Deficiency and Delinquency: An Interpretation of Mental Testing

by James Burt Miner

The incorrectness of the assumption that detention home cases show no more deficiency than ordinary juvenile court cases could not at the time be demonstrated. Since then, however, there have been several objective studies. In Minneapolis we found that relatively twice as large a proportion of the serious offenders sent to the county detention home were either three or four years retarded in school as we found among the ordinary juvenile offenders taken consecutively. The data will be presented later under our discussion of the school test. We also found that if we compared the results of Binet examinations at the Minnesota reformatory ([22]) with those at the county detention home, tested deficiency is about five times as common among the older and more established offenders at the reformatory. At Chicago serious deficiency was less frequent among those in the detention home than among more serious recidivists. Bluemel, as we have also noted, found that the frequency of tested retardation was decidedly greater among boys in Denver sent to the State Industrial School than among those only put on probation in that city. The investigation of Stenquist, Thorndike and Trabue shows that serious deficiency is less among dependent boys than among delinquents in the same county. Cornell found less truant boys deficient than delinquent boys, in the Philadelphia House of Detention. In Chicago, Denver and Minneapolis, moreover, less than 10% of the more serious cases in the detention homes were found deficient. This evidence all tends to contradict the assumption that a large proportion of the ordinary children brought before the juvenile court is feeble-minded.

Ernest K. Coulter, as Clerk of the Children's Court of New York County, has raised his voice in protest against charging the Juvenile Courts with dealing mainly with feeble-minded children. He says:

“The writer, who has seen at close range 80,000 children pass through the largest Children's Court in the world, has little patience with the sentimentalist who would pounce on every other juvenile delinquent as a mental defective” (94, p. 68).

Unless we are to convert valuable propaganda for isolating the feeble-minded from good kindling wood into shavings, we must remove this cloud which has been cast upon the mentality of the ordinary children who are brought before juvenile courts of the country. Travis, ([202]) years ago, may have been nearer right when he said that 95% of the children who come before the Juvenile Court are normal. Surely this agrees better with the conditions found in Chicago, Denver, and Minneapolis. Possibly these western cities, however, show unusually good conditions. The evidence as to the peculiar local situations in Newark and Pittsburgh makes one confident that their detention home conditions do not at all represent the frequency of mental deficiency among ordinary juvenile offenders in these cities. I see nothing in the present evidence from mental tests to indicate that the frequency of mental deficients who might justly be sent to institutions from among the ordinary children who come before the juvenile courts of the country, would be over 10 per cent.

4. What shall we say as to the general frequency of deficiency among delinquents of all classes? How about the impression that a large proportion of them are not responsible because of their deficiency and that the condition is worse among juveniles? Note some of the published statements: “Probably 80% of the children in the Juvenile Courts in Manhattan and Bronx are feeble-minded.” “Preliminary surveys have shown that from 60% to 70% of these adolescents [sent to the industrial schools in one state] are retarded in their mental development and are to be classed as morons.” “Forty to 50% of our juvenile delinquents are without a doubt feeble-minded.” “The best estimate and the result of the most careful studies indicate that somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of all criminals are feeble-minded.” “Nearly half of those punished for their wickedness are in reality paying the penalty for their stupidity.” “More than a quarter of the children in juvenile courts are defective.” “One-third of all delinquents are as they are because they are feeble-minded.” “It is extremely significant in the study of juvenile delinquency that practically one-third of our delinquent children are actually feeble-minded.”

Fortunately, some of these writers are already beginning to qualify and modify their views, and some of these statements misstate the idea of the investigators, but it is difficult to correct the impression that has been gathered from those who speak with authority. In the face of the fact that mental deficiency is undoubtedly the most important single factor to be considered today in the institutional care of delinquents, one hesitates to correct even the most exaggerated impressions as to its importance. On the other hand, it seems time to modify opinions which raise false hopes as to solving the problem of delinquency by caring for the feeble-minded. Above all it is important to lay a surer foundation on which a platform for the social care of these unfortunates may be securely built.

In the first place, it is necessary to recognize that after all the feeble-minded are properly cared for by society the problem of the ordinary delinquent may still remain with us in much of its present proportions. Surely the isolation of the deficient children will hardly scratch the surface of the problem of first offenders as it comes before the juvenile courts of the country. To this it should be replied that the first offenders are not, after all, the troublesome cases before our courts. If we study the different groups of delinquents which have been tested, we notice that they represent highly selected groups among the ordinary offenders whether these be adults or minor delinquents. The only parallelism which can be traced at all is between prostitutes and vagrants and some of the institutional groups. We should stop assuming that the institutional delinquents represent the ordinary offenders. The present evidence points to the conclusion that it is the repeaters, not the first offenders either in the juvenile or criminal courts, who are most likely to be deficient. Nevertheless, 68% of the boys brought before the Chicago Juvenile Court during its first ten years were first offenders ([142]), while 89% of 4143 boys in the Juvenile Court in Minneapolis were first offenders ([105]). We know almost nothing about the frequency of deficiency among the first offenders brought before our courts and yet the bulk of delinquents are undoubtedly first offenders.

On the other hand, the repeaters do account for a considerable portion of the cases before the courts, especially the municipal courts, because each offender appears time and time again. In the Virginia city cited, for example, repeaters furnished 60% of the jail commitments for three years. This is probably also an indication of the workhouse situation, which is best represented by such a study as that of Kohs. The proportions of offenses accounted for by deficiency would, therefore, be much larger than the proportion of offenders who are deficient. While the offenses of repeaters might not commonly be serious crimes, they afford a serious problem because of their bulk and because temporary restraint is of little use when the offender is mentally weak. As Aschaffenburg says: “We must not forget that it is not the murderers, not the swindlers, on a large scale, not the assassins of people in high places, and not the sexual murderers, that determine the criminal physiognomy of our day, but the thieves and pickpockets, the swindlers and abusers of children, the tramps and the prostitutes” (68, p. 181).

The best that we can do is to study Table XI, which gives us a classified list of different types of delinquents in institutions. If we should pick out in it such institutions as represent to us the typical conditions in the country we could get an idea of what we might expect from groups of offenders of each type. For example, we might say that the Massachusetts State prison is typical of such institutions, and it contained possibly 16% who were deficient. Picking the Ohio Boys Industrial School as typical of its class, it had between 15% and 42% deficient, depending on how conservative you wish to be in your diagnosis. So one might go through the list stating the expectation for each type of institutional delinquent. If these were then weighted according to the number of delinquents of each class in the country sent to them, we would have some idea of the frequency of deficiency among those who reach the institutions. Merely to average the columns in Table XI would give only a false impression. The seriousness of the situation is amply demonstrated among repeaters and the inmates of certain institutions. Each superintendent should be put upon inquiry as to his own charges.

Nothing which I have said in caution as to the importance of deficiency in solving the problem of delinquency can be taken for a moment to signify that the effort for the isolation of the deficient is misspent. Elimination of a generation of deficients will not solve the problem of delinquency, but in no other way is there open such a clear and definite method of reducing that problem. The better care and prevented procreation of even a tenth of the delinquents who would propagate deficiency, would mean the most scientific advance in attacking the problem of delinquency. A safe public policy can be formulated which would at first provide for appropriate permanent care of at least that number of delinquents in institutions who by test are presumably deficient. This perfectly obvious first step promises to tax our facilities for years.