Various

“ We would still maintain, as we ever have done, that the greatest hope for amelioration of the heavy burden of delinquency is in very early studies and early understandings of individual cases. Not only for scientific purposes but also for practical treatment the young individual with delinquent tendencies is best handled. Not entirely, since some social offences may first arise in late adolescence, but in a large share of cases some of the most valuable criminological work can be done by specialists in child study. ”

“ Those who early suggested to us that intensive, continued study of a dozen offenders of a dozen different types would be worth more than a thousand short examinations spoke from a strong standpoint. Continuation studies are most valuable. They are necessary not only for giving understandings of types, but also for so understanding the individual that proper social adjustment of his case can be made. Our work shows plainly that except in the case of the grossly defective a short cross-section study is absolutely inadequate for the work in hand, namely, scientific treatment of the offender. ”

“ None of those things counts a heap towards reformation; the honor system is simply a more sensible, more effective method—it’s a fairer method of preserving discipline, an easier method of running your institutions. It does not touch your real man. It is all a matter of habit. Now take those Dannemora prison fellows with whom I worked in the forests around the prison; they were repeaters, many of them hardened evil doers. ”

“ As we continue to see it, then, the purpose of psychological work with offenders is nothing more or less than the understanding of the causes of misconduct. By no other methods will such causes be known, and those who fail to reckon with the fundamental psychical conditions and processes which underly delinquency will never get far in developing better methods of treatment. Psychology in this field is perfectly willing to be judged by results, and that is the best self-recommendation that it can offer. ”

“ There may not be as many prayer meetings in the Georgia road camps as in the Tennessee mines, but Georgia is not blindly killing off the bodies with tuberculosis while trying to save its convicts’ souls. Georgia believes in saving both, but says to save the body first and have a better chance at saving the soul. ”

“ It stands out very clearly that what one would like to know particularly about offenders is how they grade, not only in general intelligence, but also on tests which may possibly evaluate the powers of apperception, of mental representation, of self-control, of the ability to learn by experience, and so on. Defects along these lines seem likely to stand in much greater correlation to delinquent tendencies than any other we could name. Special educational and industrial disabilities may make for social failure and so may indirectly lead also to delinquency. ”

“ The crops of the farm in this handicapped year may prove economically profitable or disastrous. Individual inmates may escape, or otherwise disgrace the little colony. Many may fall again into temptation, among bad companions, filthy, immoral environments, and their own vicious inclinations. But the farm has already shown that there can be a vastly different spirit between a different type of officers and the same inmates, and that this “spirit can be built up with the institution.” ”

“ In many cases of individuals with less than normal stability and insufficiently protected environment, it has been the adolescent tendencies which have been the dominant factor in determining their life. Again, the factor of too early development has often been seen. Puberty appears before the inhibitions which come with adolescence have had time to be correspondingly developed. This is a very noticeable factor in the study of such cases found in the juvenile court, and has been recognized in our own cases and verified by the histories obtained from the parents of the individual. ”

“ The most crying need of the present time is in the mental and physical aspect of the situation, and we believe that the greatest possible emphasis at this time should be laid on these factors and their great menace to society. ”

“ Of the cases studied for evidence of syphilis, over 65 per cent. had had the disease; of those studied for gonorrhoea over 96 per cent. gave evidence of having had it. Should we not recognize the far-reaching results of such diseases in a community and use every means possible to help eliminate them?
No one disputes the fact that the problem of prostitution is largely a moral one, and must be solved through educational methods. However, while we believe that certain conditions can be much alleviated, we believe also that the problem will never be fully solved from the moral standpoint alone. ”

“ It should be the responsibility of representative members of society to see that provision is made for the care of such individuals, and that they are not punished for offences for which they can in no way be considered responsible.
Besides the cases showing mental defect alone, there are many cases both among the mentally defective and those showing normal mentality, which show other mental or nervous defects, such as epilepsy, hysteria and psychopathic tendencies. In the study of criminality of all kinds, such abnormal mental and nervous conditions play an important part. ”

“ We have all too little proof that tests worked up for children are equally valid for adults. It is proposed that we render decisions upon, for instance, findings by the Binet tests, and yet it does not seem likely by the sort of results we ourselves have been getting that they could be as freely applied to adults as to children for the purposes of social diagnosis, of discriminating those who are bound to be unsuccessful. ”

“ We should consider at least one quarter of our own cases segregable from a standpoint of mental defect alone, and besides these perhaps, another 20 per cent., candidates for a defective delinquent institution, if such a classification should include those cases which show marked psychopathic tendencies associated with subnormal mentality. The cases which are considered segregable types appear to be unable to care for themselves in the community. Besides the harm that may be done to them on account of their weakened resistance they become an active menace to others ”

“ The use of shale in many sections is bound to come under that head. Brick is now made of many materials which in the past have been tabooed. Sand is considered as good as clay for making brick, and it is handier to many places. The use of different materials makes a variety in the building materials of blocks. Cities look better because of that variety. But one of the best uses for brick appears now to be the surfacing of roads for the joy machines as well as the business motors of all kinds, and for horses. ”

“ In fact, nothing has been any more striking in our findings than that some otherwise normal individuals have special defects for language, and that some general defectives have such powers in manipulating words that pass everywhere, even in courts, as normal and even bright. It was soon felt that over and beyond tests which involve the medium of communication, it would be more profitable to observe a performance with concrete material which possibly might be arranged to measure some of the socially most valuable mental qualities. ”

“ The intensive work would furnish better understanding of types and the possibilities of their treatment. Then we soon realize that the careful and prolonged study of individual offenders was a rational preliminary to working up statistics from which general conclusions could be safely drawn. Time has justified this opinion. Nothing is rasher than to make general statements about social needs upon the basis of tests, observations and figures that have not been proved to solve the point at issue. ”

“ To answer the problem of their care would be to relieve a strain on society that is not even suggested by a statement of their proportionate numbers among offenders. No one has been more surprised than we ourselves to find the extent to which morons are actively engaged in criminalistics, and are even definitely the instructors of others. The general notion that this class is merely easily led is altogether erroneous.
The extent of our findings of a single disease, namely epilepsy, among our repeated offenders we have often commented on. We need only to mention that about 7 per cent. ”

“ When it comes to the interpretation of tests we need to exercise much discretion. It is most dangerous to proceed to render diagnosis or prognosis without knowledge of the individual’s background in heredity, developmental history and social environment. ”

“ Still we feel that this class of women, if not sufficiently protected, represents the ones who are first (on account of their weakened resistance) to offer themselves to fill the demand. It may be interesting to note, in this connection, that although all of these cases have been studied from a social standpoint, and their own reasons for going into such a life have always been inquired into, in only two cases have we been able to find any definite relation between the economic conditions and the choice of this means of livelihood. ”

“ In Georgia all the able-bodied men convicts are worked out of doors, under the direct supervision of state and county officials and inspectors, constructing public highways.
“In Tennessee about half of the able-bodied convicts are worked under ground in state-owned and operated mines, having exceedingly little opportunity to enjoy the fresh air and sunlight necessary to the physical well-being of a man. The other able-bodied half are worked in factories within the penitentiary walls at Nashville under the lease system that Georgia five years ago abolished as inhuman and unjust. ”

“ Any one who observed the considerable proportion of 7th and 8th grade and high school girls and boys who become severely delinquent will not be surprised at our findings. At least 91 per cent. of the girls and 84 per cent. of the boys have been found so far to group normal mentally, if we take the 12 year old tests of Binet as a standard. Now, as a matter of fact, I am not at all inclined without further investigation to denominate anyone as mentally defective who can not pass the 12 year test, because of the obvious weakness of these particular five tests for judging such an important point. ”

“ The abolition of the ill-famed Sing Sing prison is recommended and the erection on its site of a receiving station for the observance and study of all persons sentenced to imprisonment in a State prison for medical examination and treatment of those afflicted with diseases and for weeding out those found to be mentally defective—the latter to be sent to separate institutions devoted solely to the care of the mentally defective. ”

“ The term expresses well their explosive natures which may be seen when, without provocation they attack any person who happens to incite their enmity, whether she be officer or other inmate, or when by unreasonableness and loss of temper they bring unruliness and the necessity for discipline into an otherwise peaceful and well-behaved group. Many of these cases come from families in which there are many cases of insanity, and although they themselves show no signs of a definite psychosis, there appears to be much inherited instability. ”

“ The most direct driving forces of misconduct therefore are very properly to be regarded as material for study which comes well within the province of the science of mental life. (It must have been this which led the great jurist and criminalist, Gross, to state that psychological valuations must ultimately become the basis of all criminal law.) An individual differential psychology is involved which requires knowledge of the bearings which many varieties of mental conditions have upon action. ”

“ We have a hospital which is maintained for the sick, and not as a loafing place for influential prisoners, which is the custom in so many penal institutions. The physician with his family resides in the institution and responds quickly to calls at any hour during the day or night. The inmates are weighed once a month, and any deviation of more than five pounds is called to the attention of the physician, who immediately examines the man, to learn the cause. Many cases of serious disease have thus been caught in their incipient stages, and cures affected by prompt attention. ”

“ Not the least interesting and therapeutically important part of psychological study of offenders is ascertainment of the mental mechanisms and mental content which stand in relation to delinquency. However it may be with older persons, and such experienced men as Parker in New York suggested that with adults this is a rich field for endeavor, we have studied many cases of criminalistic tendency in young people in which the whole trouble centered about some psychically untoward experience or some mental conflict. ”

“ Very different phases of psychological work with offenders properly are taken up from the viewpoint of human conduct in general being the province of the student of human life. Quite the minority of offenders show mental peculiarities which can be learned by testing and then related to their delinquencies. Let us look at some comparisons of offenders as we have grouped them by most careful study. ”

“ The rest of the morning was given over to bathing and to visits to the boys. The visitors roamed the farm with the boys at will. The day was ideal, and with the remarkably attractive scenery, helped lift the gloom from the little colony. Even death cannot darken very long such a beautiful spring day in Orange County. ”

“ We can easily see why institutions for delinquents contain a greater proportion of mental defectives than is found in court work, for obviously the brighter ones are handled under probation, are found positions and succeed better on the outside because they have more foresight and learn better by experience. ”

“ The Commission places itself on record as favoring the employment of able bodied male convicts in constructing and repairing the highways of the State and the several counties in addition to which farms should be developed at all of the institutions so that as many convicts as possible may be employed in the open air—all possible work to be conducted under the so-called honor system, together with a considerable and increasing measure of self-government. ”

“ Considering that those cases which show poor mental ability are perhaps not able to cope fairly with their environment on account of their slight mental defect, we find 85 per cent. of the cases studied showing some underlying defective mental or physical factor. We do not believe that this represents to any extent the cause of prostitution, for there are doubtless large numbers of individuals in the community with the same mental and physical defects who are not leading such a life. ”

“ In the present state of our knowledge concerning methods discretion is needed in the selection of tests. Those primarily adapted to one group may not be valid for another social or age group. We have just finished an interesting comparison of the results of a certain performance test in which college young women did worse on the average than younger persons. ”