Mental aspects of delinquency / by Truman Lee Kelley.

  • Truman Lee Kelley
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mental aspects of delinquency / by Truman Lee Kelley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ment in which he should be placed. Such information, although of major importance, should be supplemented. by etiological information. This last very important phase of the question is but inadequately touched upon in this study. The problems proposed are attacked, first, by means of a detailed original study of the boys in the State Juvenile Training School at Gatesville, and second, by a recital of the findings of other inves- tigators. The Gatesville boy differs essentially from other hives in that he has been legally adjudged guilty of repeated petty misde- meanors. He is not one of a gang who stole watermelons and was caught only because he could not run as fast as the rest, as many misinformed, sympathetic men and women would have us believe. Very decidedly he is not ‘‘just like other boys, except that they got away and he didn’t.’’ The one-time offender at Gatesville is found only in case the offense has been very serious—manslaughter, rape and the lke—or in case the home enviroment of the boy was found to be so utterly vicious that a wise and sympathetic judge sent the boy to Gatesville for a first offense, in order to give him a chance. Generally first- offense cases are the local problems of the judge of the juvenile court, the probation officer, and the school principal. The ‘‘repeater’’ who has betrayed the trust of the judge time and again reaches Gatesville. _ We have, then, a select group, and the problem is to determ- ine in what respect, other than the one upon which selected, they show signs of exceptionality. To know that certain phy- sical or mental conditions are highly correlated with delin- quency would be of value in leading to an understanding of the causes of waywardness, and the means of cure. The following chapters are devoted to this problem. What is the purely phy- sical being of the delinquent boy, what is his psychomotor mech- anism, his sensory equipment, his intellectual capacity, his environmental history, and what is required for his appropriate education ?
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