Rescue Home Research Articles

Carceral and colonial domesticities: Subaltern case geographies of a Delhi rescue home

This article explores a relatively rare archival account of female subjectivity, experience, mobility, and voice within a carceral institution in late-colonial Delhi. The capital’s “Rescue Home” was created to house women and girls removed from the city’s brothels under new legislation. While no brothels were closed in the first year of the laws functioning, the home accepted 18 women and girls and detailed their circumstances and experiences in its 1940 report. It was able to forcibly detain girls and was run upon disciplinary and racial lines, like other colonial institutions. But its inhabitants were not subject to detailed surveillance. Rather, their lives were ones usually beyond recording or whose stories were actively silenced. The 1940 Rescue Home report provides us with rich details of the commonplace, quotidian struggles which women and girls faced in colonial Delhi. The 18 case geographies of the Home’s inhabitants help us understand how sexuality and motherhood, education and character, and race all shaped routes into the home and destinations when people left. The accounts tell us of a carceral governmentality with influence beyond the disciplinary institution’s walls, but also of female subjects who resisted, spoke back, and absconded. This relationship between forced immobility and willed mobility suggests that brothels and rescue homes were not just connected, through the intended transfer of inhabitants, but can be directly compared as carceral domesticities.

Archival Wounds

My grandmother Hripsimae, a child survivor of the Armenian Genocide, never shared the story of how she ended up in Aleppo. Perhaps she couldn’t remember her own expulsion from her homeland or even the murder and disappearance of her conscripted father.As with other victims of mass violence, there was silence around the past.When I began to research the affective and embodied experiences of Armenian Genocide survivors, I combed the archives for traces of my grandmother.1 Instead I found traces of others who communicate what my grandmother was unable to say.Under a pile of paper cadavers, I find a still-breathing twelve-year-old girl.2 During the genocidal campaign conducted by the Ottoman Empire under the cover of World War I, Mariam, a toddler, was deported with her family, abducted with her mother from a caravan of deportees, and sold for twenty pounds by a slave dealer to an Arab. Nine years later, she was rescued but could not remember her own surname.3The League of Nations archives in Geneva holds nearly 2,000 intake records of victims who fled to the Aleppo Rescue Home run by Danish humanitarian and League commissioner Karen Jeppe. She and her staff recorded short biographies of victims within nicely bound marble-covered notebooks designed by an Armenian printmaker. Grid boxes uniformly list on a single page the handwritten name, patronym, hometown, date of arrival, and a photograph.4 The records illuminate the post-genocide topography within which Armenian Christians were absorbed in Muslim households within Ottoman lands where they were adopted or forcibly assimilated into and often abused.The sepia-toned photographs compiled to register and identify orphans and trafficked women after World War I have a texture even after I digitize them. As I read accounts of abuse, shuffling through intake records, ripples pop off the page. Is the ripple just poor resolution from century-old images, or are these faces scarred and distorted from years of abuse? Are this boy’s eyes accidentally closed, or infected with the trachoma that ravaged so many who arrived? A nearly blind six-year-old birthed from a Kurdish captor was described as: “Achkhen very weak syphilis the eyes and ears are bad.”5 Armenian Physician Vahran Katchperouni listed communicable diseases but also sexual diseases like gonorrhea among the women and girls he was treating at the Home.6Like the century-old photographic paper, teenagers are visibly aged. Hands swollen and backs deformed from hard labor narrate their stories of servitude. Boys kept in stables with the animals, abused in unspeakable ways, wear rags and tufts of fur as clothing. Elias is emaciated from dysentery, his little ribs protruding from his skeletal frame.7 He was rescued but didn’t survive but four days in the Home. Others escaped servitude to “become human beings (again)” (figure 1).8Wounds narrate stories of escape and survival. An unnamed mother bears a deep scar on her left arm from what may have been the stroke of a scimitar (figure 2). Traces of Adelina’s story was archived. She was abducted when she was about eight years old and kept as a slave along with her sister in the house of a Chechen (figure 3). From there she was “sold to a Kourd [sic] for six Turkish gold pounds”; she was forcibly married to the Kurd and bore him a child. Five times she fled; five times she was brutally punished. When her Kurdish husband was away on business, she found her way to the Rescue Home, leaving her child behind. Her photograph shows a large bandage across her face. We learn she “fell from the house on the way to us. Suffered much.”9 Soon after, Adelina gave birth to another child; she gave it up for adoption.The reunion with these lost women and children during the course of my research sometimes moved me to tears as I learned some who I thought had survived lived only days, weeks, or months after finding freedom. The painful, partial but insistent textures of archival remnants they left behind in humanitarian records tell us what they would not and could not say.I grieved over what I discovered and what I didn’t in the archive.I never found my grandmother.

Transition from Intravenous to Subcutaneous Daratumumab Formulation in Clinical Practice

IntroductionDaratumumab is an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody widely used for treating patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. The subcutaneous formulation of daratumumab was developed with the purpose of minimizing the treatment burden (to patients and health care system) associated with intravenous daratumumab. Given its recent approval, there is a knowledge gap regarding the best practices that should be instituted for safe administration of subcutaneous daratumumab. MethodsA retrospective chart review was performed from August 2020 until November 2020 to identify patients either switched to or treated upfront (daratumumab naive) with any subcutaneous daratumumab-based treatment regimen. All patients received appropriate premedications per institutional standards of care. The study end points were to report real-world data regarding administration-related reaction rates (at or following discharge from infusion center), as well as compare their incidence rates to those noted in the COLUMBA study (historical cohort). ResultsThe study included 58 patients, of whom 38% (n = 22) were daratumumab naive. The majority (84%, n = 49) received subcutaneous daratumumab in combination with various antimyeloma regimens. There were no cases of administration-related reactions at infusion center or after discharge irrespective of previous exposure to intravenous daratumumab. None of the patients included herein required rescue home medications or visited the emergency department within 24 to 48 hours after subcutaneous daratumumab administration. These translated into a significant difference in incidence of administration-related reactions compared with historical cohort (0% vs. 13%, P = .003). ConclusionSubcutaneous daratumumab was extremely well tolerated and could be safely administered without need for monitoring or rescue home medications.

Women Survivors of the Armenian Genocide: Liberation and Relief at the Aleppo Rescue Home

Abstract Genocide perpetrated against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was both gender-oriented and age-oriented. The Armenian male population was generally killed before or at the beginning of deportation, while women and children, as well as being massacred, were also subjected to different forms of physical and sexual violence during the death marches. Children were also forcibly transfered to the enemy group, while women were abducted or forcibly married. The experiences and fates of Armenian women and children offer a perspective on how complex and multi-faceted the phenomenon of genocide is. Based on the surveys of rescued Armenian women kept in the archives of the League of Nations, this article will present the fate of women during and after the Armenian Genocide.

Review: From Slave Girls to Salvation: Gender, Race, and Victoria’s Chinese Rescue Home, 1886–1923 by Shelly D. Ikebuchi

Review: <i>From Slave Girls to Salvation: Gender, Race, and Victoria’s Chinese Rescue Home, 1886–1923</i> by Shelly D. Ikebuchi

Estado y recursos de las trabajadoras sexuales: una perspectiva india

Abstract The occurrence of prostitution, even after considering all of its connotations, has remained an exploitative concept and is generally related to a patriarchal capitalist system. The article elucidates modern social contract theories, such as the Marxist feminist theory, which portrays sex workers as victims, subjugated by society at large. On the contrary, academic scholars like Ronald Weiser advocate the decriminalization/legalization of prostitution, and emphasize the fact that it can be positively regulated. The article examines the two basic entry channels to sex-work as a profession in India: first; a workforce generated by the market for manual labour/hard chores, and second, direct entry into the industry in lieu of a lucrative avenue to generate income. The Indian political approach has been to try to achieve a carefully balanced mix between the views that sex work is immoral and that sex trade is exploitative. Prostitution per se is not illegal in India, although specific activities are penalized, such as soliciting, economically supporting an adult, etc. Furthermore, prostitutes suffer from atrocities like forceful detention in rescue homes, mandatory medical examinations and lack of access to higher judiciary. The article discusses the role of the State and the laws governing and regulating sex workers. This paper seeks to provide recommendations to alleviate their appalling conditions with certain short and long-term initiatives. This article uses an interdisciplinary methodology, based on secondary data.

Home for lost dummies

Sophie was the girl who rescued lost dummies. She collected any she found in the street and took them home to care for them in her ‘rescue home for dummies’. Sophie1was 14 years old and for the past four years had struggled with severe mental health difficulties. Her mother had chronic alcoholism and consequently, Sophie lived with her father and paternal grandmother. Following a number of serious suicide attempts and significant self-harm, Sophie was admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit for young people. This paper explores a piece of complex family therapy with Sophie and her family on the unit, drawing on best clinical practice and acknowledging the intricate ethical dilemmas and child protection concerns that this work exposed.

From Slave Girls to Salvation: Gender, Race, and Victoria’s Chinese Rescue Home, 1886–1923 by Shelly D. Ikebuchi

<i>From Slave Girls to Salvation: Gender, Race, and Victoria’s Chinese Rescue Home, 1886–1923</i> by Shelly D. Ikebuchi

PTU-138 A randomised controlled trial of six weeks of home enteral nutrition versus standard care after oesophagectomy or total gastrectomy for cancer: report on a pilot and feasibility study

<h3>Introduction</h3> Poor nutrition in the first months after oesophagogastric resection may be one of the contributing factors to the reduced quality of life seen in these patients. The aim of this pilot and feasibility study was to ascertain the feasibility and potential benefit of home enteral nutrition to inform a subsequent multi-centre randomised controlled trial. <h3>Method</h3> Patients undergoing oesophagectomy/total gastrectomy were randomised to either 6 weeks of home jejunostomy feeding (intervention) or treatment as usual (control). The intervention (overnight feeding) provided 50% of energy and protein requirements. Primary outcome measures were recruitment and retention rates at 6 weeks and 6 months. Secondary outcome measures were quality of life, nutritional intake (baseline, hospital discharge, 6 weeks post hospital discharge, 3 and 6 months postoperatively) and healthcare costs. Purposive sampling of patients enrolled in the study was conducted so that interviews could be conducted with patient participants and their informal carers, in order to ascertain experiences of living with a jejunostomy tube and home feeding. <h3>Results</h3> 54 of 112 (48%) eligible patients participated in the study over the 20 months. Study retention at six weeks was 41/54 patients (76%) and at six months was 36/54 (67%). Operations were oesophagectomy (32 patients) and total gastrectomy (9 patients). Seventeen of the 20 participants (85%) in the intervention group received treatment as planned, while eight of the 21 (38%) participants in the control arm required rescue home enteral feeding. The pooled estimate of standard deviation for the EORTC QLQ C30 tool was 23 at three months after surgery, and for the OG25 tool, it was 15. The economic evaluation suggested that the mean healthcare costs associated with intervention were slightly less than usual treatment. The interview study revealed that participants described coping mechanisms for managing the feeding tube and high levels of compliance with both tube care and the feeding regimen. <h3>Conclusion</h3> In this pilot and feasibility study 90% of the target sample size was recruited, 48% of the eligible population, with a retention rate of 67% at six months. The intervention was acceptable to the participants. A large scale multi-centre study to fully evaluate this intervention should be feasible. <h3>Disclosure of interest</h3> D. Bowrey Grant/ Research Support from: Nutricia, Fresenius-Kabi, M. Baker: None Declared, V. Halliday: None Declared, A. Thomas Grant/ Research Support from: Fresenius-Kabi, R. Pulikottil-Jacob: None Declared, K. Smith: None Declared, T. Morris: None Declared, A. Ring: None Declared.

Child: A Learning Model and a Bi-directional Phenomenon.

Forty-five years of work with children has enriched my knowledge. Child development and psychology has made basic concepts of general psychology and abnormal psychology clearer. ‘Meanings’ have become more meaningful. It has made me a better professional; large number of communication and teaching skill has been the end result of such a long association with diverse groups of children who needed special care. Apart from professional skills as a clinician and as a teacher, it has made me a better person and a better parent. I have been fortunate to work with a large number and different groups of children who were in some way very special. Some were classified under various disabilities or diagnosed under different categories. I also had the privilege of working with different institutions, e.g., child guidance clinics run by a paediatrics department and a psychiatry department of a general hospital and a teaching hospital. Years of association with College of Special Work and Institute of Social Science have made me understand the very important facet of sociocultural influence on the development of human behaviour. I was further fortunate to work with children in closed and open institutions, residential care units and day care units, institutions where court committed children were observed, treated, trained and cared for, destitute children and delinquent children in remand homes, rescue homes and custodial care homes. I was fortunate to be part of the group which dealt with children who were in conflict with the law, belonging to diverse categories like street children, working children, child sex workers and sexually abused children. This paper is a reflection on experience gained over the decades.

The Last Flight of an Angel: A Historical Ethnography ofThe Salvation Army’s Home for Unwed Mothers

The Last Flight of an Angel: A Historical Ethnography ofThe Salvation Army’s Home for Unwed Mothers Kimber M. Wickersham, Denise M. Green Abstract At the turn of the twentieth century The Salvation Army looked upon unwed pregnant women as sisters in need of a helping hand. These fallen females needed rescuing. The first maternity homes were therefore called Rescue Homes. The Salvation Army Rescue Home for Women in Birmingham, Alabama, established during the first decade of the twentieth century, was the first and last rescue home in the Southeast. Although there were several changes in address, changes in name, changes in clientele, and changes in service delivery, there was never a change in the mission. The length of stay and the criteria for admission changed to accommodate the public’s needs. The facility and staff were adjusted as social attitudes changed. However, the mission to assist females in need, and thereby help the community as a whole, never changed. This paper is a historical ethnography of the sole Salvation Army Maternity Home and thechanges in society’s perception of unwed pregnant girls and the opportunities afforded them. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jssw.v2n2a11

Induction of a systemic antiviral state in vivo in the domestic cat with a class A CpG oligonucleotide

The evolution of cats as a solitary species has pressured feline viruses to develop highly efficient transmission strategies, the ability to persist within the host for long periods of time and the aptitude to adapt to natural and vaccine-induced immunological pressures. These characteristics render feline viruses particularly dangerous in catteries, shelters and rescue homes, were cats from different backgrounds live in close proximity. The possibility to induce short-term resistance of newcomer cats to a broad variety of viruses could help prevent the dissemination of viruses both within and outside such facilities. Oligonucleotides (ODN) containing unmethylated cytosine phosphate guanosine (CpG) motifs stimulate innate immune responses in mammals. We have previously shown that ODN 2216, a class A CpG ODN, promotes the expression by feline immune cells of potent antiviral molecules that increase resistance of feline fibroblastic and epithelial cell lines to five common feline viruses. With the aim to test the safety and extent of the biological effects of ODN 2216 in the domestic cat, we performed an initial in vivo experiment in which two cats were injected the molecule once subcutaneously and two additional cats received control treatments. No side effects to administration of ODN 2216 were observed. Moreover, this molecule induced the expression of the myxovirus resistance (Mx) gene, a marker for the instigation of innate antiviral processes, in blood as well as in oral, conjunctival and rectal mucosa cells, indicating systemic biological activity of the molecule with protective potential at viral entry sites. Mx mRNA levels were already elevated in blood 6h post injection of ODN 2216, reached peak levels within 24h and returned to basal values by 96–192h after administration of the molecule. Similar induction patterns were observed in all analyzed mucosal cells. Plasma collected from treated cats at regular intervals until 96–192h could moreover induce Mx mRNA expression in fcwf-4 cells and increase resistance of these cells to feline calicivirus inoculation. Finally, Mx mRNA levels measured in blood correlated with the degree of viral inhibition that was induced by plasma from the same cat and the same experimental time point. Our results altogether underline the promising potential of ODN 2216 in promoting antiviral defense mechanisms and inducing temporary resistance to viral infections in vivo in the domestic cat.

Maternal Mortality Causality a Kenyan Experience.

Maternal and neonatal mortality rates are the best indicators of any country's health-care service. In developing countries, women form the backbone of the economy while children provide security against extinction. Global maternal mortality estimates indicate that most of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa have maternal mortality rates that are greater than 550/100,000 live births. In contrast, Kenya's maternal mortality rate is 414/100,000 live births. Analysis of the specific causes of maternal mortality in Kenya indicates a clear need for addressing postpartum hemorrhage, improving access to skilled birth attendance, and promoting antenatal care. The Protecting Life Movement is introducing rescue home centers to address the problem of crisis pregnancies in Kenya.

Boarding Out at Home and Abroad: Rescuing and Rehabilitating Scotland's Destitute Children from the 1860s to the 1960s

For centuries Scotland's vulnerable children have posed a persistent problem to the 'care authorities', which at various times have been the church, philanthropic societies and, increasingly since the early twentieth century, the state. The plight of pauperised, orphaned, abandoned, abused, wayward, sick or disabled children has been addressed not only through institutional confinement, but also through variations on the modern concept of care in the community, albeit a community generally at some distance from the child's birthplace. The practice of boarding out city children in rural Scotland, which was prevalent from the early nineteenth century until the 1960s, and the more ambitious policy of overseas relocation, which was followed from the 1870s until well into the twentieth century, each involved sending children to areas with which they had no previous connections and that were often both geographically and culturally alien. This comparative investigation of the domestic and transatlantic manifestations of boarding out in the Highlands and Canada explores the philosophy that inspired the practice and the mechanisms by which relocation was achieved. It also analyses the repercussions of an increasingly complex and controversial policy for the sponsors, for the children themselves, for the households to which they were sent and for the areas into which they were expected to assimilate. The increased media and scholarly scrutiny to which child migration has been subjected in recent years has spawned a number of publications, ranging from sensational polemic to academic analysis. Particularly helpful, in a Scottish context, is Lynn Abrams' study of child welfare and protection, The Orphan Country, while the voices of the uprooted, which at the time were largely silent or suppressed, have added an extra dimension to a historiography that was initially dominated by the promotional literature of sponsoring institutions. In addition to utilising scholarly publications and migrants' recollections, this study draws on contemporary press reports, parliamentary investigations and eyewitness accounts. Domestic cases are documented through local government and educational records, including registers of applications for poor relief (which often initiated the process of removal), published lists of children boarded out by various Glasgow parishes, poor law inspectors' visitation reports and the school log books of the host parishes. Settlement overseas is discussed in the annual reports and individual case files of orphanages and rescue homes, notably Quarrier's Orphan Homes of Scotland, but also including lesser-known institutions such as the Whinwell

Do Penance or Perish: A Study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland (review)

Reviewed by: Do Penance or Perish: A Study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland Jason Knirck Do Penance or Perish: A Study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland. By Frances Finnegan . ( New York: Oxford University Press. 2004. Pp. xii, 258. $19.95.) Frances Finnegan's Do Penance or Perish (originally published in Ireland in 2001) reveals decades of questionable practices at Ireland's Magdalen Asylums, [End Page 381] specifically those in Limerick, Waterford, New Ross, and Cork. The book does an excellent job in calling attention to some of the institutionalized abusive practices at these facilities. Its strongest point concerns the hollowness of the Asylums' stated goal to reform "fallen women" and return them to productive society. Instead, Dr. Finnegan conclusively shows that the nuns' focus was heavily geared toward individual moral reform, with release never being an important goal (pp. 35, 72). This was variously attributed to the relatively small market for domestic servants in Ireland, the nuns' lack of contacts in commerce and business, and concerns with the profitability of the attached laundry services (pp. 71–72). The book also illustrates that most of the women detained in the asylums were not actually "fallen women" in the traditional sense of the term, but were often placed there for perceived mental or moral deficiencies (p. 17). However, these points could have had more impact if the book had been structured differently. The author wants to "return to narrative history in the hope of bringing individuals and their experience to life" (p. xi). That goal is defensible, but the asylum-by-asylum focus leads to a fair amount of repetition and wasted space. While the asylums did have their differences—such as the low population at New Ross, or the connection of the Cork facility to the Contagious Diseases Acts—the differences were not significant enough to justify the book's organization. The structure of individual chapters was unclear as well, with discussion at times wandering from the deaths of penitents to the operation of the laundry facilities without much attempt at transition (pp. 221–222). Similarly, a discussion of sources appears suddenly in Chapter Seven, even though the sources themselves had been used since the early sections of the book (p. 200). A thematic or chronological structure could have better highlighted the book's analytical points. More substantially, the author's repeated dismissals of religion are somewhat overdone. This is not to defend nineteenth-century religious practices, nor to imply that the author need do so, but constant references to "dreary religious rites" that were "mechanically recited," or the fact that the women were "worn out with drudgery and prayer" do not really allow a thorough investigation of the ethos of the asylums, of which religion was an important (if perhaps hypocritical) part (pp. 25, 93). Dr. Finnegan admirably wants to emphasize the agency of the nuns, rather than merely making them the victims of a patriarchal Church, but this emphasis is weakened by the constant derogation of religion, which unquestionably was a motive for the nuns' agency. This leads the author to ignore many interesting points that could have been analyzed in more detail, such as the fact that one of the original Dublin rescue homes was nonsectarian, although the women were, once admitted, separated by class. Do Penance or Perish does make a solid contribution to the institutional history of the Magdalen Asylums, but a different structure and more attention to the religious ethos of the asylums would have made it a stronger work. Jason Knirck Central Washington University Copyright © 2005 The Catholic University of America Press

A well baby clinic in Indianapolis.

THIS 1947 PHOTOGRAPH depicts the then newly opened well baby clinic of the Herman G. Morgan Health Center in Indianapolis, Ind. The health center was created as part of Flanner House, which had long been a social service center for the city’s African American community. Around 1900, Frank Flanner, a local mortician, donated property to the Charity Organization Society to establish a settlement house for “the promotion of the social, moral and physical welfare of Negroes, more particularly of the young.”1 Flanner House was a remarkable place. For many years, its programs included a day nursery, children’s playground, and employment center; self-help projects in housing construction and repair; training programs for women to be seamstresses, milliners, and cooks; training programs for men to be carpenters and waiters; and health programs such as a tuberculosis clinic and a “rescue home” for unmarried mothers and their children. Its members developed a cooperative food store, a woodworking shop, a cannery, a library, and even a full orchestra of 73 pieces. In 1946, the institution received a grant from the Indianapolis Foundation and the Indianapolis Board of Health and Hospitals to construct the Herman G. Morgan Health Center, named after Flanner House’s first manager. Two physicians, Walter H. Maddux and Harvey N. Middleton, helped establish the center.2,3 Maddux (ca. 1892– 1978), a native of Kansas City, Kan, had been medical director of Chicago’s Provident Hospital and a faculty member at Meharry Medical College and Howard University; later he would join the United States Children’s Bureau and conduct maternal and child health clinics throughout the South. Middleton (1895–1978) had been a Pullman car porter before attending medical school at Boston University and Meharry Medical College; he then set up his own practice as a cardiologist. These men were well aware of the wide health disparities between African American and White children; from 1940 to 1944, infant mortality rates were 67.2 per 1000 live births for non-Whites vs 29.2 per 1000 for Whites.4 The program established at the Morgan Health Center was the only health facility in Indiana providing preventive medicine (annual physical examinations and immunizations) and a public health program (education and nutrition counseling) to the community it served. Source. United States Children’s Bureau. From the Prints and Photographs Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine.

Relations of rescue: the search for female moral authority in the American west, 1874-1939

In this study of late nineteenth-century moral reform, Peggy Pascoe examines four specific cases-a home for Chinese prostitutes in San Francisco, California; a home for polygamous Mormon women in Salt Lake City, Utah; a home for unmarried mothers in Denver, Colorado; and a program for American Indians on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska-to tell the story of the women who established missionary rescue homes for women in the American West. Focusing on two sets of relationships-those between women reformers and their male opponents, and those between women reformers and the various groups of women they sought to shelter-Pascoe traces the gender relations that framed the reformers' search for female moral authority, analyzes the interaction between women reformers and the women who entered the rescue homes, and raises provocative questions about historians' understanding of the dynamics of social feminism, social control, and intercultural relations.

Sin and Social Welfare

In pre-Reformation England religious orders undertook the main share of what is in modern parlance known as social or welfare work, that is, the care or relief of the sick, the fatherless, the needy and the aged. After the Reformation this kind of work was apt to be neglected, or undertaken in a somewhat inhuman spirit under the auspices of the Poor Law. By the eighteenth century, however, the country’s conscience began to be stirred by the sight of so much misery, and hospitals, orphanages and rescue homes were founded by public subscription or private philanthropy. This good work continued throughout the nineteenth century, inspired generally by religious principles and in the main sponsored by various religious organisations. By the end of the century, however, a more scientific approach to social work began to manifest itself. The Charity Organisation Society was founded to discourage indiscriminate almsgiving and substitute an organised system based on family case-work, and the Webbs, although they disapproved strongly of C.O.S. methods, were among the most vociferous champions of a more scientific approach to social problems.This scientific attitude has in our century led to the transformation of the social worker from a well-meaning amateur, usually with a strong sense of vocation, into a trained professional. Most social service posts advertised today require of applicants a Diploma in Social Science such as is granted by universities on completion of a course both academic and practical. The academic part, includes study of such subjects as constitutional and economic history, economics, political theory, local government and psychology.

Psychology of Delinquency

“STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DELINQUENCY”, by Grace W. Pailthorpe (Medical Research Council, Special Report Series. No. 170), represents the result of five years work on the psychology of inmates of prisons and of preventive and rescue homes. The investigation aims at finding out what treatment would lead to a restoration of these people to the ranks of tho normal. It is necessary to note that a criminal is not necessarily quite different from other people; he has been found out. Dr. Pailthorpo gives details of an investigation of 200 subjects, 100 in prisons and 100 in homes. The subjects were tested for intelligence, and classified accordingly, as normal, sub-normal, and defective. The prison group proved to have a higher proportion of normals. It is not infrequently asserted that prison people are defective in intelligence: some certainly are, but some arc not. They were also interviewed, and classified according to their emotional attitudes. This part of the report is excellent and the detailed case histories are very valuable. It seems obvious on reading them that our present alternatives in dealing with criminals are hopelessly inadequate and wasteful of money as well as of tho human material. A large number show clear signs of mental lack of balance, and it should be part of an enlightened society's work to try to find out the cause. Hence the writer makes a plea for a study of the mentality of the criminal as well as of tho crime, and discusses various alternative methods of treatment, including segregation, permanent supervision, education and psychotherapy. Many of tho prisoners are really mentally sick, and if there were legal recognition of these conditions some murders might be prevented. In an appendix there is an account of some prison systems abroad.