A Proposal for Research in Delinquency Causation

Studies of delinquency causation have been very largely fragmentary and segmented. In order to secure more definitive knowledge for the formulation of more effective programs of delinquency control and prevention, the authors believe that the time has come for the United States to mobilize its resources for the launching of a coordinated, large-scale, interdisciplinary, and longitudinal research in delinquency causation. N AN attempt to meet the formidable challenge of juvenile delinquency, many American communities have organized their efforts essentially in terms of two related approaches. One approach is psychological in emphasis and seeks to mobilize available diagnostic tools, scientific techniques, and therapeutic methods in dealing with problem youngsters. The other approach is ecological in emphasis and views blighted areas of the large city as breeding grounds This content downloaded from 157.55.39.30 on Wed, 20 Jul 2016 05:46:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms DELINQUENCY CA USA TION 347 of juvenile delinquency which may be controlled and prevented by the mobilization of indigenous forces of the areas. Started in the first decade of the twentieth century, the psychological approach soon moved toward an integration of the mental hygiene movement and the social work profession. The outcome of this integration is the child-guidance clinic which is now being hailed by its sponsors as the most important achievement in organized attempts to control and prevent juvenile delinquency in the United States. There are hundreds of childguidance clinics with varying programs of work scattered in many parts of the country. For the sake of convenience, these clinics may be classified into two general types. The first type is structured to perform the function of diagnosis and involves examination services of the medical doctor, the psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the social worker and their subsequent consultation and formulation of a program of treatment. The second type is structured to perform both diagnosis and treatment. In most cases of treatment, social workers are called upon to carry out the program formulated. In the performance of these functions, the child-guidance clinic generally serves as a consulting agency to the school as well as to the juvenile court. Among the child-guidance clinics in the United States, perhaps the most celebrated one is The Judge Baker Guidance Center in Boston. This Center was established in 1917 under the directorship of William Healy. Before this appointment, Healy already had distinguished himself as Director of The Juvenile Psychopathic Institute in Chicago. He also had just published his book which served to turn research attention away from the dogmatism of a delinquent physical type to an analysis of the individual delinquenit personality.' At the time of its establishment, The Judge Baker Guidance Center was more or less an adjunct of the Juvenile Court of Boston. It confined its activities very largely to providing the Court with a case report for each of its delinquents. This report included (1) background data, (2) an analysis of the data, and (3) a recommended program of treatment. The Center was not directly involved in carrying out the program of treatment embodied in its report. In this way, the function of the Center was primarily and essentially diagnostic, prognostic, and advisory. In 1934, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck published their first book.2 This publication was the result of their study of the effectiveness of the services of The Judge Baker Guidance Center and the Juvenile Court of Boston in preventing recidivism. According to the findings of the Gluecks, of the 905 cases handled by the Center and the Court, 792, or 88.2 percent, had committed additional offenses during the five years following their initial diagnoses and treatments. This unfavorable result served to stimulate a comparable research on the part of Healy and his colleagues. And when the findings of this second study turned out to be equally unfavorable, the research staff of the Center decided that its function should be expanded to include treatments of juvenile delinquents by social workers attached to the Center. This functional expansion of The Judge Baker Guidance Center served to a very large extent in charting a new course for subsequent development of child-guidance clinics in the United States. Since then more and more clinics have turned their attention to direct treatment-including psychiatric treatment-of cases referred to them by the juvenile court. And, while these clinics may differ considerably in over-all procedures and treatments, they now seem to share a common belief that, without improvement in parent-child relationships, little success can be achieved in the treatment of delinquent youngsters. Consequently, more and more clinics are limiting their treatments to cases in which parents are willing participants. The ecological approach to the problem of delinquency did not begin to attract public attention until the early years of the nineteen thirties. At that time a number of young sociologists had just published their pioneer studies of areas of high rates of delinquency in Chicago. Among these publications, Clifford R. Shaw's Delinquency Areas appeared to be of particular significance.3 It pointed out a definite relationship between disorganized areas in the city and juvenile delinquency. On the basis of his findings, Shaw became convinced that one effective way to combat the menace of juvenile delinquency was 1 William Healy, The Individual Delinquent (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1915). 2 Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck, One Thousand Juvenile Delinquents (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934). 3 Clifford Shaw and Others, Delinquency Areas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929), pp. 198-206. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.30 on Wed, 20 Jul 2016 05:46:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms