn up in this house of tragedy where I preside, charged with these terrible crimes, even including murder in the first degree. Judge, do you think that these cases are those for a psychiatrist or are they cases for criminal courts? Well, that's, of course, there are cases that demand those services of a psychiatrist. And all cases demand the services of the judge after the defendant has been arrested. There must be a combination of both. Of course, there are cases where a psychiatrist can't do a blessed thing. And this mumbo-jumbo, some of the psychiatric nomenclature, some of these phrases that are pinned on various people are not very helpful. There are cases where a psychiatrist, if he catches the youngster in his early stages, may be of tremendous help. But once they've become hardened, once they've become set, once they've gotten the bit in their teeth, then heaven help us. The psychiatrists can't do very much. And the court can't do very much either. Do you think we are applying psychology a little too much and punishment a little too little? Well, punishment is psychology. The old strap that the father used to swing in the legendary wood shed was a bit of psychology. Today, I'm speaking of the juvenile criminal or the incipient juvenile criminal, the juvenile delinquent. Today, the juvenile delinquent has no respect, whatever. He has no respect for father and mother, no respect for the policemen on the street corner, no respect for the teacher in the classroom, no respect for the clergyman, be he priest or minister or rabbi. He has no respect for the law. What has caused us lack of respect is that we are not worthy of respect. We elders of these... Well, it's been a weakening of the moral fiber clear across the nation, of the moral tone of the nation. It seems that today people worship electric ice boxes and gadgets and new fangled things in automobiles. If you pick up your magazines and turn from page to page, you'll see that it's full of lipsticks and certain things that the ladies wear. We've sort of emphasized the dross, the icing on the cake instead of the real basic things in life. And it's been translated down into the child. Judge, when you were defense attorney, I remember you defended the Scotsboro boys. Now, do you think there are any racial or regional differences between our young men or tendencies towards any particular type of crime? You mean this crime centered among certain races? On regions. Oh heavens, no. That's what people like to believe. Is it centered judge in any way in one straight of society, in one class? Do you find more? Well, of course. You take a kid who has rich parents. They probably have two or three automobiles in the garage. That kid doesn't have to go out and steal an automobile. He has an automobile. He doesn't have to go out with a gun and hold up a shopkeeper. He has plenty of money in his jeans. But the poor kid of the slums, he yearns for these pleasures, which the other kid has. He wants to have a joy ride. He wants to have an automobile. He wants some money in his pocket. He wants to take out a girl. He wants to go into some bistro and have a drink of scotch or rye. And so he goes out and steals to get the wear with all to get these pleasures. And yet, sir, some of the most shocking crimes have occurred in this upper economic strata. Nevertheless, among these people who have the privileges. Well, now, you remember the Lob and Leopold case. There were two kids of millionaire parents. They didn't have to steal. They didn't have to take a boy and kill him and hold him for ransom and send ransom notes to these distraught parents. They did it for a thrill. They did it for a thrill just in the same fashion that some individual who has tasted all of the pleasures of life looks for a new thrill. And some of them take the dope. I mean the upper strata in some sections of the country. And the kid looks for a thrill likewise. And that's the answer to it. They look for a thrill. The thrill is not in holding up somebody. The thrill is in killing somebody. Well, Judge Lee, would you think our police departments are efficient? Are there enough policemen, say, patrolling the streets? Well, Mr. Le Sur, of course we haven't enough policemen. But I want to say this about our New York City Police Department. I think it's the finest police department in the entire country. I don't think there's a police department anywhere, in any section of America. That's finer than our New York cops. They're wonderful, wonderful public servants. And I might say this. They're woefully, woefully underpaid. The policeman has a hard struggle to keep body and soul together, to feed his family, to buy a dress for his wife, or a pair of shoes for his kid. Judge Lee, was this very kind of preventative treated that the police could practice in order to keep our children from becoming delinquents or actually getting into courts such as yours? Well, I think the thing should be handled in this fashion. I'm not a believer in indiscriminate club swinging. If a policeman is attacked, of course he should protect himself with his club, if necessary. But if he's permitted to encourage to use his club indiscriminately, some foolish policeman is likely to strike some innocent citizen on the head and fracture his skull. And then there'll be such a revulsion of feeling that the pendulum will swing the other way, because we're a nation of pendulums. We swing from one extreme to the other. Now my thought in the matter is this. I think the policemen should walk up to these young loafers and hoodlums on the street corner and tell them to move on. And if they don't move on, I think he ought to back up a patrol wagon, a police wagon, a pie wagon as they call it, and put them in the patrol wagon and take them off the court. And then if we had judges of the juvenile and adolescence court that had backbone, and there are some, but there are a few that haven't, they would take care of these young hoodlums and send them off to jail. Now I don't mean to incarcerate a youngster for months, but I'd send them into jail for two or three days. Let them see what the inside of a prison looks like. Let them sleep on that bed where the linen is not as nice and clean as the one mother, the type mother supplies. When he'd wake up in the morning and see these bars in front of his eyes and see the trinket come there with the slop, it wouldn't be the kind of breakfast mother serves. Would you propose a special course, a special prison for these young people? Well, we have a special course for them. Are they doing a good job? Let me put it this way. I think we have a body of fine, dedicated men and women who are on our adolescence and juvenile courts, but some of them are soft in the head. You feel they should be sterner than they are. Send more of the young people to jail. Well, I wouldn't send a youngster to jail who's made his first mistake, but after you've put him on probation the first time, and he goes out and time after time after time after time, probation, probation, probation, it makes a joke out of the law. Instead of curbing the youngster, you're encouraging him in his disrespect. I know you've talked to many, many parents of boys and girls who have gone long. Is there anything in particular that you recommend to the parents in order to straighten out their children? Well, that will take hours and hours to discuss, but there's one thing that I might call to the attention of the parents of America, especially the young parents. Those who have just brought youngsters into the world, and that is this. Many, many parents compete for the affection of the child. The mother is bidding for the affection, the father bids for the affection, and in many instances they try to gain affection or obtain affection or retain affection by bribery. In some cases, the mother overrules the father. The father overrules the mother. The mother may say, let's, Johnny, go to bed. The father may say, the mother may say, oh, why not let the boy stay up? And that's a very bad thing for children. Thank you, Jersey, which in other words all depends upon the family. Well, we're very pleased to have you up here tonight. The opinions expressed on the Longeen Chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the Longeen Chronoscope was Larry Lusser and James Keough. Our distinguished guest was Judge Samuel S. Lebowitz. A Longeen watch is one of the most perfectly functioning mechanisms made by man. On first acquaintance, one is astonished by its day-to-day performance. As months pass into years, its qualities of greater accuracy and reliability become truly priceless. These are reasons why Longeen is official watch for leading sports and contest associations the world over. And why, in competition with the finest watches of the world, Longeen watches alone have won highest honors. Ten world fair grand prizes and twenty-eight gold medals. For accuracy, Longeen watches have also won countless honors from the great government observatories. 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