The Juvenile Court And the Community

way toward the future of the court as part of an ideal child-caring system. The practical juvenile court worker may declare that this ideal is impossible; that local expediency must govern policy entirely. The writer would contend in the first place that certain juvenile courts, like that of St. Louis, have found it feasible to combine the two; and, further, that a clear- cut ideal is of value even in a situation which forthe time being necessitates a policy contrary to it. 1 See, for example, Reports of the New York and Massachusetts Probation Commissions; Reports of the Louisville, St. Louis, and Chicago Juvenile Courts; The Delinquent Child and the Home, Breck- enridge and Abbott; Preventive Treatment of Neglected Children, H. H. Hart, ed., Part VI; and especially the Report of the Committee on Juvenile Courts and Probation of the National Probation Association. Let us, then, independently of the standards of method or case work involved in any particular kind of work undertaken by the courts, note for examination the various functions performed by different courts, and attempt to discriminate the essential from the accidental. In many juvenile courts the probation officers are empowered to make arrests and file their own complaints. These are excellent provisions for emergencies and for cases which are merely violations of probation. But some officers go to the extent of preferring to bring in their own cases, even where they are violations of law...