among juveniles there. This is shown by the following pieces of
evidence:

(_a_) The office bearers of one Church gave to the Committee
particulars of several recent cases which had come to their notice
in the ordinary course of their social welfare work (two of them
girls who had become pregnant before their sixteenth birthdays).
These were cases which had not been investigated by the police. It
was also the conclusion of these Church officers that the cases
which had been revealed to them were far outnumbered by those
which were not so revealed.

(_b_) It was quite obvious to the police officials who made the
investigations in July that no useful purpose would be served by
extending their inquiries further.


=(2) Unreliability of Available Statistics for Comparative Purposes=

The previous section was written to show the difficulty of obtaining a
comparison between vice at one period and that at another. This section
is to indicate the difficulties which arise in making comparisons (even
when figures are available) between different sections of the people at
different times and between different groups of people.

_(a) Sexual Crime Among Adults_

No inference can be drawn from any comparisons between sexual crime of
adults and sexual misbehaviour among children. The Committee did,
however, examine the statistics of sexual crime in New Zealand to see