Youth Correction: Principles of Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prognosis

Abstract

The stark fact of the extent of recidivism proves that our prevailing methods of handling youthful offenders fail in great measure to protect society from ill-doers. In a large percentage of cases their careers go on for years and years with continued outbreaks of antisocial conduct. Our philosophy of dealing with youthful criminality lacks substantial foundations because it does not take into account the issues presented by the personality, the background life, and the developed behavior tendencies of the offender. Save in the best efforts of thoroughly competent probation and parole officers, and perhaps in very rare correctional institutions, our techniques of treatment-if we dare to call it treatment-are woefully unadapted to the task of turning a young criminal into a lawabiding citizen. The model Youth Correction Authority Act contemplates providing measures which look to the substitution, in the case of the youthful offender, of scientific methods of diagnosis, treatment and prognosis for the inadequate techniques so generally prevailing today. It is the purpose of this article to outline and appraise the proper implementation of a Youth Correction Authority-or any like body-if legislation along the lines of the Model Act were adopted. But, first, let us consider our characteristic ways of dealing with youthful offenders. Unforgettable is Toronto Jim and his story of treatment under the law, told one quiet suburban Sunday afternoon some thirty years ago. Brought to the conference by a manufacturer who had successfully engaged him in honest work for a couple of years, he, at forty-eight, looked more like a bank president than the notorious bank burglar and safe blower that he had been. His good friend had known all along about his penal record and had become much interested in the question why an obviously intelligent human being, in spite of many legally inflicted punishments, had engaged in such a career. Could we together formulate any answer; if * A.B., I899, Harvard University; M.D., I900, Rush Medical College, University of Chicago; postgraduate study, I906-7, Vienna, Berlin, and London. Director, Judge Baker Guidance Center, Boston, since I9I7; lecturer, Harvard University and Boston University. Director, Juvenile Psychopathic Institute, Chicago, I909-I7; professor and research associate, Institute of Human Relations, Yale University, I929-33. Author of numerous works on psychology and delinquency, including THE INDIVIDUAL DELINQUENT (I9I5), PERSONALITY IN FORMATION AND ACTION (1937); (with A. F. Bronner) DELINQUENTS AND CRIMINALS--THEIR MAKING AND UNMAKING (1926), NEW LIGHT ON DELINQUENCY AND ITS TREATMENT (1936), and TREATMENT AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD (1940); (with B. S. Alper) CRIMINAL YOUTH AND THE BORSTAL SYSTEM (1941). Contributor of numerous articles to periodicals.