Jennifer Schrock - The Prevention and Control of Delinquency

Robert M. MacIver

First published 1966 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge

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Copyright 1966 Taylor & Francis.

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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2007025975

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

MacIver, Robert M. (Robert Morrison), 1882-1970.

The prevention and control of delinquency / Robert M. MacIver.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Originally published: New York: Atherton Press, 1966.

ISBN 978-0-202-36160-4

1. Juvenile delinquencyPrevention. I. Title.

HV9069.M263 2007

364.36dc22

2007025975

ISBN 13: 978-0-202-36160-4 (pbk)

Having been engaged for nearly six years in a close-up study of the agencies in New York City concerned with juvenile delinquencypolice, courts, departments of correction, health, welfare, supervising bodies including the Youth Board, detention houses, public and private custodial institutions, settlements, special schools and educational programs, charitable organizations, research agenciesI came to the conclusion that much of this great system of services was ineffectual in coping with a growing and perplexing problem. There were some admirable residential treatment centers, some well-organized departments, and some devoted workers, but there was a lack of overall strategy, a failure to get down to the roots of the problem. This was broadly the conclusion arrived at by my research colleagues, too, while I was directing the City of New York Juvenile Delinquency Research Project. We made a considerable number of specific recommendations, some of which were acted upon. On the whole there have been some welcome developments recently, not only in the area we studied but also in other areas across the country. There is still, however, a great need for the application of the knowledge we now possess as a guide to an inclusive strategy of delinquency control.

I was therefore happy to welcome the opportunity presented by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to undertake a broader study, seeking to provide a perspective on the problem as a whole, the conditions under which delinquency occurs more frequently and less frequently, the groups most affected by it, the causes to which the higher and lower incidence are attributed, and the consequent strategy that research and experience have shown to be most effective in dealing with it. I appreciate the courtesy of N.I.M.H., which readily permitted me to postpone my work and finish it in installments when important obligations of another kind made it difficult or impossible for me to carry on as I had originally agreed. My grateful acknowledgment is also owed Miss Jeanette Gevov, who had been a researcher during my work for New York City and who did effective work as my assistant by collecting, organizing, and preparing reports on recent developments across the country in the areas covered in of this study.

I have not sought to give an exhaustive or detailed account of the numerous developments discussed in . This book is intended to state a problem and its setting so as to derive from this analysis directions for effective action in the various areas and various stages and types of delinquent behavior. It gives a concrete description of the more important devices and experiments that are now being developed and practiced. It should therefore be serviceable to organizational leaders and workers, to educators and planners active in this field, and generally to students in the social sciences.

In this study we offer a perspective on juvenile delinquency as it has developed in this country and seek to show how our present knowledge bears on the question of its prevention and control. There is an extensive literature on the subject, the most significant contributions being scattered through various learned and professional journals and government reports. Many variant or conflicting explanations are put forward to account for the continuing increase in the amount of delinquency as measured by statistical indices, and more than a few divergent proposals are made as an answer to the problem. Many agencies, both public and private, are directing their energies and contributing considerable sums of money to remedial methods. Nevertheless, there are no significant indications of any general improvement. In this writers experience, much of the official treatment of delinquents is still little affected by the findings of the research that has been devoted to the subject.

The statistical record is certainly alarming. Practically every year it shows a further increase in the proportion of delinquency. In the United States between 1948 and 1957 juvenile court cases more than doubled, whereas the youth population ten through seventeen years increased during the period by only 27 per cent. Between 1940 and 1961 court cases increased 400 per cent. The phenomenon is by no means peculiar to the United States. In Britain in 1962 delinquency was statistically twice as bigh for boys and three times as high for girls as it was before the First World War. Austria reports an increase of 68 per cent in convicted juveniles fourteen to eighteen years old between 1951 and 1956. Finland shows an increase of 61.7 per cent in its juvenile offenders fifteen to seventeen years old. Sweden reports between 1950 and 1956 an increase of 210 per cent of juveniles under fifteen years suspected of criminal behavior. Switzerland shows an increase in the various cantons.

Public concern has been aroused particularly by the headlines reporting gang rumbles, stabbings, shootings, and vandalism. It is impossible to derive any precise measurement of the volume of delinquency or of the actual increase that may have occurred. The various indices we employpolice arrests, court appearances, juvenile delinquency adjudications, institutional cominitmentsare all affected by changes in socioeconomic conditions, by the number of delinquency petitions from non-police sources, by the available space in the institutions to which delinquents are cominitted, by changes in methods of reporting cases, by changes in the number and in the character of juvenile courts, by developments in the voluntary welfare agencies, and even by the degree of public concern over the amount of juvenile delinquency.

The statistics are nevertheless significant as probable indicators of a trend. If arrests of juveniles in New York City more than tripled between 1950 and 1959, it is reasonable to conclude that some of the increase in the amount of delinquency is real, not merely statistical. A Childrens Bureau report calculates that as many as 12 per cent of all juveniles have been cited at least once for court appearance between their tenth and seventeenth birthdays. And we must bear in mind that much delinquent behavior escapes the notice of the authorities.