st, contact with bad characters cannot fail to shock
and perturb them, even though their stay in prison be only a short one.

2. The magistrate has no legal powers to supervise juvenile offenders,
nor when their actions show grave depravity, to segregate and cure them
to prevent their developing into criminals. It has already been shown
that born criminals begin their career at a very early age. In one case
cited in a previous chapter, a morally insane child of twelve killed one
of his companions for a trifling motive--a dispute about an egg; in
another, a child of ten caused the arrest of his father by a false
accusation; he had previously attempted to strangle a little brother.
Children of this type, notwithstanding their tender age, are a social
danger, and the moral disease from which they suffer should be taken in
hand at once. In any case they should be carefully segregated until a
cure appears to be effected.

Minors require a special code, which takes into consideration the fact
that certain offences are incidental to childhood and that children who
have committed these offences may still develop into honest men. It
should also contain provisions for dealing with born criminals,
epileptics, and the morally insane at an early age, by segregation in
special reformatories where they cannot corrupt juvenile offenders of a
non-criminal type, and where a thorough-going attempt to cure them may
be made.

An excellent reform of this character has been effected in many of the
United States of America with the adoption of the probation system and
juvenile courts which protect children from the corruption of prison
life and contact with habitual offenders. The juvenile court, this
tribunal exclusively instituted for minors, has been brought to great
perfection in many of the United States. In some, special buildings have
been erected for the hearing of cases against children, by which means
all contact with adult criminals is avoided: in others, where this is
not practicable, a part of the ordinary court is set aside for them with
a separate entrance.

Nor are juvenile offenders judged according to the common law; their
offences are tried by special magistrates, who deal with them in a
paternal, rather than in a strictly judicial spirit, and the penalties
are slight, varied, and suited to children. The magistrates are assisted
by officers, who obtain information from teachers, parents, and
neighbours as to the characte