OCR Text |
Show !!' tesiile Sex Offenses Shew Upward Trend Of 135 Within Past Decade tj i A 153 per cent increase dur-) dur-) ing the past decade in the number num-ber of juveniles involved in sex offenses of sufficient moment k to require juvenile court action l H in Utah was noted recently in a rspo.rt by the state welfare commission. The rate has increased until last year approximately one out of every 140 students between ,, 15 and 18 years old were 1S1 brought into juvenile court for )wnlr sex offenses. it iait Not included in the survey ilo.f are cases disposed of unofficial-iron unofficial-iron 'y -r- sex eases included under other juvenile offense headings ismb' such as "ungovernable." The commission's study di-t di-t vides Utah's juvenile sex of- fense record into six two-year periods. During the 1936-38 biennium, 117 cases of sex offenses by juveniles ju-veniles were disposed of by juvenile courts. By the 1946-48 biennium, the number had increased in-creased to 283. The study was prepared for the Utah committee for the Mid-century White House conference con-ference on children and youth and was studied by committee members at their recent meeting meet-ing in the governor's board room at the capitol. The commission, in its study, cautioned that findings are "at best an indication of the extent of sex offenses as reported by juvenile courts and cannot be considered as a measure of sex delinquency." The report, however, points out that the major increase in number of sex offenses chargeable charge-able to juveniles came during the two - year period 1942 - 44 when there was a marked increase in-crease in population of the state. |