| Per cent. | |
| Considerably above ordinary in ability | 3 |
| Ordinary or fair in ability | 55 |
| Poor in ability | 9 |
| Mentally dull, but suffering from defective physical conditions, or disease, or bad habits, which may be the cause of the dullness | 8 |
| Sub-normal mentally, but not strictly feebleminded | 8 |
| Feebleminded (moron grade) | 9 |
| Feebleminded (imbecile grade) | 1 |
| Psychoses, ranging from well marked cases of insanity to temporary, but well-marked mental aberrations | 7 |
I have found in various parts of the country considerable doubt expressed in regard to various statements which have been made of the proportions of the feebleminded which probably would be found by studying juvenile offenders. Teachers, judges, and probation officers have scouted the idea that there was upwards of 25 per cent. feebleminded among the children which come before a Juvenile court. Our own long investigation would certainly show otherwise. But of course we have never seen all of the thousands of children which come into the Chicago court yearly, so we have never been able to definitely answer the question of just what proportion is mentally defective.
This year I have asked the assistant director of the Institute, Miss Bronner, to undertake at regular periods cross-section studies of the population temporarily held in the Detention Home. These probably would average lower than if one could see every case which was brought into court, for frequently the most normal children who have been engaged in a single offense are not brought into the Home. The results which she is obtaining I shall merely hint at, but they serve to show that the psychological study of delinquency involves very much more than the discrimination of the feebleminded.
Any one who observed the considerable proportion of 7th and 8th grade and high school girls and boys who become severely delinquent will not be surprised at our findings. At least 91 per cent. of the girls and 84 per cent. of the boys have been found so far to group normal mentally, if we take the 12 year old tests of Binet as a standard. Now, as a matter of fact, I am not at all inclined without further investigation to denominate anyone as mentally defective who can not pass the 12 year test, because of the obvious weakness of these particular five tests for judging such an important point. But still we have been willing to place this criticism for the moment aside. There are several details of this given study which might be interesting to discuss, but this will be done elsewhere.
The above statements are not offered so much in opposition to other estimates of the proportion of defectives among offenders as to show the possible variation of findings in different situations where delinquents may be seen, and to show the nature of the work of the psychologist in courts. We can easily see why institutions for delinquents contain a greater proportion of mental defectives than is found in court work, for obviously the brighter ones are handled under probation, are found positions and succeed better on the outside because they have more foresight and learn better by experience. It may be that a larger percentage of the defectives will be found in studying older groups in court work. Perhaps the brighter individuals cease earlier to be offenders. I await with interest comparative findings from the newly established municipal court psychopathic institutes, in Boston and in Chicago. But of course fair general statistics can never be made without covering an unselected series of court cases, such as we have recently undertaken.
We must not find reason from the above figures to underestimate the exceedingly important problem of feebleminded offenders. From their ranks one has to come to know some of the most frequent repeaters, some of the worst teachers of vice, and even some of the most adept in such skilled criminalistic occupations as burglary. To answer the problem of their care would be to relieve a strain on society that is not even suggested by a statement of their proportionate numbers among offenders. No one has been more surprised than we ourselves to find the extent to which morons are actively engaged in criminalistics, and are even definitely the instructors of others. The general notion that this class is merely easily led is altogether erroneous.
The extent of our findings of a single disease, namely epilepsy, among our repeated offenders we have often commented on. We need only to mention that about 7 per cent. have been found afflicted with various forms of this trouble. After all, this is only what might have been expected from similar observations of others elsewhere. The psychic manifestations of this disease make the victim a fit subject of study by the psychopathologist.
Many of our interests have centered about the problems of adolescence. We all know that criminalistic tendencies, those which perhaps control the career of a life time, nearly always first show themselves before the 19th or 20th year. The physiological aspects of this period are the ones that have been most frequently dwelled on, but for our purposes they may be ignored except as they influence the psyche. Overgrowth and restlessness and other phenomena at this time do not directly create criminalism. They have first to effect the mental life which directs action. We have found a fair field for investigation here, and one that opens up whole vistas of possible usefulness. Various new points of departure for legal procedure are to be developed from data gathered concerning this period of life, not the least of which is criticism of that strange arbitrary discrimination under the law which says that boys at 17 and girls at 18 are suddenly responsible, mentally formed, able to properly care for themselves, when a few minutes or days previously they were not. Our studies show that these age limits were not based on practical observations of human beings.
Not the least interesting and therapeutically important part of psychological study of offenders is ascertainment of the mental mechanisms and mental content which stand in relation to delinquency. However it may be with older persons, and such experienced men as Parker in New York suggested that with adults this is a rich field for endeavor, we have studied many cases of criminalistic tendency in young people in which the whole trouble centered about some psychically untoward experience or some mental conflict. From this was developed a definite antisocial grudge, or at least an antisocial attitude. These cases, well understood, present some of the most curable criminalistic causes.
We must pass with bare mention such data as those on obsessional mental imagery and the formation of mental habits, both of which psychical phenomena play a considerable part in driving towards delinquency. To appreciate what sets the mental machinery turning out antisocial deeds we have to dig deep into many human experiences and many mental activities.