Juvenile Delinquency and American Values

must remember that personal and controls cover considerable territory. Secondly, as to single explanations, some were likely disturbed by the frequent reference to the truant school child or the school child with bad deportment as one rejecting control or authority. I well recall Percival Symonds, in his book Mental Hygiene and the School Child, giving many explanations for the non-conformist and truant. Among them were: fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, habits that come from the home, escape mechanism, over-active thyroid or other physical disability, high tension type, a form of compensation or attention getting, regression, anxiety, temporary mood, etc. This may all be of little import for the purpose of the study. The chief concern as a predictor was failure to submit to controls, the '.why of such action being less important. Thirdly, as Dr. Reiss talked in terms of the acceptance of or submission to control, my thoughts turned to the social climate, if you wish to call it that, of our present day. Many scientists fear for those who exercise too much control over self-too much personal control, if you please. Travis and Baruch in their book Personal Problems of Everyday Life discuss the matter at some length. With respect to submitting to controls, Dr. Murray in his article in the Survey Graphic for March 1947, entitled Time for a Positive Morality, speaks of our era as a period of debunking-of challenging everything considered sacred, binding and restrictive. I recall Dr. E. H. Sutherland, our noted criminologist, saying that a majority of our citizens would rather be caught running a Stop light than eating peas with a knife at a banquet. All this cultural conditioning, then, as to accepting and submitting disturbs me when we consider using such as predictors. Also, there is the lack of agreement on norms, and of stability with respect to them, which might well make for some mechanical problems in Dr. Reiss' plan. A fourth area for queries is with respect to low economic status and lack of control by the father in such a setting. In contrast to this, one is reminded of the studies which show decreased delinquency in periods of depression. An explanation given is that the father is at home more with his children, to guide and control them. (M. H. Neumeyer, Juvenile Delinquency in Modern Society, Van Nostrand Co., 1949, p. 44). I am impressed with the precautions Mr. Reiss seems to have taken with his statistics. I choose to leave the more careful analysis of this aspect of the study to the statistician. In closing, I would like to compliment Dr. Reiss on his interest and the work he has done. We in the field of criminology need many more like him to develop the field and give us the necessary tools

Criminology · Juvenile delinquency · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Psychology · Resilience and Mental Health · Youth Substance Use and School Attendance

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