Causes of Arrest of Women Committed to the Massachusetts State Reformatory

Abstract

and miscellaneous offenders appearing in the courts of this country range all the way from the activities of Mr. Hoover's G-men to the parents who complain that their children are stubborn. In the detailed surveys which have been made of delinquents, the groups studied have sometimes been those passing through probation departments and juvenile courts, sometimes the inmates of penal institutions. Although vague generalizations are frequently made with regard to the selectivity involved in arrest, rarely is any specific investigation of this matter made. Among the studies of delinquent women no detailed information on causes of arrest has come to the attention of the writer. In a study of economic aspects of the histories of women committed to the Massachusetts State Reformatory at Framingham during the period July 1, 1931, to July 1, 1933,1 careful data on causes of arrest were collected. The results are summarized in this article.