Mr. Bluemel ([2]) found that 24 out of 50 girls sent from Judge Lindsay's Juvenile Court in Denver to the State Industrial School or the Florence Crittenden Home tested XI or under and four or more years retarded. This is less conservative than our standard, which would exclude those who tested XI as above even the uncertain group in intellect.
Dr. Pyle ([46]) has tested the 240 girls at the Missouri State Industrial Home for Girls with his standardized group tests. These girls are from 7 to 21 years of age and his table gives the results with each of six tests. The most significant fact for our purpose is that with the different tests from 50 to 88 per cent. fall below the averages of normal individuals who are three years younger. He says, “Our figures would indicate that about one-third of these delinquent girls are normal and about two-thirds subnormal. Most of them are probably high grade morons.” This is based apparently on 69% being the average of the results of six different tests as to the percentages three years or more retarded from their life-ages. He indicates, however, that 38%, similarly calculated, are within the average deviation of the normal groups for their life-ages. This indicates that the lowest 62% test only as low as we should expect to find the lowest 21% of random groups of corresponding ages. They should certainly not be regarded as testing feeble-minded.
(b) Women and Girl Delinquents in County And City Institutions.
When we turn to those who are cared for locally in city or county institutions, we find Sullivan ([56]) has examined 104 women and girls held temporarily at the Holloway jail in London, most of whom were between 16 and 25 years of age. Apparently the cases were especially selected for examination and therefore do not represent the general condition there. He was interested, however, in finding the relative amount of deficiency among different classes of these inmates and he gives the detailed results with the Binet 1908 scale on small groups of these different types which we may classify by our standard as follows:
Twenty non-criminal, either not guilty or guilty of unimportant offenses, who represent, he thinks, the ordinary conditions among the corresponding working class in this community, 3 presumably deficient, 5 uncertain; twenty criminal by reason of the occasion, 1 presumably deficient, 6 uncertain; twelve impulsive criminals, 1 presumably deficient, 2 uncertain; eight moral imbeciles, 2 presumably deficient, 2 uncertain; twenty-four recidivists, 2 presumably deficient, 8 uncertain; twenty prostitutes, 3 presumably deficient, 8 uncertain. Together these different types of women in jail form a motley group of 104 of whom 12 test presumably deficient, 31 uncertain, a total of 41%.
Ordinary prostitutes are about as frequently deficient as are those in reformatory institutions, if we may judge by an important study of women who were sex offenders but not in institutions for delinquents. The report is by Dr. Clinton P. McCord, health director of the Board of Education at Albany ([35]). One group consisted of fifty cases of sex offenders who were not legally delinquents at the time but were living in houses of ill-fame. Their ages ranged from 22 to 41 with an average age of 27. Nine of these (18%) tested IX or under with the Binet 1911 and 18 tested X, a total of 54% presumably and doubtfully deficient. Another 38 cases were staying at a House of Shelter where most of them had been sent by the courts. Nineteen of these tested IX or under (50%), while 13 more tested X, a total of 84%. Since their ages ranged from 12 to 40 years with an average of 18 we cannot tell how many might be above the borderline on account of an age less than 15 years, but probably very few. A third group consisted of 9 street walkers and 3 wayward girls. Among these 7 tested presumably or doubtfully deficient.
The McCord study of prostitutes not legally delinquent at the time of examination is confirmed by the Virginia State Board of Charities and Corrections in a special report to the General Assembly which gives the results of examining the prostitutes in an entire segregated district in one of the Virginia cities ([58]). Its table shows that, among 120 of these women, 43, or 36%, tested approximately under our borderline for the presumably deficient, while 67 cases, or 56%, tested below approximately our borderline for the presumably passable intellects.
These results are similar to Weidensall's[[19]] findings among the unselected group of unmarried mothers in the Cincinnati General Hospital. While she does not give the number tested with the Yerkes-Bridges scale, she indicates that 48% tested as low-grade morons or worse, which should correspond to a test age of IX or lower. Twenty-two per cent. had intelligence coefficients of .50 or less and 32%, from .51 to .70. A Study of Fifty Feeble-Minded Prostitutes[[20]] by Mary E. Paddon gives an admirable summary of the social history of prostitutes who tested deficient.
Dr. Bronner has made a careful study with Binet tests of a younger group of randomly selected girls at the Cook County Detention Home which is connected with the juvenile court at Chicago. The group included 133 girls 10-17 years of age inclusive, who were held awaiting a hearing or were temporarily cared for in the detention home. The Binet tests were given to all who did not show clearly that they were of passable mentality by completing the sixth grade or above without retardation, and passing school tests in long division and writing from dictation. A 14-year-old child “passing all the 10-year-old tests and some, but not all, of the 12-year-old tests,” was regarded as doubtful. She was not classed as feeble-minded without further testing and study. Dr. Bronner does not state her criterion for the borderline with the younger children, but we may judge that her borderline was more likely than ours to have classed a child in the presumably deficient group. Her summary shows only 15 girls “probably feeble-minded” (11.2%), and 2 others “possibly” so. From her description we may suppose that the “probable” group were comparable with our test standard of presumably deficient, plus perhaps a few conative cases.
Mention should also be made of the work of Dr. Bronner to which we referred under the earnings of the mentally retarded ([6]). This group of 30 randomly selected delinquent women at a local detention home in New York tested, with two or three possible exceptions, no lower than a similar group of women servants who had never been offenders. Her data do not enable us to determine how many would fall below our borderlines.