Judge Cogswell Urged Family Court

Glenn D. Cogswell was passionate about marriage and family. He believed there was a strong link between divorce and juvenile delinquency, and believed that through the establishment of a family court, children of divorce could be cared for by the courts. He even hoped to save some marriages through the implementation of a family court.

In 1955, after serving two terms as probate and juvenile judge of Shawnee County, Kan., Cogswell came to the conclusion that the problem of juvenile crime should be fought at its source – in the divorce court. He believed Shawnee County needed a new division district court – a court of domestic relations, or a family court.

Having learned of family courts already established in Baton Rouge, La., and in Toledo, Oh., as well as recommended by the New York Bar Association, Cogswell suggested that the three largest counties in Kansas, Sedgwick, Shawnee and Wyandotte, should pursue the establishment of such courts.

Cogswell believed the courts should take jurisdiction of the children involved in divorce actions in order to protect them from juvenile delinquency. Seeds of juvenile delinquency flourish in the broken home, he said, and the manner of handling divorces is partially to blame.

“Two people will have a fight and decide to get a divorce,” the Topeka State Journal quoted him as saying. “They will go to their respective attorneys and one will file against the other.

”The wife usually gets the children. She goes to work. The husband doesn’t keep up payment and he must be cited for contempt and made to pay.
“In all of it, the children are left alone, reared with no father, and, if the mother works, practically without a mother, Many later end up in juvenile court, and it’s too lat ethen. The battle is half lost."