City’s ‘Conscience Fund’ Gains 2 Boys’ quarters ————————— The city’s “conscience fund” was enriched last week by two new twenty-five-cent pieces sent to City Hall by two boys who expressed sorrow for having damaged a street light and promised “never to do it again.” The boys did not sign their names to their letters but disclosed they live in South Ozone Park, Queens.
“I am enclosing 25 cents for the damage I did to an electric street lamp.” one writer said. “I am very sorry I did it and promise not to do it again.”
“Enclosed in this letter,” said the other, “are twenty-five cents for the damage I have done to a street light at the 100th Avenue and 122d Street, Richmond Hill, N.Y. I am very sorry for the damage I have done, and I promise I will never do it again.”
Mayor La Guardia wrote to the Controller McGoldrick that he enclosed fifty cents from “two good little boys” and that he was sure “these young citizens will never again destroy city property.”
Few have a conscience any more so the idea of a city conscience fund wouldn’t work today.
Today, the mayor would turn the letter over to the police department, who would track down the little boys and have them cited into Juvenile Court on charges of criminal mischief. The boys would have to appear in Court, where their apology letters would be the chief evidence against them. They would be adjudicated as juvenile delinquents. Their parents would pay their court costs of over a hundred dollars, and then be placed on probation. $100 initial fee, $100 administrative fee, $15 per month thereafter. They will submit to urine screens, at $22 each. They will have to attend anger management classes for another $250 and would be required to get a psychological evaluation from one of the probation department’s “preferred vendors,” which would find that there is nothing wrong with them that an expensive course of treatment can’t prolong.
Instead of having one guy who fixes the street lamp in 1940, we have an army of bureaucrats and consultants, who collect their “fees” which is just another form of taxation.
Sorry. This one set off one of my hot buttons.