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Show An Intervieiv With the Chief Vetterli Cites Growing Student Delinquency Count BY EDNA PRICE "When an organization of police departments around the country put up sums of money to build up crime prevention programs, then, and only then, can we cope with crime." This was the oninion expressed by Reed E. Vetterli, chief of Salt Lake City's police force and candidate can-didate for the office of Representative Represen-tative of Utah, in an interview with Scribe regarding thee problem of juvenile delinquencies. The number of juvenile delinquencies delin-quencies has sky-rocketed with the coming of war, according to Chief Vetterli. He said a fifteen per cent increase in Salt Lake is due mainly to the fact that mothers are now working and leaving youngsters to shift for themselves and to the reckless attitude war brings to children as well as adults. When asked how the police force has been dealing with the situation, situa-tion, Chief Vetterli replied, "Approximately "Ap-proximately two years ago we started a crime prevention unit dealing with juvenile delinquencies. We formed an under privileged boys' club." Now regular nights are set aside each week for boys who wish to come to the policemen's gymnasium. gymnas-ium. Members of the force stay there to instruct them in boxing, swimming, and a number of other sports. Chief Vetterli explained that the cases involving juvenile delinquents delin-quents do not rest with the police force but are turned over to the juvenile authorities. Inasmuch as the officials are more interested in saving the youngsters from becoming becom-ing future criminals than in punishing pun-ishing them for whatever crimes they have committeed, they are taken into custody rather than being be-ing arrested. Recently there has been an unaccountable un-accountable shifting of the majority major-ity of juvenile delinquencies from the west side of the city to the east side. The record of South high school's district remains fairly clean. Chief Vetterli stressed the value of getting to the cause of crime and thereby preventing it. The money used for such a purpose would pay high dividends in the future by keeping today's juvenile juven-ile delinquents from becoming tomorrow's to-morrow's seasoned criminals. |