[originaltext]INTERVIEWER: Over the years, you have all kinds of people you are

INTERVIEWER: Over the years, you have all kinds of people you are dealing with, I guess, but, is it—in the main—hardened criminals?
BROWN: In a community of this size, those who are accused of Crime vary a great deal from those who may be accused of crime in the metropolitan area.
INTERVIEWER: Uh-uh.
BROWN: During the past twenty years, I think we’ve had only two, possibly three, who have been charged with murder, for example. And those have occurred under circumstances that perhaps are a little different than you’d find in the large areas. In other words, we don’t have Mafia type of organizations here. It’s just an individual who under some force of circumstances has committed perhaps any kind of a crime. And there are probably more burglaries committed in these areas than, perhaps, any other one form of crime.
INTERVIEWER: What sort of people burglarize?
BROWN: I would say the largest percentage of those who have committed burglaries in these areas are young people. Many of them are committed by young people who want to get a case of beer, or a few cartons of cigarettes, or some food and things of this kind—not serious burglary. Now we’ve had a number of... we’ve had two or three bank robberies in this area, and those have been committed by individuals who have had some record in the past.
INTERVIEWER: Uh-mm.
BROWN: Now we get a certain percentage, of course, of criminals who are recidivous, and they’ve been caught for committing another offence.
INTERVIEWER: This is... uh...
BROWN: That type of individual. I think,... uh... uh... we have great difficulty in dealing with. Many times when a child comes into Juvenile Court, he’s had trouble with his parents. He can’t communicate with his parents. His parents are almost ready to shove him out—and sometimes, they have shoved them out. I’ve been convinced over many, many years that there are some people, probably, who should never have children. They’re simply not equipped emotionally, or educationally, or otherwise, to have children. Really, they.., they don’t know how to raise children, and they produce some pretty poor products.
INTERVIEWER: And you realize, possibly, that the parties you should be dealing with are the parents... really, more than the children.
BROWN: You do try to deal with, of course, these parents. Sometimes, rather unsuccessfully. Some of them are very hostile not only toward the children—they’re hostile toward the court, to the system. And I think probably the saddest cases in all the system are found in juvenile courts. Because here there are youngsters who have not reached the age of discretion or good judgment, who haven’t been able to meet the problems of life as they have come to them. So, we talk to them about all of these things. I do, at least, talk to them about their problems and about their families and I have always left the door wide open for youngsters to come in to see me personally if they haven’t been able to get along.
INTERVIEWER: What do you do if you have a parent hostile toward the court? Are there any legal recourses there? Isn’t there a legal responsibility the parent has... ?
BROWN: Yes, indeed there are. The parents have a responsibility, of course, to support and take care of their children. If we find that the child is being damaged by remaining in the home—and this does happen—if he’s damaged remaining in the home, the parents— we’ve had child-abuse cases. Of course, we can take the child out of the home. We don’t dissolve the parental relationship. We take the child out of the home and put him in a foster home. The hope is always to get them back with their parents as soon as we can.
INTERVIEWER: Could even be worse, I suppose, in some cases, than the original conditions—the foster?
BROWN: One of the problems that can be developed is that the child may want to talk about what’s going on. See? He may have problems. If he does have, and has no place to go to discuss them—psychologically, this is bad for the child. So, I demanded a list of every child in foster homes under my jurisdiction. And then whenever we placed someone in a foster home, we would fix a dare at that time—two months, three months or what have you, later—for a hearing. And the child would be brought in. I’d have a chance to talk to the child,... "How’re things going?" "Any problems... ?" "How’re you being treated... ?" Find out about him. Because you don’t want these things—You don’t want them to get lost, like a few people have been in mental institutions, you know!
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t it a bit difficult to make a decision? Are there any times when you’re torn between uh...
BROWN: Yes. I think... I think in most cases... if you believe that the most important moment in the life of this person who has been convicted of a crime is when he comes before you for sentencing, then you are going to spend time and thought in determining what is going to be the best not only for society, but for the person himself. Because most of these people are not going to serve a lifetime in the penitentiary. They’re going to be back out into society sooner or later. Even some convicted murderers have come back out in society. So, you have to think in terms of rehabilitation, hoping that there will be some rehabilitation.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.