Self-Rated Problems of Institutionalized Delinquent Vs. Non-Delinquent Girls

Abstract

Social and guidance workers have long concerned themselves with the characteristic problems of the juvenile delinquent. A knowledge of such matters not only facilitates therapy with the child and parent education, but also forms the basis for long-term planning by welfare and other social agencies. Whereas most approaches to a description of the delinquent's environment have emphasized an objective evaluation by some professional team, relatively little research has been aimed at obtaining S's awareness of his areas of difficulty. One means of obtaining such an appraisal is through the use of a problem check list. In the usual case, S is simply instructed to read through a list of the statements and to indicate those which he feels apply to his own life situation. Such an approach has obvious shortcomings. Perhaps the most serious disadvantage stems frequently from the S's limited awareness of his problems. Granted that he is aware of difficulties, a second major obstacle is his willingness to reveal them to a counselor or psychologist. Whereas many so-called depth techniques, employed by psychologists, are designed to obtain such information while circumventing both of these difficulties, few counselors and guidance workers have either the skill or the time to administer them. On the other hand, the problem check list method requires little special training in administration or scoring, and guidance workers are immediately provided with a basis for initiating counseling interviews. Problems missed or de-emphasized in home visitations and interviews may be suggested by use of the check list method. A check list that has proven useful to counselors for a number of years is one by Mooney (4). This questionnaire (Form J) presents 30 problem statements in each of the areas of Health and Physical Development (HPD), School (S), Home and Family (HF), Money, Work, the Future (MWF), Boy and Girl Relations (BG), Relations to People in General (PG), and SelfCentered Concerns (SC). Although the literature suggests that this questionnaire has been employed rather extensively with normals (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 6), no studies were found which dealt exclusively with a delinquent population. The present investigation is intended to shed further light on the characteristic differences of delinquent and non-delinquent females as revealed in 'The authors wish to express their appreciation to Mrs. Florence S. ~c~oid, Superintendent of the Louisiana State Industrial School for Girls, for making the delinquent population available. Mr. Harvey Luttrell, Principal of the Buckeye High School, Buckeye, Louisiana, was most helpful in providing the high school Ss.