The state reformatories reach a class of delinquents between those of the state prisons and the state industrial schools. In Minnesota all the inmates of the reformatory except 80, who were disqualified by inability to speak English or otherwise, were tested by Dr. E. F. Green. Men are sent there only between the ages of 16 and 30, so that his table of mental and life-ages gives us the opportunity to apply our criteria accurately. Thirteen per cent. of the 370 examined tested IX or under and were presumably deficient, while 22% more were in the uncertain group testing X ([22]).
In a report of the Binet results with 996 inmates of the Iowa Reformatory, which Warden C. C. McClaughry kindly sent me, 200 tested IX or under and 146 tested X, a total of 35% including the doubtful group. The range of ages was from 16 to 49. The Warden notes that the tests were not made by an experienced psychologist. “In many cases it is suspected that the crafty criminal was endeavoring to lower his standing as to mentality in the hope of excusing or mitigating his crime in the eyes of the Board of Parole.” The results, however, agree well with what has been found in similar institutions.
Supt. Frank Moore of the New Jersey Reformatory at Rahway says, “Nearly every young man who has entered our institution in the last eighteen months has been tested by this system (Binet), and the results have shown that at least 46 per cent. were mentally subnormal” ([38]). By his discussion this seems to mean that they tested below XII which would mean that all those testing XI were less deficient than our standard for doubtful cases. These young men were from 16-25 years of age and 17.5% of them had had one year or less in school. Ten per cent. could not be examined because of unfamiliarity with English. A later report in 1912 regarding the same institution ([42]) says that 600 of the inmates have been examined with the Binet tests in two years, but does not state how these were selected. Of those examined we are told “48% are of the moron type of mental defectives, ranging in mentality from three to eight years, below the average normal adult.” Again, no further information is given so that it is impossible to allow for those testing X or XI or for the cases only three years retarded. Both of these estimates at the New Jersey Reformatory are excessive when judged by conservative borderlines.
Dr. Fernald has applied 11 objective tests to a representative group of 100 inmates at the Massachusetts Reformatory ([15]) but the norms for the tests which he used were obtained, for the most part, by testing a dozen boys so that the line which he draws for the limit of the defectives is largely a matter of his expert opinion and the estimation loses objective character. He estimates that 26% of his group whose ages run from 15 to 35 inclusive were defective. Beanblossom[[22]] has published an account of tests on 2000 inmates of the Indiana Reformatory. Some of the Binet tests as well as other tests were used but the published results do not admit of reinterpretation.
Comparing the reports from the Minnesota, Iowa, and New Jersey reformatories with the tested deficiency found in institutions for women delinquents on the basis of the same borderline with the scale, the records indicate clearly that the percentage of feeble-mindedness is greater in the reformatories for women. At the Bedford Reformatory for women, for example, Dr. Weidensall's results show that the corresponding borderline to that used in the New Jersey men's reformatory which reported 46% deficient, would class 100% at Bedford as feeble-minded, where only one case in 200 tested as high as XII. A conservative estimate of tested deficiency in men's reformatories from the above data would be from 15 to 20%.
In the state institutions for minor delinquents, usually called industrial schools, we have several studies of representative groups with sufficient data to make objective interpretations comparable with our standard. In Ohio, Dr. Haines ([26]) reports on the examination of 671 delinquent boys 10 to 19 years of age at the Boys' Industrial School near Lancaster. Interpreted as we have indicated for the Ohio Institution for girls, we find 100, or 15%, in the group testing presumably deficient and 179 in the doubtful group, a total of 42% clear and questionable.
In the corresponding Michigan Industrial School at Lansing, Dr. Crane ([37]) shows by his table of mental and life-ages that 52 out of the 801 unselected inmates, or 6% are presumably deficient and 171 below the presumably passable, or 21%. This is only a slightly greater number than our criterion would provide, if .8 of a year were not classed in the next higher mental age by these examiners. The age of those examined ran from 10 to 17.
T. L. Kelley in his “Mental Aspects of Delinquency”[[23]] gives the results for an extensive series of measurements and tests on about three hundred boys in the Texas State Juvenile Training School. On the basis of an analysis of his tests he estimates that 20% of the boys there should be in a school for the feeble-minded. Interpreting his original data for the 1911 Binet tests on the same basis as our own, 8% fall within the clearly deficient group and 9% in the doubtful. The latter on account of their delinquencies might also be included as feeble-minded.
The 215 inmates of the Whittier State School in California were examined by J. Harold Williams with the Stanford revision of the Binet scale ([61]). The boys were 10 to 22 years of age, median 16 years. He states that 32% were feeble-minded in the sense of having Intelligence Quotients less than .75. This is a standard which would include about 2% of those tested with the scale, so that we may consider the bulk of them as within our presumably deficient and uncertain groups combined. He also states that approximately 14% tested below X with the Stanford Revised Scale. In another paper he shows that the amount of feeble-mindedness was much different among the different races represented in the institution. With 150 cases according to his standard there were 6% feeble-minded among the whites, 48% among the colored, and 60% among the Mexican and Indian races. In this group 64% were native whites, 21% of Indian or Mexican descent and 15% colored. “While the negro population of California constitute but 0.9% of the total, yet the results of this study indicate that more than 15% of the juvenile delinquents committed to the state institution are of that race.” It is, of course, of fundamental importance in regard to all estimates of feeble-mindedness among delinquents to consider the racial conditions at the particular institution.
A New Hampshire Commission tested the children in its State Industrial School. Its table shows that among the 113 boys tested at least 37% were presumably or doubtfully deficient. To these should be added some 14 years of age and over who tested X, in order to have the total number below our borderline for the presumably passable cases. The published table does not separate these from the 13-year-olds ([40]). Hauck and Sisson report in School and Society for September, 1911, tests made at the Idaho Industrial School, which receives both boys and girls from 9 to 21 years of age, including some children who would be classed as dependents but can not be cared for elsewhere in the state. Supposing that our standard applied to the 1911 scale which was used, among 201 tested there were 5 presumably deficient and 13 doubtful.